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Big Macs, fries and 50 years of love: Couple returns to McDonald’s to celebrate anniversary

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    ATLANTA (WUPA) — A metro Atlanta couple is celebrating 50 years of marriage beneath the Golden Arches.

Mike and Susan Burks married in 1976. During the early years of their marriage, they frequently ate at the McDonald’s on Northside Parkway.

“When we first got married, we lived around the corner in Vinings, and Susan didn’t cook much. She sort of does now,” Mike Burks joked. “But out of necessity, we came down here twice a day.”

“Probably five times a week and sometimes twice a day,” Susan Burks said. “We love McDonald’s.”

Now, decades later, the couple is marking their golden anniversary at the restaurant with their favorite meal.

“The usual is a Big Mac, fries and a Coke,” Mike Burks said.

“There wasn’t a lot of choice back then,” he added. “All the stuff that’s around here right now, you didn’t have all of that back then.”

Mike said he knew almost immediately that he wanted to spend the rest of his life with Susan.

“We met at a bar up on Roswell Road at 2:30 in the morning in 1975,” he said. “I said, ‘I just met the girl I’m going to marry.'”

The Burks say the secret to a lasting marriage is simple.

“Don’t give up, and lots of laughs through the tears,” they said.

They do not eat at McDonald’s as often as they once did, but the Burks chose to celebrate their milestone at the place that helped shape their earliest years together.

Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.

Woman stung more than 300 times by Africanized bees, rescued by deputy and volunteers

Click here for updates on this story    ARANSAS COUNTY, Texas (KRIS) -- Just 4 months into recovery from a fractured spine, Rockport resident Rachel Kelly-McKee was stung more than 300 times by Africanized bees at a local storage facility.Surveillance video captured by a camera at Goose Island Park Storage on Saturday, Aug. 15, shows Kelly-McKee in her storage unit with her German shepherd, Chelsea. Kelly-McKee says Chelsea loves to come out to the units with her, but right by Chelsea is the tree that over 300 bees came out of. Kelly-McKee says it could have been Chelsea that provoked the bees."She came in and I noticed she had a few, a few bees on her and so I said. You know, I thought they were honeybees. I said, don't bring the bees in here, you know," Kelly-McKee said.But it was more than just a few bees."The minute we cleared that door, I was just absolutely inundated. And so she ran one way and I ran the other way. I ran all around here just swatting and trying to get them off of me and screaming," Kelly-McKee said.An automatic gate at the storage facility stopped Kelly-McKee from being able to get away. The gate could only be activated by a car, not a person. The owner of the storage units opened the gate remotely when he saw what was happening. That is when Deputy Will Newsom of the Aransas County Sheriff's Office and the Lamar Volunteer Fire Department arrived and sprung into action."But my plan was to roll up. And get her into the back compartment of my car, and then extricate her from the scene and move her down to Lamar Fire Station where we could get medical attention. So once I got her there, I got her out of the car and I grabbed the hose and started hosing her down, and so she could start getting the rest of the bees out of there," Newsom said.Without his quick action, the situation could have been fatal."I mean, you know, just, I mean one bee sting can be fatal to some people. She took over 300 stings, which is definitely in the fatal range. So I, I knew that we had a limited amount of time to be able to get her out of the situation, get her to medical care," Newsom said.Kelly-McKee says she is not looking to place blame. She says she just wants people to be aware of how to protect themselves.Please note: This story was provided to CNN Wire by an affiliate and does not contain original CNN reporting. This content carries a strict local market embargo. If you share the same market as the contributor of this article, you may not use it on any platform.
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