Dear John

Yes, this is a "Dear John" letter. But not that kind.

John,

The Matron is grateful that she's married to a man who has no spare time but yet spends the few seconds he gets on artistic ventures, like this.

Honey, she's sorry you missed the deadline for the jingle contest but the end result? Still lovely.

Your wife remembers when she wasn't your wife but your girlfriend. After several months of schlepping between apartments, a joint residence was secured. Before the big move, yours truly spent an entire day -- as in from 8 am until 9 pm -- cleaning and converting a basement room of the joint residence into a music studio as a surprise for you. She put art on the walls, secured rugs, hauled in used furniture.

This was before cell phones and she was unavailable by land line.

You were certain she had been abducted, given the lack of minute by minute communication to which you were accustomed. Instead, she was scrubbing a basement and installing carpet.

John: "Mary? Are you alive?! I've been calling your apartment all day." Tears ensued and these would not be the Matron's.

Youngish Miss: "Alive. Just busy."

At the end of the day, you walked into a man-cave designed for music-men. More tears ensued and these again, were not the Matron's.

Today, instead of single-handedly building a music studio, you are grateful if she makes you a pot pie or takes care of the oil change. What a difference 20 years make! Courtship certainly has its advantages and those advantages include more frequent frolicking between -- or on top of -- the sheets.

Let the next decade of wooing begin.