ASHLAND — After 65 years as husband and wife, Carl and Buzzy Leming’s love remains evident even from a distance.

It shows in the way she looks at him, the way he speaks of her and their mutual respect for a life together with no regrets. Looking back on their time, both say they cherish the memories they’ve gathered.

A successful marriage isn’t always a 50/50 deal, advises Mrs. Leming, who has carried the nickname “Buzzy” since infancy.

“Sometimes it’s 90 or 100 percent. It just can’t be ‘me — me — me,’ all the time,” she said. “You have to be best friends and I think you need to love what each other does — and be interested in what the other person isn’t.”

Mr. Leming adds, “The main ingredient is just true love. Put that as first above everything else.”

“And there has to be respect,” she added.

When it comes to his true love, Carl Leming knows what he’s talking about. He asked his wife to marry him before their first date, a blind arrangement, came to an end. The former flight instructor and commercial pilot smiles as he explains he applied a fighter-pilot mentality to obtaining the love of the 17-year-old girl from Idaho whom he met while she was visiting relatives in Texas.

“As a fighter pilot they taught me to move fast,” he said with a grin, making no apologies for his instant affection for the woman he wanted to make his wife.

As a young pilot who was inspired to serve his country after hearing of the attack on Pearl Harbor, Leming said he had no interest in girls until he met Buzzy, and then realized there might be more to life than war.

“She was the only girl I ever felt seriously about — that I wanted to spend the rest of my life with,” he said, later adding, “It’s something that isn’t explained or written out or distilled by any diagram. It was a feeling within myself that this was the only girl I wanted to spend the rest of my life with. I didn’t have much time to think of girls. I wasn’t starving for romance — it wasn’t anything like that.”

With a sly grin, she added, “I just made your heart beat a little faster, didn’t I?”

While he was certain of his emotions, the future Mrs. Leming said the spontaneous proposal “scared me to death.”

“I didn’t go to Texas to find a boyfriend, much less get married,” she said, explaining she returned home after the fateful trip to Texas, went back to school and prayed for guidance regarding Leming’s proposal.

“I thought about it ...” she said, unable to finish the comment as tears fell from her eyes and her husband handed her a tissue. “The Lord answered for me and I said, ‘Yes.’”

“He added, “She was 17 and I was 21. We were just children when we look back — children joining the adult world.”

Their early days together weren’t glamorous, each said, remembering the influx of military people to San Marcos, Texas, and the shortage of living space. Among their first homes as a married couple was a chicken coop that had been converted into “a nice little bungalow,” he recalled, later adding they eventually shared the small space with her expectant sister. Explaining they gave her sister the converted coop’s only bedroom, each giggled and used their hands to describe the contours of the broken down couch that served as their bed.

After the war, the couple purchased a surplus aircraft and he taught her how to fly.

“I wanted to fly basically because to know what it meant to him,” Buzzy said.

As the first civilian Leming ever taught to handle the stick and rudder, he said, “She was a very good student.” Not long after learning to fly, her name was recorded in the history of Grant County as the first woman to make a solo flight over the northern Kentucky county.

Their daughter Sue was born that same year, bringing her flying days to an end. The Lemings then moved to Georgia, a place he described as “no place for a plane,” and they sold their coveted Aeronca aircraft to his brother, John. Their son, Mark, who would follow in his father’s flight path and become a commercial pilot, was born in 1951.

Somewhere along the way, Buzzy said her mother-in-law gave her a fiddle and told her it belonged to Carl.

“I did not know he played the fiddle. He had not told me,” she said. “I asked him about it and he said, ‘I didn’t think you would like this old country music.’”

While in Georgia, Mr. Leming resumed his fiddle playing and his wife found herself “on the sideline like this, with the wives,” she said, crossing her arms and adopting a sour expression. “I told him I needed an instrument to play.”

They went to a friend’s music store and purchased a brand new Fender Jazzmaster bass and Buzzy learned to “walk” the bass by practicing to Ray Price’s “Invitation to the Blues.” After forming their own band, the Lemings ended up playing as the backing band for Opry stars including Loretta Lynn, the Louvin Brothers and many other stars of radio’s golden era.

They still play music together, with Carl on fiddle and Buzzy now picking her notes on a four-string acoustic guitar, although their days of playing “gigs” are behind them.

“We still play at home every day,” each said, adding they occasionally perform at Greenbo Lake and during the annual Jesse Stuart Weekend. They tend to end each session with a medley made up of “In the Garden,” “What a Friend We Have in Jesus,” and “Evening Prayer.”

The Lemings, who live in Florence, developed an affection for the Ashland area through their appreciation of the writings of Jesse Stuart. Mr. Leming said he was introduced to the famous author’s words while he was recovering from a heart attack and was given a copy of Stuart’s “The Year of My Rebirth.”

“I was just so inspired by that book and this man’s will to live,” he said, explaining both of them read Stuart’s other books and later became involved in the Jesse Stuart Foundation. Among their greatest goals during retirement, he said, is helping to make sure Stuart’s words and message continues to be passed on to others.

“We found something here that we really love,” he said, glancing around the foundation’s volumes of books by Stuart and other Kentucky authors.

The Lemings’ love, and their faith, proved invaluable as they worked to deal with the flood of emotions from the death of their daughter to cancer on Christmas Day 2006.

“We supported one another. We understood each other’s agony. We could shed tears on each other’s shoulders with no shame,” he said. “We believe in Christ and that Sue ... we’ve only lost her for a while. She was a great witness for Christ.”

Looking back on their life together, Buzzy says she is certain God brought them together.

“You really can’t say it was an adventure ...” she said, searching for the right words to finish the thought as he he quickly concluded, “But, it was.”

TIM PRESTON can be reached at tpreston@dailyindependent.com or at (606) 326-2651.