Four-Oh

The next two days are dual anniversary days for Susan and me. Tomorrow, we will have been married for 37 years; Monday, we will have known one another for 40 years.

Most of you probably know the story, so I won't bore you with the details, but here's the short version: Susan had a letter of comment in Batman #197, I believe it was; I noticed that the address was listed as Cedartown, Georgia, where my grandmother lived. So on June 15th, 1968, I called the only Hendrix listings in Cedartown, asking if Susan was there; my third call reached the right Hendrix, and we had our first conversation on that day.

We would have gotten married on June 16th, 1971, but the 16th was a Wednesday that year, and the church where we were married had services on Wednesdays, so we pushed it ahead one day to Tuesday, June 15th, 1971. That's why there are two anniversaries one day apart.

(We didn't actually meet on that day; in fact, it would be a couple of months later before Susan and I would actually arrange to meet during one of my visits to Cedartown. But that first contact was the crucial one... thankfully, she was at home that day and took my call, because I'm not sure if I would have gotten up the nerve to call back on another day if I hadn't reached her that day!)