First Date
/Twenty-seven years ago, a high school sophomore got on a bus bound for Charlottesville. It was a two hour ride to the semifinals of the Virginia State High School Basketball Championships. She sat next to a very tall handsome baseball player who barely made the bus because spring training had begun. He'd gotten them tickets and so this counted as a first date. It was pretty much her first date ever. It wasn't very private. His best friend sat behind them and chaperoned. They went back again the next night to watch their high school team win it all. A few years later, she'd begin to drive that trip again and again and again-- back and forth to Charlottesville to go to school and then to come home to see him. They'd walk the campus of UVa one weekend and GMU the next. And then, they'd talk late into the night about whether to live here or there. The backseat chaperone became the best man and then the godfather. It is poetic (sort of;-) to note that all these years later, they are still driving all over Virginia with a whole bunch of kids pretty much every weekend to go to one tournament or another.
Honey, I'm in Herndon this afternoon for the U-9 scrimmage and you are at Bull Run for the pre-Jefferson Cup run-through. Maybe later, we can meet back here and have a date...
