I would like to share with you a very important part of Cheri’s life, college, or as I remember, “How I found Cherie.” First, a little background. I attended Indiana Tech, a small engineering college in Ft. Wayne, Ind., around 2000 students, 1996 male and 4 female. Tech never had social events, just sports, clubs and fraternities. You had to develop your own social life. I belonged to a fraternity and the Newman Club, a club for male Catholics. On the other side of town, there was St. Francis College, around 1500 students, 1450 female and 50 male. It was a very conservative Catholic college run by ultra conservative Nuns. But they ran lots of social dances and it was a great way to socialize. The only problem was that there were Nuns everywhere! Thus, St. Francis became known to Tech students as St. Franny, the Funny Farm and The Nunnery. I enjoyed the dances and the more I attended I realized that the nuns enjoyed the social atmosphere and would like to dance but weren’t allowed to. Sometimes you could catch the Nuns smiling and keeping beat to the music. There was a small group of girls that were always together at the dances. They called themselves “The Amazons.” They were always fun to dance with or joke around with. But they would not pair off with anyone at the dances. They were a very protective group. If you ever mistreated an Amazon, the other Amazons would be on you pronto! They were also scholastic “Top Guns,” many on 4 yr. academic scholarships. You could not outsmart them. As Easter approached in my sophomore year, Father Zimmerman, the Pope in charge of the Newman Club, committed the club to coloring eggs for the local charge and school Easter celebration. After all members expressed reservations about their activity, he compromised by inviting Catholic girls from St. Franny to help us color the eggs—then we could socialize the evening away. The big day of the “Easter Egg Coloring Party” arrives and who shows up—the “Amazons” and a few extras. The egg coloring is going full force, everyone trying to color his quota of eggs as quickly as possible—except for that cute little girl at the far end of the table. The room looked like a war zone—there was more color on the table and floor than on the eggs. Father Zimmerman walked into the room, rolled his eyes, made the sign of the cross and left. I wandered down to that cute little girl ad the end of the table and noticed how slowly and meticulously she is multi-coloring her quote of eggs. I introduced myself to her and after talking for a while, I noticed how shy she was and her thick eyeglasses seem to give her a place to hide behind whenever she wanted to. As it turned out, Cherie was an “Amazon” and usually went home on the weekends. I mentioned to her that if she every stayed here for the weekend and went to their dances to save me a few dances. I went to the next St Franny dance and Cherie was there with the Amazon friends. We danced, then danced some more. The same thing happened at the next few dances. At the final dance of the season, we only danced with one another. After the final dance, when we were saying goodbye, I reached over and took her glasses off and said “You can’t hid from me now,” kissed her lightly on the lips and said “You’re so cute, maybe we can see each other next year.” She looked at me, kind of startled, and said “Maybe.” Returning to school after the summer break, I wasn’t able to attend St. Franny’s 1st dance due to fundraising activities for Tech. I went to the 2nd dance wondering if Cherie would be there. I kept looking around for her but I couldn’t’ find her. I saw the Amazons there and was about to walk over to them when someone tapped me on my back. I turned around and a beautiful girl said to me “Remember me?” “Cherie, is that you?” I said. “Yes,” she said, “I don’t wear eyeglasses anymore, I have contacts, and I changed my hairstyle.” “Wow,” I said, “what a beautiful change, no wonder I couldn’t find you. I kept looking for that cute, shy girl with the funny eyeglasses.” “Well” she said, “we did find each other and I’m not shy anymore.” And all of you here can certainly verify that Cherie was not shy anymore! I graduated in 1961 and Cherie in 1962 and we married Sept. 1, 1962. After serving in the military for 5+ years, we settled into living, working, and raising a family and enjoying life in MD.