So, you're probably asking why . . .

Well, here's the answer:

In October of 1981, a mere two months into our marriage, Larry and I had a crazy opportunity to visit New York City. At the time, I was Assistant Sports Information Director for the Gators and Larry was the sports director at WRUF – and it was football season. Thanks to the late, great Ray Graves, we had a chance to not only visit New York City, but to also attend a spectacle that is on most sports-fans’ bucket lists.

Major League Baseball historians will remember that 1981 was a strike year – and baseball had decided to have the first-half season winners play the second-half winners to determine which teams would go to the World Series. The outcome: Yankees/Dodgers.

On the Saturday morning of the Gators football game before the World Series was slated to start in NYC on Tuesday, Ray Graves (who at the time was working for the Steinbrenner family) strolled into the UF Sports Information Office prior to the game, and announced to no one in particular, “If you know someone who wants to go to the World Series in New York City, let me know.”

Well, I was too bashful to say anything to him, but upon entering the Gator press box, I tracked down my new husband and said “Hey, Ray Graves said he could get us tickets to the World Series at Yankee Stadium.”

Now, you have to understand I was teasing, because we had no money. As Larry would say, “We couldn’t afford to pay attention.” Larry was like, “Let’s go!”

As a native of the Bronx, Larry had family there. His dad and step-mom as well as various aunts and uncles (and people they called uncles and aunts, but weren’t really) still lived there. So he got on the phone, confirmed we could “sleep on cots” at Aunt Dot’s and my boss Norm Carlson helped us get in touch with Ray Graves – and those World Series tickets.

So the big question: how to do this with almost no money? Well, some people our age will remember the airline People’s Express. If you think you’ve been on a no-frills airline, trust me, you had more services than People’s Express offered. Even a Coke cost extra. We grabbed two round-trip tickets from Jacksonville to LaGuardia for $35 per person, each way. And we did actually sleep on cots at Aunt Dot’s.

Larry’s Dad picked us up at the airport that Tuesday morning – and the rest of that day, I got my first taste of the Big Apple.

Now, people familiar with New York City in the late 70s/early 80s, will tell you it was NYC at its worst. Homeless on every street; Times Square was a proliferation of bars, strip joints and worse; dirt and trash everywhere. And yet, I fell in love.

I spent most of the day with my camera turned to the sky, taking photo after photo of tall buildings that upon developing my film showed little of the impact. But for the little girl from Kentucky, it was the most amazing place I’d ever seen.

That evening as we sat 20 rows behind home plate with his Dad and friend Chuck Cooperstein ($20 a ticket, thank you Ray Graves), for Game 1 and watched the Yankees beat the Dodgers, I thought to myself, “Okay, you’re 23, you’ve never visited NYC and you’ve never been to a Major League baseball game, and you’re starting at Yankees Stadium with the Yankees versus the Dodgers. Exactly, how do you do better than that going forward?”

The next night – Game 2 – we had an extra ticket because Larry’s Dad decided to stay home and we were riding the subway to the game when we started talking to a nice African American gentleman who was heading to Yankee Stadium as well. He didn’t have a ticket, but was hoping to score one from a scalper, when Larry offered him our extra ticket – at face value.

I’m not sure he really believed it was a legitimate ticket – but we promised him it was and he kept saying to Larry, “Do you know how much money you could get for that ticket?” But he bought it and sat with us during Game 2. After the game, Larry and I took a cab to LaGuardia and flew back, landing in Jacksonville at 2 a.m.

For the past 34 years, Larry and I have talked and dreamed of living in New York City. We worked hard in Gainesville, raised our wonderful daughters, but always tucked away in the backs of our minds, was “Someday, we’ll move to NYC.”

So last summer, after saying good-bye to my dear, sweet, wonderful Mommy after she passed away on July 7, the door opened. We could move. Our girls were grown and doing wonderfully on their own. Was it possible at fifty-something to move? Get meaningful jobs? Enjoy the city while our health was still good?

So after months and months of discussions, we decided, yes, it is time for us to take a risk. Live in a city we’ve only dreamed of. So tomorrow, we’ll pack up our things that (we hope) will fit in our new apartment and take another flight to NYC. This one – again out of Jacksonville – will land at JFK.

And instead of sleeping on a cot at Aunt Dot’s with only enough money to buy a couple of hotdogs, we’ll move into our own apartment on Saturday. And Sunday morning, we’ll look out on the city we love and start building a different life. Not a new life or a better life, but just a life in our favorite city.

You know, life is short – and sometimes it’s just time to take a risk.

We have many fabulous friends we’ve made over the past 35+ years in Gainesville and we hope you’ll keep in touch.

For now, we’re off on our big, crazy, wonderful adventure.