But I realized today, as Jennifer and I mark four years of marriage, I've never actually written it down.
Picture it: Hanover, Pa., March 2009.
President Barack Obama had been in office just over two months. Mount Redoubt, a volcano in Alaska, began erupting after a prolonged period of unrest. A young Jimmy Fallon took over for Conan O'Brien on NBC's "Late Night."
And I was uncertain about my future, both professionally and personally.
Less than three months earlier, about a third of the editorial staff of The Evening Sun was laid off as part of cost-cutting by then-parent company MediaNews Group. The mother ship decided to consolidate the majority of the copy desk functions at the main office, 18 miles away in the York, Pa., suburbs.
That included my job as news editor. I laid out Page A1, the jump pages and other things.
Because I had some longevity, then-Evening Sun Editor Marc Charisse managed to keep me employed, but I was essentially demoted, returning to reporting on the municipal beat.
In the transition, there were some technological kinks that needed to be worked out. Namely, The Evening Sun was operating on Mac OSX computers using the top-notch Adobe InDesign layout program that we'd just purchased nay a year before.
The York Newspaper Co., which oversees the operations of the York Daily Record/Sunday News, operated on PCs that dated to Bill Clinton's first term and used a layout program called Harris. It was created in the mid-1990s by what many believe to be a group of drunken sixth-graders.
But, since The Evening Sun was the red-headed stepchild of MediaNews' Pennsylvania cluster of papers, it was required to devolve its computing ways to match its antiquated bigger sibling.
To teach the remaining Evening Sun staffers how to use this piece of junk, the Daily Record sent over then-Day Metro Editor Amy Gulli.
Flash back a few weeks earlier, and Amy was attending a New Kids On The Block reunion tour stop in Hershey with one of her best friends from college. This friend, one Jennifer Lynn Botchie, told Mrs. Gulli over dinner before the concert that, after some difficult relationship issues in the past, she might be ready to try love again.
Flash forward to The Evening Sun newsroom, where, after a crash course in drunken sixth-grade computer coding, Amy, my pal James and I decide to take a break.
During that break, I begin to lament my love life. Earlier in the day, I'd received a phone call from a girl that I had met through ... sigh ... an online dating site. We were to go on a date that weekend, but she canceled because she had met someone else and didn't want to ruin things.
I talk about my life to Amy (James already knew most of it), mentioning off-handedly that I'm a Baltimore sports fan, Catholic and still had a passion for journalism, even though the institution had beaten me down.
Gulli smiles at me.
"So you are a football fan?" she asks me.
"Yeah," I say.
"Would you be interested in a girl who is a Cowboys fan, but also cousins with Vince Lombardi?"
"Uh, ok, that's cool."
"And you're Catholic?"
"Well, I do have 16 years of Catholic schooling."
She smiles wider.
"I might have someone for you," she says. "She's a good Catholic girl who is a former cheerleader and former sports editor."
My curiosity is piqued.
A few days later, after some pestering, Amy suggested Jen and I be "friends" on Facebook. That led to posts and messages over several weeks and a first date, at the Blue Parrot Bistro in Gettysburg, on April 10 — Good Friday.
History was made.
A year to that day, I asked her to marry me.Two years, two months and 15 days after that first date, we got married. (Amy was the matron of honor, listed in the program as "The Matchmaker.")
And three years and 12 days after our meeting, Sophie Marie was born.
Through job changes and new residences, we've snuggled and struggled and laughed and cried.
Meanwhile, we've managed to not only not kill each other, but grow as individuals and as a couple.
At least, I like to think so.
And, to think: If it weren't for a crappy computer system and New Kids On The Block, we never would have met.
Happy anniversary, Jenny.
I love you.
Or, as Sophie would say, I ee ee!
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