Tim Smith

We have a rather unique back story, most of which is set in upstate New York. We met on the first day of high school, brought together by the merger of two neighboring school districts. We ended up dating for all four years of high school, then went to different colleges and, as fate would have it, we ended up not seeing each other again for literally 40 years.

Tim’s mom passed away in late 2012 and Deb heard about it through the grapevine in Virginia Beach where she was teaching. She sent him a sympathy card, he wrote back, one thing led to another and Tim ended up coming down to Virginia Beach in June of 2013 to pick Deb up after her school year ended and bringing her back to New York.

The thing Deb remembers most from that courtship period when she was in Virginia, but longing to be back in New York, was that every day at school when she went to her mailbox, there was an envelope from Tim. And each one contained an original letter Deb had written to him 40 years ago. He had saved every one. His go-to line regarding that part of the story is to say, “Yeah, it took me a long time to play those cards!” Sometimes the best things in life are worth waiting for.

We got engaged on Deb’s mother’s birthday (December 4, 2014) and we got married on Tim’s mother’s birthday (June 12, 2015). Because we both have Native American ancestry, we had the ceremony performed at the Ganondagan Historic Site by the Native American leader there, as well as a former student of Tim’s.

So how did we get into this writing gig? Well, as fate would have it, we happen to live right next door to the newspaper office in our town. After hearing some of our stories, the publisher of the paper Chris Carosa suggested we write something for the paper. So we started by telling the personal story of our relationship and we haven’t stopped writing since. Currently our weekly feature comprises the entire back page of the Mendon-Honeoye Falls-Lima Sentinel.

We write about an eclectic variety of topics including music, sports, travel and human interest. Our publisher has been encouraging us to write a book for some time now and we had been waiting for a topic to emerge about which we felt we could apply our own irreverent twist. Despite the tragic nature of the story, we felt that we put a unique perspective on the story of The Beatles, the Bible and Manson: Reflecting Back With 50 Years of Perspective.

We hope you enjoy it.