It’s amazing actually. We met on a blue moon. Look at the chart of the moon’s phases here. It came from stardate.org. I looked for the information after Cheryl and I took a walk in the park. The park was Winton Woods. It was the place where we first met.

I first started these notes eleven years ago. We had taken a winter time walk on one of those magical days in January when the sun is shining brightly and the temperature has climbed above forty in the Ohio valley. An absolutely wonderful day to walk with my wife of forty-two years.

Life was still grand. Her Parkinson’s disease did not consume much effort but I have digressed from the story.

Her memory is one of a big full moon. I don’t remember that. My mind was on other things that night. Finding a girl was not one of them. Being cool and one of the guys was. Oh well, a busy life and many years gets in the way of memory.

Her memory is better. We did meet on the 30th of August of that year. The end of the summer between our junior and senior years in high school was drawing to a close. Some of my friends had arranged an end of the summer picnic in Winton Woods Park. Grill some hot dogs, drink some cokes, laugh it up, kiss the girls – It was not intended to be a big deal. At that part of my life, having girls around still scared the crap out of me. I was still grappling with all those emotions and hormones and pheromones stirred into a blurry soup of teenage-hood and manhood. So, I went with reservations. I had ticked off Mom a week or so earlier and she had grounded me. And girls still scared me. Also, I did not know any of these girls. Many of them went to Our Lady of Angels High School an all girls catholic school in St. Bernard. Where is St. Bernard?

So, ten or so years ago – regardless of any of these thoughts (remembrances) Cheryl and I figured that we met on a blue moon. It is now 2010. We are still together. Proving what? Perhaps it is important for the first night to be special. It probably is for all but they don’t notice at the time. I know I did not. Fortunately Cheryl did.

I wrote that about eleven years ago. This story is chopped up a bit but Cheryl’s memory of this even even through the Parkinson’s fog is very clear. It got me to thinking; perhaps I should put down my thoughts before I don’t have any more of them.

And, I never did lose weight – but that is a totally different story. We were married four years later – exactly minus a day. More on that in a different story.