Van Halen Friday

I don’t mean to mess with your heads Followers, but unfortunately no, today is not Friday. However, Friday is quickly approaching, which means two things – 1) my good friend Steve is getting married, and 2) it’s Van Halen Friday.

For those of you who don’t know – Steve and I met as incoming college freshman football players. Steve was a kicker/punter and I was runnin’ with the devil while being an extremely unsure-handed wide-receiver. Since there were plenty of incumbent starters on the team when we joined the mix, we had dreams that we’d both be out on the field one day. I mean come on, everybody wants some playing time, right? We met each other where most other non-starters do – on the sidelines. Even though we didn’t play the same position, we commiserated together while being black and blue from training camp. We wanted nothing more than to jump into the ice bath after practice and talk about the beautiful girls we saw on the soccer field that day. Even when the coach told me “you’re no good” and convinced me to switch to cornerback, we toughed it out together and it paid off; we both had two solid years as starting college football players. You could say we were on top of the world.

We were even roommates for the last two years of college. Since our school was a residential campus, that meant we had the pleasure of living in dormitories for all four years of school. This also meant we had to get up for breakfast and walk to the dining hall every day for poundcake and other food. Sometime around our junior year, I began an unofficial tradition of playing a random Van Halen song on my computer at full blast every Friday before we trudged off to class for the day. This became known as “Van Halen Friday”.

But as the old saying goes, you gotta finish what ya started, and we graduated and moved apart. However, a couple years later Steve called me to tell me that he had met someone very special and wanted to bring her to Charleston to meet Mommy B and I instead of taking her to Panama. I said, “It’s about time!” We met the special lady a couple months later on their visit and I asked Steve, “So this is love?” He said, “Why can’t this be love? I’ve had my heart broken before, but I won’t get fooled again… She’s the woman.” He went on to tell me how she was finishing her Master’s degree so she could teach and coach softball in the future. I knew he’d be hot for teacher.

Fast forward a couple years and where have all the good times gone? Steve and his bride-to-be are getting married this Friday! Mommy B and I are very excited to leave the kiddos at home with my parents (for the first time ever!) and head up to New York/Connecticut for the wedding. It’ll be our last chance to get unchained and dance the night away for the foreseeable future. But right now, we’re just over-the-moon happy for Steve and his fiancé.

They couldn’t have picked a better day of the week to get married. Mommy B and I got married on a Friday, and while I can’t recall if any Van Halen was played during our wedding, it’ll be a special bond that Steve and I share forever. Even to this day, I’ll still call Steve as I’m driving home from work to wish him a happy Van Halen Friday and crank Eddie’s finger-tapping up to full volume.