It all started in a bar

Thirty-three years and change ago, Mark Morris and I joined a group of friends at Kenneally’s Irish Pub in Houston. We hadn’t been dating long, so we were still learning a lot about each other’s basic characteristics. Mark and I agreed on two issues that night: we both disliked the movie “Arthur,” which was very popular then, and we both would ride in the space shuttle if given the chance. Interestingly, on both issues, we were the only two people at that long, slightly beer-splattered table to hold those opinions.

The night at the pub was one of the times in our short and merry courtship we both remember all these years later. For two pretty practical people (we’re both lawyers, after all), we shared some amazing dreams in those heady, slightly foggy months of dating. Many of them centered around travel and, ultimately, living abroad.

So it turns out that the space shuttle discussion has had legs in our marriage (the “Arthur” thing not so much). Remarkably, Elon Musk hasn’t texted me with an invitation to outer space. However, the seed planted in that conversation at Kenneally’s grew up into a want-to-live-abroad bush. We’re watching the bush bud now.