At the end of my July 23 blog I wrote:

“And there’s something else about that [concert]. It got me involved …well…maybe that will be the subject of another blog someday…maybe…we’ll see.”

Well, “someday” is here and so I offer my Valentine’s Day story to you.

They were born the same year, in hospitals less than a mile apart. Her mother once lived in an English Tudor a few blocks from his childhood home.

As children they loved to ride the carousel at the old Lenape Park.

His father was a fiddler who knew Chris Sanderson. The boy even met Chris at the Old Fiddlers Picnic at Lenape Park.

But these young people didn’t meet until their freshman year at the School of Music at West Chester State. She thought he was really cute, especially his incredible dark brown eyes and smile. But she was too shy to say anything.

He used to watch her from his favorite desk at the back of their classrooms. He thought she was “sophisticated and pretty”. But he was already promised to a young lady from the parish high school.

After graduation he went on to a career in teaching and performing.

But when his marriage shattered, he alone was the parent left to raise his four children—all who would become beautiful, loving and successful adults.

She went on to teach for 14 years and later to help raise non-profits to a higher level.

And although they didn’t know it, they would both move into new homes in August 1979.

Once they performed at the same church on the same weekend—he at a Saturday wedding, and she at the Sunday service. They saw one another’s names on the programs. He noticed she still had the same last name.

And then on May 17, 2009, she received a forwarded email from the curator of the Sanderson Museum where she was president. The curator wrote:

“I'll let you respond to him unless you want me to do so.”

The sender inquired about any archival material the museum had on John Philip Sousa.  But there was a PS.

“I think you and I might know each other. Did you attend West Chester State College as a music major in the 1960s? I was a trumpet major at West Chester and graduated in 1971. Just wondering.....”

Oh come on, she thought! What did he mean? “Just wondering?” She had a very unusual German name. She responded with one of her typical 1000-word emails.

And so he invited her to his concert at Longwood Gardens. She went up on stage to say hello. His dark brown eyes and smile were exactly the same.

He came to the Sanderson Museum and together they discovered the original Sousa material.

They went to dinner at the Chadds Ford Tavern.

They walked for hours at Longwood Gardens.

They went back to West Chester U. and in the sunset, stood under the Old Main Arch.

They traveled to old Cape May and to Chincoteague Island.

And then, almost nine months after the “college reunion” they returned to the Chadds Ford Tavern to “their booth” where he slipped a beautiful sapphire and diamond ring on her left hand.

“Grow Old Along with Me, the best is yet to be” ~ Robert Browning (1812-1889)

(And yes, it’s me!)