Twenty-one years ago, a boy asked me out on a date. February 23, 1989. Except, he didn't really ask me. He told me there was a tournament basketball game coming up in the town just north of us. He said it started at 7:00. It was supposed to be a good game.

“Wanna go?” I asked him. “Together?”

Yes, he would like that.

I told him I would have to meet him there. The school choir was singing at a hospital that evening, and I would come a little late. I thought it was a good excuse. Plus, it was the truth.

He wasn't so sure. He thought I might be staying home to wash my hair, especially when I didn't show. Not in the first half. Not in the second half. At the very end of the game, he glanced around the bleachers and decided to head home.

I rushed in as the clock buzzed. End of game. Kids and grown-ups shuffled into coats and out the doors. Somehow, I found him. Without a cell phone. Without a GPS.

When we went out for cheese sticks and ice cream at a BBQ joint nearby, he didn't eat anything. He was allergic to cheese sticks and ice cream.

But, he held my hand and he made me laugh. He knew strange facts and he made me think.

Five years later, I married that boy. And this August will be our seventeenth anniversary.

Good things happen on February 23. It's a day to rejoice and be glad.