JabberJohnsons: June 10th, 1999

On this day, twelve years ago I was nineteen years old. I was living at home with my parents for the summer after my freshman year of college. And on this day I was thoroughly annoyed that some of my BG friends kept calling me to go out for the night. It may have been a rare occasion, but I was determined to curl up in bed and watch movies that Thursday night. But the calls kept coming. Guess they knew I would cave and drive out. I'm not sure it was that hard. I was nineteen. Living back at home after a year in college. Of course I eventually caved. Who knew that decision to get out of bed and get dressed and make the commute to BG would change my life forever.

It was this night that I met Tim.

You see the friends that kept calling me happened to be friends of his as well. Yet, we had never met. He knew them from years earlier. I met them in college. Tim was currently living in California at Camp Pendelton, serving in the Marines. He happened to be in town celebrating his younger brothers graduation from high school. And he happened to be out with these friends that night. (And people say you can't meet people in a bar...hahaha) I remember meeting him. He was the only person of the group that I didn't know. I watched him play pool thinking, he's kinda cute. But he's older. You see, he was marked over at the bar, and I was still scrubbing the X's off my hand and secretly strapping on bracelets in the bathroom. In fact, when Tim and I finally had our first conversation, I had him show me two forms of ID, because I didn't believe we were the same age. (literally, we are barely two months apart in age) He will attest to this.

As we were talking outside on the patio, it started to rain. Remember, I'm nineteen, I've had a couple drinks, so I now think I'm awesome. So wouldn't it be fun to climb on the fence ledge and dance in the rain? Even better, roll around in puddles? Of course it would. At least I thought so. Everyone ran inside or under the awnings....except Tim. He ran out with me. Guess that was our sign. (but we didn't know it yet)

Eventually we all went back to a friends apartment to sleep for the night. The cool thing about college apartments is that there is never a shortage of couches. I mean really, most people I knew had minimum of three in their place. When I got my first apartment, I was no exception to this cool-ness.

The next morning, i got up to drive home and my buddy goes, "Hey, would you mind driving Tim home too?" I'm thinking, Really, I just want to go home, but of course I said...."I guess." Woo-hoo, right? Sounds like an amazing beginning.

And wouldn't you know it, he lived a few miles from me in Perrysburg!! Seriously. We grew up five minutes away from each other, yet had never met. He went to Perrysburg. I went to Rossford.

He invited me over the next day for his going away "party." I got to meet his parents before we ever had a real "date." And then he was gone. Back to Californ-eye-aye.

And that was that... Or was it.

He called me. Then I called him. Then the emails started too. Because of Tim, my dad bought me my first cell phone. Apparently calling California from your dorm room gets expensive. (you read that, I was twenty years old before I got my first cell phone)

From then on, every time he had leave from the Marines, we would get together. We talked on the phone while he was gone. We wrote emails throughout the day as well. We got to know each other.

Then a little over four years later, we did this...