The Best $6 Ever Spent

Fifty years ago today, on the Fort Dix Army base in New Jersey, a young woman named Virginia was giving birth to her first child. Martin, the nervous father-to-be waited outside as all fathers did back in the day. When the word came it was a son the parents decided to reverse the father’s first and middle names and call him Russell Martin Lange. The bill for the whole delivery and hospital stay was a whopping $6.

On this same day in 1964 I was at nursery school in Dayton, Ohio in a church basement sliding down the very exciting indoor slide with my friend and neighbor Johnny Schlemmer and wondering what my one-month-old baby sister Margaret was doing at home. Little did I know that half way around the country Virginia and Martin had welcomed the person that I would come to know as the best man on earth.

About 25 years after he came into the bigger world Russ and I happened to inhabit the same smaller and very exciting world of Mail Opening and Extracting. It took me a while to notice that the tallest, smartest person in the room was someone worth paying attention to. His quiet but irreverent sense of humor eventually caught my ear. Once I actually opened my eyes and realized what a catch there was under that wrinkled shirt and giant glasses I never let him go.

This milestone birthday for Russ also marks the point when we have known each other more than half of his life. I wonder which half feels longer to him, the one with me or without me? I know that for me out time together feels shorter than it takes the sun to set once it reaches the horizon.

Thanks to Virginia and Marty for having the best son on earth. Thanks to the army for the best deal, $6 for such a fabulous human. I hope that Russ will have many more wonderful years filled with curiosity. I am trying to honor your “no celebration” wish, but sorry Russ; you deserve more than a slice of apple pie. You are better than the whole pie.