HAPPY ANNIVERSARY TO THE GIRL OF MY DREAMS

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Three years ago, my wife proved that she has all of the common sense of a
futon and married me.

As we celebrate our anniversary, I thought I should take a few moments to
reflect on what has been a remarkable three years with a wonderful woman,
and to look forward to many more to come.

My wife and I have endured countless changes over the course of our still young marriage. We bought our first house and what will probably be our last house. We started a family. We have grown as individuals and as a couple. We have made major life decisions together, and learned from our mistakes together. We have experienced births and deaths, and we have laughed and cried. While the sad days were there, they were few and far between. And when they were there, we got through them together.

The things that make my wife - and our marriage - so special are traits that
I don't think any other woman on this earth possess. Among those:

1. She lets me write columns about the things she does that most people would not want shared with the world, such as getting her hair stuck in a curling iron or having to crawl through the trunk of her car when she locked her keys in it.
2. She digs sports.
3. She has been deep-sea fishing more than most people I know combined.
4. She gets excited when about a dozen of my old fraternity brothers come into town and crash at our house and even makes everyone breakfast.
5. She puts up with me, and lets me be me, which is no small order. This includes not so much as batting an eye when I have a fit because the books on the shelf are not ordered in descending height.

There are countless other reasons (great mother, wonderful cook, ability and willingness to balance a checkbook). To say the least, I have been blessed with the best three years of my life. Partly for your reading pleasure, but mostly for my own enjoyment of recollection, I thought I would recap the path that brought me here, to a place that I wouldn't trade with anyone on the planet. Except maybe Alex Rodriguez, because, let's face it - he is getting paid $250 million to play baseball.

We first met in college, back in 1993. My wife was winding down a dead-end relationship, and I had sworn off dating in college thanks to a disastrous previous few. While I would like to tell you some romantic story about how we met, the truth of the matter is we met a fraternity keg party. One of my fraternity brothers was dating her roommate, and she decided to come over for the evening. We got to talking, and really hit it off. I asked her out.

She told me she had a boyfriend. I asked again. She said she still had a boyfriend, just as she did 10 seconds before. I asked one more time. She hinted at a restraining order.

Eventually, we grew to be friends. After a few months, she and her boyfriend fizzled out, and I decided I would revisit the prospect of her going out with me. She somewhat reluctantly agreed. Our first date was the height of romance: an Alabama football game. (But it was the Tennessee game, so if you're gonna take a gal to a game, take her to a big one.)

That was the last time we would head through life apart. Something just clicked on that date, and I knew that we would be together forever. Quick embarrassing side note: it was on our first date that I made my first pathetic attempt to kiss her. It was at the end of the game, and Bama drove down to score a touchdown and tie the game. The entire crowd was going nuts,
and I decided that the heat of the moment would be a good time to steal a first kiss. Well, in the excitement, her sunglasses fell down over her face, and I turned and planted my lips firmly on the lens of her glasses, leading her to jerk her head back and say, "What are you doing?" To be honest, I'm amazed she went out with me a second time, seeing as how she probably thought I was some sunglasses-fetish freak.

I graduated the next year, while she still had a year of school remaining. I took a job in Orlando, and we decided we would try the long-distance thing. That was about as much fun as having Bob Vila perform your root canal. Every few weeks, one of us would make the 12-hour drive to visit for a weekend. It was a long year, but we endured.

By the time she was finishing up her school, I had left Orlando and moved back home. She had moved back to her parents' house in Atlanta, so at least the gap between us was somewhat shorter. Over Christmas of 1996, she came to visit me at home, and decided that the long distance relationship was for the birds. There were two paths she could have taken. Fortunately, she opted for the one that brought us together. She moved to town, and two years later were married.

So it's not the most heart-wrenching love story you've ever heard, and it's not filled with gobs of twists and turns. But the fact of the matter is we were both lucky enough to find the right person to spend the rest of our lives with, so that made it a pretty easy ride. I look forward to many more anniversaries to come, and know that each year will only get better.