September 29th

Today is one of, if not the most important day of my life. I say that because on the afternoon of Saturday September 29th in 1979, Susie and I stood on the altar of the Interfaith Chapel at C.W. Post College. 31 years ago today we said our "I dos" and started out on our great adventure! And what an adventure it has been!

I feel that I was truly blessed to find my soul mate and to have spent the last 31 years in the most incredibly magical relationship. You see, we have discovered over the years that we have a different relationship than a lot of married folks we know. We would rather be with each other than with anyone else, and so we do (it seems in comparison) an incredible amount of "stuff" together. Whether it's the mundane stuff like going to the cleaners or to pick up Chinese takeout, or the big stuff like taking kids to college, we are together in it. Go on vacation without the other?? Not gonna happen with us!

We met 33 years ago, on July 3rd, 1977 at a Fourth of July barbeque at mutual friends. It was a set up from the get go as the wife of the couple worked at the hospital with Susie and I had worked with the husband for years. We later found out that getting the two of us together was the major theme of the event, so I guess you could say it was a success! Susie had some fireworks she'd bought visiting her aunt in North Carolina and it was my task to try and set them off! They were duds, but it turned out we were not!

A couple of days after the party we went out with the couple who'd set us up. We spent the day on the boat I had at the time, went out for Chinese food and then played miniature golf. At dinner my fortune cookie said, "You will marry your current lover and be happy". I think fortune cookies were much more perceptive back in the 70s! Well, the cookie was right because I think it was pretty obvious that it was love at first sight for the two of us! I remember the summer of 1977 for two things….the bad thing was there was a NABET strike at ABC that kept us out of work at WABC for almost 6 months. The good thing was that I met Susie and because of the strike, there was lots of time to get to know her better (so perhaps in retrospect, there were two good things to remember from the summer of 77)! That was the beginning and, as they say, the rest is history…and what a history it's been! I asked her to marry me on Christmas, 1978 and then it was the whirlwind that took us Saturday September 29, 1979.

When I started this blog I said that I'd written for years but that there was no consistency to my writing. That is very true, but for one area. You see, for years and years, Susie has not only been the biggest fan of my writing, but also my most consistent reader! I'm not sure when exactly I started doing this (after 31 years some things do fade into the murky part of the brain) but she has been the recipient of my writing on all holidays. From Christmas to her birthday, from Mother's Day to Valentine's Day and all the holidays in between, just giving a card is not enough. On every occasion that a card (or multiple cards in our house) is given, at least one of my cards to Susie has a note in it. It started out with a hand written message but over the years it has grown and now it is typed into the computer and printed out. At least one of every batch of cards I buy Susie is selected with this note in mind. Does it have a nice blank page, is it sized right, will there be a good way to attach my musings to the card….these are all now standard considerations.

So I guess over the years, those card messages have been my most consistent form of writing and Susie my most consistent (or should I say only) reader. She tells me that she has saved them all over the years and one day is going to organize them into a book. I tell her that it will probably be a very boring book because I'm sure I've repeated themes and perhaps even whole passages over the years (I never look back at prior years so I have no idea) but she insists that they are still great. Perhaps that was my blog to Susie before the word blog was even invented! Whatever it is, it has always been a labor of love and a way for me to tell Susie just how special she is to me and how much I cherish our relationship and our life together!

Now some people might just say that we were lucky that we met but I cannot just ascribe it to that. To me it was too perfect to have just been a fluke. Honestly, from the moment we met, we both felt like we'd known each other forever. If you believe in reincarnation, perhaps we were together in another life. Perhaps we have known each other forever! Whatever it is, I have trouble believing it wasn't part of a grand plan and so I replace the word luck with the word bless. I was truly blessed to find the love of my life and we have been blessed for the last 31 years!

Blessing #2 was Billy. 4 years later blessings #3 and #4 showed up when Krissi and Kenny arrived. Wrap them all up with a big bow and you have the blessed life that our last 31 years have been! We've had lots of dreams along the way and amazingly the vast majority of them have come true. That's why Susie is sure we will win the Mega Millions (or Powerball) lottery one of these days too!

So there you have it, the reason that this day is so special and indeed is the anniversary of day that my life really started! 31 years ago today with those two simple words, "I do" my life truly started and what had come before was just preparation. So a big thank you to Maryanne and Bill for that 4th of July party and to the man upstairs for putting my Susie on this earth. And thanks Susie for saying yes and for the most perfect 31 years and life that anyone could ever have. 31 years seems like a long time and when you think back to all that we've done it really does, but in so many other ways it just seems like a blink of the eye! It ain't over yet, and as the Carpenters sang a long time ago, "We've only just begun".

PS – As well as being the love of my life, Susie is also my copy editor. Because of the nature of this blog entry, I am working without a safety net on this one. This entry is a byproduct of me and me alone, so if there are any weird spellings or a comma out of place, or a sentence that doesn't make sense, it's all me! So Happy Anniversary to my Susie and I promise you'll get to proofread everything else! To my readers, thanks for your patience….