Rant #751: Happy Anniversary

Since probably none of you know about this, today is a very special day in my life.

Today is my 19th wedding anniversary, so I am going to wish myself, and my wife, a happy anniversary.

Nineteen years ... my, the years have gone very quickly indeed.

Nineteen years ago, I was 36 years old. With one bad marriage under my belt, I was ready to take the plunge again, searching for the happiness that I did not have in my first union.

But I wouldn't do it with just anybody. The girl had to be bright and beautiful from head to toe.

And yes, I was damn lucky. I found that girl, and knew that this was the person I wanted to spend the rest of my life with.

Things happen during your life, and once in a while, you get lucky.

And I got lucky with this woman.

No, not the way you think.

I was working as a real estate writer, my first marriage was done, and I thought it was time to start to date again.

I hooked up with a dating service (pre-Internet), and they fixed me up with some decent and nice girls who simply weren't my type.

Finally, they got it right with this one. No, I don't think I knew it from the onset, or maybe I did, but this girl was the one I had been searching for. She met all the criteria I had, and we proceeded to fall in love.

One thing led to another, and here it is, 19 years later, and things are as good as they have always been with us.

We have a son, which makes us something of a "nuclear" family with my daughter from my first marriage. It is kind of my daughter's doing that I actually started to date again, because when she was little, about four years old, I was playing with her one day in her room on one of my visitation days. We were having fun, and then it dawned on me, as I was playing with her, that it was time for me to date again. Yes, it happened just like that.

And I went out and did just that, and thank God I met the right girl almost from the get go.

Every day, I feel that I am the luckiest man in the world to have found this woman.

So happy anniversary to me, and to her, and even though she has the day off from work and I have to work today, it is still a happy day. Nothing will make it the reverse.

I love my wife, and I always will.

And like Ralph Kramden used to say to Alice on "The Honeymooners," "Baby, you're the greatest."

And yes, she really is.