Happy Valentine's Day, Barbi!

USGN article
by Terry Franklin
February 2000

Well, it happened. My dear wife is officially "over the hill." In December she turned Forty. No, I didn't go out and rent one of those cheesy portable marquees for our front yard that said something like, "Lordy, Lordy Barbi's turned 40!" Instead, I've opted to write a cheese ball article about how we met. (Start the violin music , please...)

It was spring time in Chicago, 1980 that I first started to notice this girl named Barbi. In one of life's amazing twists, I had been hitting on her friend (who is now my sister- in- law.) No matter.

Except for the Lord, Barbi began to eclipse everything in my life. Our early relationship began ... as a friendship. I had never met anyone I could talk so easily with. We would sit for hours and talk about the Lord over coffee, then walk down Chicago Avenue strolling through all the large hotel lobbies on Lakeshore Drive. We would jog at a little park located by Watertower Place (it was the eighties!)

It's now been almost twenty years since I first noticed that attractive girl carrying a violin case to her classes. We've been through a lot together. Two kids, thousands of miles traveled, illnesses... we've had mountain tops in our marriage - - but we've also seen some low valleys.

We continue to fight about things like temperature, what it means to be "on time", and song lyrics, but you want to know something?? I love Barbi more on this Valentine's Day of the new millennium than I did twenty years ago, and there's not much about her that I would change.

Happy Valentine's Day, Barbi!

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©2000 Terry & Barbi Franklin.