A quarter-century


"I can't remember when you weren't there ..."

OK, maybe starting a blog post with a Kenny Rogers lyric is a little questionable, especially considering he's been married five times. But that line sums up perfectly what I'm thinking about today, the 25th anniversary of the day Lori and I first met.

We were living in Milwaukee and had talked on the phone a few times but hadn't met in person. I worked all day, I think I watched the Bulls playoff game, and I gave her a call. We decided to meet spur of the moment that night, and I drove my little Honda Civic hatchback to Wauwatosa to the Chancery, where we could talk at their relatively quiet bar over a couple drinks.

I'll never forget the first moment I saw Lori -- her smile, her blue eyes, what she was wearing (a black jacket over a white T-shirt and jeans), and that she was as tall as she said she was. She didn't mind that I kept glancing up at the TV to see how the Lakers-Suns game was going. We hung out for a couple hours, made plans to see Jimmy Buffett at Summerfest the next month, and I walked her to her car and kissed her on the cheek goodnight.

That was 25 years this day. It seems so long ago and like it just happened yesterday. And that's why the Kenny Rogers lyric seems so appropriate today. There was everything in my life before that night, and everything after. That second phase has now comprised more years of my life than the first. (Heck, the amount of years with kids outnumbers the years for us without kids, but that's for another post ...).

So on this May 4, the anniversary of "Star Wars," I try to imagine my life in a sweeping on-screen scroll, complete with a John Williams theme, on what my life was that morning, and the events of that day, that summer when we were inseparable and fell in love, the subsequent years in Milwaukee and Madison, getting married, the move to Utah, the birth of Michael and Ben, and everything else in between and since. How could I have known that morning, that day at work, or during the Bulls game that everything was about to change that evening?

Thanks for the 25 years Lori. I'm looking forward to the next quarter-century.

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