The Origin

So I got married.  I got the ring and insurance to prove it.  We wanted our wedding to be about us, so we threw in personal touches wherever we could, and only used the traditions had some meaning to us.  Some of them worked and some didn't, but we were generally pleased at how things went.  One of the things I wanted to do was to tell our origin story, so I wrote it, and included it in the program.  It is reprinted below. 

"People often ask us how Becky and I met.  Usually the answer given will be some variation of in college, through a friend of a friend, or through a high school classmate of Becky’s who went to college with me.  While these answers are all technically true, they don’t really capture the events that led to the pairing we are here today to celebrate.  After all, it isn’t terribly easy to shorten an irritating nick name, a scrabble game, a made up holiday and more into a 30 second spot.  But since you will be here a while, and I still have to get in my last nap as a bachelor, learn the full tale that led us here.   Names have been kept as to prosecute the guilty

For Becky the story begins with Kate, a good high school friend of hers, venturing off to the university of Bradley in Peoria, Il .   There she met all sorts of well adjusted folks as well as Amy and Carl.  Showing a clear preference for people on the other side of normal, she brought those two back to her hometown of Bourbonnais for Easter Dinner.  There Becky met them and learned Kate had some neat and undeniably comfy friends.

At the same time I was starting my own Bradley career.  Amy lived in my dorm, and I became friends with her as well as her cohorts.  After another particularly crushing Yankees win in the 2001 World Series, Amy posted a message of “poor Joel” as her AIM away message.

This message was Becky first awareness of my existence.  She asked Amy What a Joel was.  Except that wasn’t exactly what Becky asked as it wasn’t precisely what the aim box said.  In fact it was a nickname bestowed upon me, by my illustrious semi-cousin.    No I will not tell you what that nickname was, and no one else will either.  (What? It is my wedding, I can at least pretend that people will listen to me.)   

When I got back from Thanksgiving break in 2001 Amy, Carl and I played a game of scrabble.  Now, you may think there are no words that start with Y and end in pong.  Congratulations, you are on the list of people I will play scrabble with.  As it turns out, Amy and Carl were not of that opinion as Carl added e’s and a lone I to form Yeeeipong .  As per the rules of some game somewhere a vote was taken, and by a margin of 2-1 the play was allowed.  (Guess who the dissenter was.)   Amy was so excited by the new word that she proclaimed it a Holiday, celebrated on the Monday after Thanksgiving.   Carl repeated Yeeeipong! in a unique high strung voice.  I lost the game as well, as made up words can apparently be worth a substantial amount of points.

Thus my first contact with Becky was as a square box on my computer, complaining that she found out about the holiday of Yeeeipong too late, so it had to be extended for a 2^nd day.   We talked a fair bit online after that, and come January she visited Bradley and her friend Kate.  When I first saw her she was sitting under mistletoe at the Apartment.  I threw a rainbow souvenir keychain at her that I picked up for her in N.Y. and gave her a kiss.  We had our first official date at a hole in the wall Chinese place, which we still try to do each anniversary.  A month or so later I visited her at college and we officially started dating.

After that things went as these things go.  You know, virtual snow ball fights, Rocky and Bullwinkle references, pretend and real family trees, and dealing with short-long distance, long-long distance, and the immediate switch to living together in Boston.  And merely 7,830 times of being asked when it was going to happen, here we are.  No, we aren’t having kids right now; we will let you know, maybe.

Like I said, it was through a friend of a friend."