Our Version of "How I Met Your Mother"

A couple of days before I left the hospital, my wife showed up on Valentine's Day with a pink and white Ears Flapping Puppy, a plush toy about 8 inches high that held a "Be Mine" message in a pink heart in his paws and -- true to his name -- flapped his ears when his left paw was pushed on the "try me" sign, which then played the late Levi Stubbs of the Four Tops singing "Sugar pie, honey bunch, you know that I love you..."

She called it, correctly, our song because 44 years and some months before, I was in my second or third day working as a dishwasher in Tuolumne Meadows Lodge in Yosemite National Park and singing those words, mightily off key but with at least as much enthusiasm as Levi, when a vision walked into the kitchen through the swinging white door from the dining room and front lobby. That would be, of course, the girl who would become my wife. She stopped in front of me, smiled and said, "How do you know that song?" I replied, "I heard it on the radio." Not exactly Hepburn/Bogart banter, but the first words spoken of what have now been millions after 44 years and counting. There were a few turns along the way, but six and a half years later we married and I've been lucky enough to be with her ever since.

Tuolumne was -- and remains -- epoch in my life, for beginning some of the best friendships I've had, but most of all for that kitchen meeting and all that has followed including three great kids, one of whom met her husband as he was working in the kitchen of a summer resort and, for all I know, singing when he first saw her.