Cumberland Falls....Where the Magic Begins, Cliches really do come true!

November 15, 2008 will always be a special day for me, and not just because my bowels had returned to a state somewhere in the neighborhood of normalcy following an intimate run-in with Mr. Emergency Appendectomy.  A vanload of tipsy senior adult women skidding past me in a semi-frozen and empty parking lot, normally cause enough for alarm, did not tingle my Spidey-senses in the least.  The Kentucky Football Wildcats also did not make this day special.  The high-powered offense, whose schemes were apparently executed by a unit of crack paraplegic pygmies, failed spectacularly against the perenneial juggernaut that is Vanderbilt football.

OK, enough.

November 15, 2008, is the day I....you can do it....you'll still be a manly man....even with those pink silk pajamas....

It's the day I fell in love (pictured below)

What?....

Oops, wrong picture.  I was saving that one for my book about sports, drugs, and gender confusion.  Like I was saying....November 15, 2008 was the day I officially fell in love (pictured below).

Yes, Magen, I think we were all shocked. 

There's 9 years of backstory to this, so lemme sum up.

*Met at Cumberland College. We were good friends.  She was the go-to shoulder for guys to cry on cuz she was the "I'm here as your buddy to listen to all your of crap relating to your girlfriend(s) or friends who are girls that you want to love on or other random problems and hey what am I your emotional dumping ground?"  So yeah, we were close friends as we went from 1999 to 2008 dating other people and telling each other about it every few weeks and months.

*September, 2008.  Jason moves back to Knoxville.

*October 5, 2008.  Jason's appendix has had enough with life and if I'm going I'm taking you with me.

*October 10, 2008.  Jason starts to learn how to walk and use the bathroom again.  Even though at this point it's 40 years off, Jason now understands a little bit of what senior adulthood is all about.

*February 22, 2010.  Jason is writing too much about his personal issues and not enough about his wife.

*November 1, 2008.  Magen visits Jason in Knoxville for Sunday services, a couple rounds of putt-putt, and a board game night at the Collins' house.  There's a little something special in the air that neither person has felt before....

From November 1-15, 2008, Jason and Magen talk on the phone for a combined 1,800 minutes.  For someone who passionately hates prolonged phone conversations, Jason is hooked.

And we reach November 15th.  I drove up to Williamsburg for a quiet dinner at Magen's apartment.  It was an unusually cold day for that time of year and talk of snow was in the air, but nothing had come of it as of yet.  After the food and the chit-chat and a little play time with Saydie, HRH (Her Royal Highness),

we decided on the obligatory evening trip to Cumberland Falls (Obligatory launches itself over the fence into the Land of Cliche for Cumberland College alums).


We were the only car in the parking lot.  It was extremely dark due to complete cloud coverage.  As we strolled along the pathway meandering parallel to the river just down from the falls, Magen took my hand in a vain effort to stay warm.  As we walked along, hand-in-hand, it began to gently snow, erasing any unease or awkwardness at the length of what seemed to be an earth-shattering event.

 My mind and heart were racing disjointedly.  What would I do next?  Is she really that cold or is she expecting something more?  Why did they use the slipperiest possible metal when constructing the stairs at the scenic overlooks?  The entire 10-minute walk back to the car I was going through the mental steps of how not to screw up a first kiss.  We got to the car, the snow was falling, romance was in the air.  Slowly and with much trepidation we moved towards each other.  The moment was nearing, and then....

DRUNKEN SENIOR ADULT WOMEN

The van slowly drives by our parking spot.  There are at least 10 non-small senior adult ladies in this mini-van with the windows down, yet I don't think they are Mexican.  They are laughing.  Loudly.  Boisterously.  The guffawing echoes through the hills and shakes the very foundation of stone over which the great river Cumberland churns. 

And then the smell.

Magen and I count ourselves blessed that little more than a drop of "fuzzy liquid" has ever passed through our collective innards.  These women had obviously stopped counting during Prohibition.

After they were long gone and the two of us picked our nostrils up off the frozen asphalt, we hopped back into the car and back to the apartment.  The magic had only been broken briefly, because what happened next back at her place....oh, you know....

Well, actually it IS suitable for all viewing audiences.  We talked some more, relived old times, watched "our" movie (Monsters, Inc.) and had our first kiss.  I drove home a little later that night on cloud nine.  Too bad I stopped at Speedway on the way out and took myself down to at least cloud four.  Nachos with chili and cheese sauce out of a gas station machine at 1:00am is not the way to prepare oneself for worship the next morning, let me tell you.