It All Started With A Comment About "Gunless"

One of the big questions a married couple are asked is the one about how did they 'meet' in the first place. In the ever evolving world of online relationships, this query has become more common than in days before the internet. The answers vary from couple to couple, but the answers always tend to be fascinating to most. Whenever this question is posed to me, regarding how I met my wife, I usually quip, "It's a long story; takes two hours to tell." The quote is a nod to my favorite television series, Due South, and it does loosely translate into how the two of us 'met.' However, the circumstances behind it are more involved than that.

My wife will say that she's always been a history buff; taking fascination in the two World Wars of the 20th Century. Most films done by Hollywood tend to focus on the second incarnation that spanned between 1939 and 1945, but rarely do any focus on the first conflict between 1914 and 1918. There is the odd movie that does, and in the case of my wife, while surfing Amazon Prime Video or Netflix (I can't remember which exactly), she stumbled onto a Canadian film about the Battle of Passchendaele. Naturally, this piqued her interest. What she didn't account for was the lead actor being drop-dead gorgeous. That actor was Paul Gross. After watching the film, she decided to go on a search for other projects he had been in. This, in time, lead her to watching Due South.

She bought the series on DVD, and fell in love with the quirkiness of the show about a fish-out-of-water Mountie living in Chicago with his deaf wolf companion, solving "good deed" crimes with his Chicago PD detective friend. However, since the show originally aired in the 1990's, she had few people around to talk about the show. So, she decided to go the 21st Century route and went online, looking for people to discuss the show. That's when she stumbled onto an online message board that discussed the series and other off-topic things that might tickle the fancy of others.

I had been a member of this message board for six years before my wife joined, and I admit, at first, I thought she was just another female fan who liked the series. However, it would be a couple of weeks before we first interacted. I can't remember what prompted the first time I commented (probably a discussion about Paul Gross' other roles), and I made mention of a western film he had recently produced called Gunless. That would open the door to what has evolved into what we are today.

That one little comment lead to private messages about Canadian cuisine (which we later discovered a mutual admiration for the French fries-cheese curds-gravy concoction known as "poutine"). That lead to phone and Skype conversations. That also lead to us meeting five times in-person; including a joint appearance at the last RCW 139 fan convention in Toronto back in 2014. However, it was during that second meeting, two weeks after a nasty ice storm had befallen Southern Ontario, when on December 30, 2013, I pledged my initial commitment to her. Two years later to the exact day, I packed up all of my things, and moved "due south" (see how that ties in?) to Florida where a week afterwards, we said "I do" at the Hillsborough County Courthouse in front of a Justice of the Peace among a small audience of close family and friends.

Nearly two-and-a-half years later after we said our vows, my wife and I are still the best of friends and each other's soulmate. But it wouldn't have been made possible had I not made that comment about Gunless. That comment was made five years ago today, on May 29, 2013. To my always loving wife, I say we've had our share of ups and downs during that time, but it's been one hell of a ride I wouldn't trade for anything in the world. I love you more and more each day, and I hope the next five years of knowing each other will lead to five more years after that, and so on, and so on.

Happy "First Contact" Anniversary, sweetie.