19 years ago today.....

You know how it is when you first start dating someone that you really like? You want to impress them and do things really special for them to hopefully make you stand out from everyone else.

The bride and I had our first date right after Valentines Day in 1987. About a month later her birthday came along, and I wanted to do something special, something that just screamed "classy" -but not the Ron Burgundy kind of "classy", something actually nice. I made reservations at the Polaris, which was the restaurant on top of the downtown Sheraton. The food was OK, but the restaurant rotated so that within an hour you would see all of the Nashville area. (Not like a merry-go-round that Sara thought it would be.) It was the kind of place that we don't go to any more because of the price. If I had been thinking logically instead of with my heart, we wouldn't have gone there then because technically speaking I couldn't really afford it at the time. (I think I paid more for our meal that night that we pay for our whole family to go out and eat now.)

But that's what you do when you're in love. That's what you do when you know that person's "the one." And that's what you still try to do 19 years later. You may not always succeed in being romantic, but you hope that she knows she's still that girl you use to try to impress with an expensive meal that didn't taste all that great.

Happy birthday my dear bride.....