Forty-five years ago today, Alice Woodworth and I were married by her father the Reverend Robert Woodworth, my uncle the Reverend Fred Gardner assisting, in the amphitheater at what was then Mary Washington College in Fredericksburg, Virginia.

As David Byrne once asked, in slightly different language and with a very different purpose–after all, Alice is my beautiful wife–well, how did we get here?

That story now stretches back not forty-five but fifty years–half a century, an appropriately monumental phrase. For it was in 1974 that I met Alice, a day and a moment I remember clearly.

It was the evening of the first day of the Virginia Governor’s School at Mary Baldwin College (now University, as most all colleges have become). June 18, 1974. 151 of us rising high school juniors and seniors had moved into our dorm rooms, gotten our orientation and schedules and other vital information, had our first dinner together, and been released for some social time before curfew. The girls were in Spencer dorm, while the boys were in Woodson, a much less elegant domicile. (Seems fair.) Spencer had a terrace, an airy shaded place for folks to sit and chat and, being 1974 and all, hang out and play guitars. Many of us had brought guitars. Being 1974 and all. Mine was in my room, as I’d wanted to reconnoiter before committing to revealing my own music-making.

Others were braver. As I walked toward Spencer’s veranda, I mean terrace, I saw a young woman with long straight brown hair and a nylon-string guitar talking to a fellow with curly hair and an interesting t-shirt depicting a broken heart with a river gushing out of it. As I approached, they both looked up. The guy’s name was Rob, but that’s a story for another time. The story I’m telling here is of the first moment I saw Alice, during “social hour,” which began at 8:30 p.m. on June 18, 1974. I figure it was thus somewhere between 8:30 and 9:00 p.m. when I met her. I’m thinking the planets were mighty propitious.

Three years later Alice came to a Governor’s School reunion, her first since the fall of 1974. Aside from one exchange of letters, we had not been in touch since the end of the Governor’s School. She was sitting under a tree, by herself this time, and once again I walked over to her, this time to say not hello but hello again. We began our conversation. That conversation went on for at least five or six hours, probably longer–I just can’t say for sure, as it seemed like five or six minutes.

I’m told that when, in the afternoon, Alice and I went for a walk to continue our conversation, several of our fellow reuniters noted we were gone for a long while. I had not noticed so much time passing myself. At any rate, return we did, still talking, with what I hoped might be a growing intensity. (A boy can dream, right?)

So now our story has come from June, 1974 to August, 1977. Shortly after that August reunion, I’d written Alice with an ardent profession of my romantic interest in her. I felt it was the only honest thing to do. (Always good to know about ardor right away.) To my great relief and delight, Alice agreed we would do well to explore our possibilities as sweeties. Our correspondence continued as we returned to our respective schools for the fall semester and arranged for some visits. Two in October, one in December, one in February, then one in April.

Now the intensity was by golly growing. The sweetie story had begun well and was steadily developing. Dreams do come true.

April 22, 1978, on that fifth visit, I asked Alice to marry me. She said she thought she’d like that.

And July 14, 1979, we were married.

And 45 years after that, here we are.

We’ve been back to the site of our first meeting a couple of times, once on our 40th anniversary, and once with our children a couple of years later. I felt they should see where the story began. Ours, and so theirs, too.

Happy anniversary, Alice!