How did you two meet, anyway?

We met online.

Stop groaning.

We met online in 1990.

In 1990, the web didn't exist. If you did anything on the net, it was with a text-based interface, like command-line ftp or UUCP, or via e-mail. There was a world-wide bulletin board thing called Usenet (or, alternately, netnews) made up of hundreds of “newsgroups”, each devoted to discussing a particular topic. People would post messages, and other people around the world would respond. One of the newsgroups both of us read regularly at the time was rec.music.misc, which in those days was populated by a lot of smart, witty people with an interest in a wide variety of obscure bands (hence the “misc” in the name).

It was to this newsgroup that Ralph posted a brief note on the evening of September 11, 1990, about a couple of gentleman named Peter Holsapple and Chris Stamey. The two had been in a group called the dB’s, which broke up around 1987 after four albums and little success. The two were playing live shows together and working on a new album (eventually released as Mavericks on the short-lived Rhino New Artists label).

The following morning, Laura was reading rec.music.misc and saw this posting. She e-mailed Ralph expressing surprise that there was someone else out there who was a fan of these obscure southern power-popsters and thanking him for telling her about the upcoming album.

We e-mailed back and forth about once a week for a few years, discussing music and work (we both worked at AT&T at the time). Ralph managed to get a prerelease copy of the aforementioned album, and sent Laura a copy on cassette. Laura was married at the time, so there were no thoughts of romance. Eventually, the correspondence petered out.

In late 1994, Laura looked Ralph up in the corporate directory, saw he was still with AT&T, and e-mailed him. She wrote something along the lines of, “Hi, remember me? I’m still working in Newark, I see you're still in Middletown. I hope you're doing well. Oh, by the way, I’m getting divorced. I know you like to go see bands; maybe we could get together some time and go see some cool bands.”

Ralph, being the dense soul that he is, took a good six months to take her up on the offer, although he did pick up the correspondence again.

One day in early 1995, while driving along the Garden State Parkway past the town where Laura lived, Ralph thought, “I’ve met friends I’ve made online from Ohio, Massachussetts, New Zealand, Atlanta and Ireland. Here’s a woman who lives within driving distance, and I’ve never met her. I’ll have to do something about that.”

So he did. [Dense, dense, dense....] The rest is history.