Again, I was cutting out images from old magazines for my Adult ESL students, thank God my friends are all “Vision Board” collage-ers because I certainly would not keep a magazine from 2005, and I ran across this article.
I loved this story when I read it, so I’m sharing. http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-134905764/brian-williams-aha-moment.html
For an extra-added bonus, here is another favorite of mine, a holiday treat: Falling in Love. See the bottom of the page for a further “Bonos”.
NINETEEN YEARS AGO, I WAS A 27-YEAR-OLD NEWS CORRESPONdent working for a local TV station, making no money, and enjoying the single life in Washington, D.C. I was concentrating on my career as a news anchor, one I’d wanted since I was an 8-year-old boy in Elmira, New York, staging fake newscasts and publishing weekly household reports using my father’s shirt cardboards. I thought I had my life perfectly mapped. I figured I would climb the ladder to success and, once there, my position would enable me to find the right person. But as they say, if you want to give God a good laugh, make a plan.
One afternoon while walking through the halls just before going on the air, I turned a corner and almost ran into a woman holding a stack of tapes in her arms. Our eyes met, and she looked down sheepishly. I’d always read about the dynamic of lightning bolts and little cupids fluttering around, and I’d never really believed these things happened. But I’m afraid I couldn’t stop staring at her. When we introduced ourselves, I learned that her name was Jane and she was an executive producer. A few minutes later, when the broadcast began, she was in my head … literally: She kept telling me the time remaining in the segment and making suggestions through the earpiece I was wearing. When it was over, I went to my friend Bernie’s office, shut the door, and slumped down in his chair. “Bernie,” I said, “I think I’ve met her.”
I asked Jane to dinner and went to pick her up in my 1983 beige Ford Escort–a real chick magnet. She came to the door with her hair wet, barefoot in a blue dress, putting on her earrings, and I’ve just never been so sure of anything in my life. After that, all of our dates and conversations were passing time. I knew where this was headed. I proposed to Jane a few months later during a weekend trip to the North Carolina coast. It wasn’t quite what I’d envisioned: We had a fight en route about her driving (and no jury would convict me for the things I said), and she kicked me out of the car. After I spent a short time on the side of the road, we made up, then checked into a hotel that gave new meaning to the word mildew. All we did when we were indoors was sneeze and sniffle. Despite everything, when I asked her on the beach to marry me, she said yes.
We’ve been married for 18 years now, and our two children still enjoy hearing the story of how we met. At the end, I tell them that they’ll know love when they see it. It can’t be manufactured. There’s not a bar that sells it, not a store where you can find it. I tell them that if they are patient enough, they can find someone who is truly right for them. And I tell them that a good relationship takes an extraordinary amount of mutual respect … and a sense of humor. But it all starts at falling in love. Before I met Jane, I thought that such thermonuclear attraction happened only in the movies, with tight shots of both people’s eyes and accompanying music. I thought I was in control of my own destiny … that in a few years I would become my ideal self, and then I would embark on a campaign to find someone to marry. Seeing her in the hall busted my plans and forced me to make new ones. It was the luckiest thing that ever happened to me.
Williams, Brian. “Brian Williams’s Aha! Moment; breaking news: the NBC anchorman learns that love is what happens while you’re making other plans.(LYBL).” O, The Oprah Magazine. 2005. accessmylibrary. (December 16, 2009). http://www.accessmylibrary.com/article-1G1-134905764/brian-williams-aha-moment.html
A final bonus bonus: Brian Williams and Bono
Me, Laughing 