Today is a day of great significance... for various unrelated reasons.
Most Americans will know it as Super Bowl Sunday, the final day of the postseason when the NFL Championship is decided. This year - Year 46 (or XLVI, as it is more commonly styled) - the New York Giants will square off against the New England Patriots. Living in Atlanta as I do, I don’t really have a dog in this hunt - but as someone who grew up in the Noo Yawk suburbs, I would be marginally happier if the Giants were to grab the trophy.
Being that it’s Super Bowl Sunday, it is also the day of the World Wide Wrap, an event of significance to Conservative/Masorti Jews in which the ritual practice of wearing tefillin (AKA phylacteries, little leather boxes containing words of Scripture) is taught to Red Sea Pedestrians around the globe. It began twelve years ago as a program at the Men’s Club of Temple Israel in Charlotte, North Carolina - today, under the auspices of the International Federation of Jewish Men’s Clubs, it involves over 250 congregations and well over 10,000 participants.
It also happens to be the 88th birthday of the Missus’s stepdad David. Happy birthday, David!
But most important for me and the Missus, this is the very day when, thirty-five years ago, I asked her to tie the knot. (Fortunately for me, Elder Daughter, and the Mistress of Sarcasm, she answered in the affirmative.) Yes: It’s our 35th engage-a-versary!
We ask many questions in our lives, but this is the sort of query that carries especial significance. Perhaps it is for that reason that a special verb is used when speaking of Proposals of Marriage. Regarding said proposals, one does not “ask” the question, one “pops” the question. Why this is, I have no idea... but I can happily say that my pop, evidently, was perfectly acceptable.
Sunday, February 5, 2012
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6 comments:
"Pop goes the question"... and so soon after "pop goes the groundhog"!
Bonne Fête des Fiançailles!
Awww - ya'll are so cute together - it was destiny!
Congratulations. I believe in celebrating dates like this. We always celebrate the date we met. We don't celebrate our engagement ... mostly because it was just seven weeks after we met. :)
In 1823 (earliest usage I could find) a pawnshop was known as a pop-shop.
A visit to the pop-shop was made to obtain a cheap ring perhaps? Then the question was 'popped'.
Alternatively, maybe Pop (the bride's father) had to be asked first?
@Madeleine - We also celebrate the day we met... which is easy, because we met on New Year's Eve!
Happy Birthday, David.
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