Around this time six years ago, I found myself out in the cold on a street corner in Mountain View, California.
But I was having so much fun, I really didn’t notice the time or the weather.
I was busking (playing guitar and singing) with Sherry. We started at sometime around 10 p.m. and went until the wee hours. We didn’t know each other that well. We had been performing as a duet in little coffee shops and house parties for a few months, and people really seemed to enjoy it.
We had had a few social visits without music, all purely platonic. But that was it.
On this particular night, we exhausted our entire mutual musical repertoire and just kept on jamming.
It was a Friday night and it got late enough that the bar crowd began stumbling home.
Adequately lubricated with alcohol, many stopped for a song or two, and, no doubt, to breathe in the cold air in an attempt to sober up.
The highlight was two guys who were beyond the inebriation stage. Upon hearing Sherry’s voice, they stopped, mesmerized.
“Dude,” said one to Sherry, “Your voice is so pure, it’s purer than water.”
His colleague immediately objected to this categorization.
“Dude,” he said to his friend, “Nothing is purer than water.”
An argument ensued between our attentive audience of two.
We just laughed and kept playing.
It wasn’t until about 2:30 a.m. that we called it quits. I dropped Sherry off at her apartment, and by the time I returned home, I had a text.
She had been so energized by the night, she couldn’t sleep. I was in the same mood. And it didn’t take much encouragement from either of us to reunite for a jam at my house.
We jammed. And jammed. Twenty-three hours through the weekend. By Sunday night we decided to write a song. And what came out was this little ditty, titled “Perfect Strangers:”
And the rest is history
Three years to the date after writing our first song together, on a drizzly, windy Thursday, we walked into the county courthouse in Santa Clara, CA.
We ascended the majestic marble steps and entered the foyer, to find a line queuing before an elderly lady who was seated at a desk. She was no doubt a volunteer, whose only job was to direct visitors to their desired destination. Our turn arrived.
“We are here to get married,” I said.
“What is it about everybody getting married today?” she said.
“Oh, I said. “It’s a rainy day. Not much else to do.”
She laughed, but was noticeably a bit dubious as to whether or not this might actually be the primary incentive for a run on matrimonial licenses. She sent us on our way.
Happy anniversaries
So today marks our sixth and third anniversaries, depending on how you’re counting.
All along, we have had marvelous adventures, traveled the world, created, recorded and performed lots and lots of music, with more to come.
At this point, we are hardly strangers, but it certainly does feel perfect.
Sherry & George 