Joe left the family reunion a few days later which then began the rest of our story. From that point on we talked on the phone every night; sometimes falling asleep on each other. Emailing these incredibly long descriptive letters about ourselves and our lives back and forth multiple times a day. It was decided that during the labor day weekend I would travel up to spend some time with him and his family in Pennsylvania. Heck I had nothing going on in Baltimore. College classes had not started up and I was waiting still for the job applications to be called back for.

Labor day weekend landed on 4, 5, 6 and 7th of September that year. I traveled via Amtrak to Philadelphia and rode on SEPTA for the first time ever to get up to his house. Joe and his father met me at the train station, the same one I now lovingly call my home station. Joe’s dad welcomed me with open arms like I was another person in the family. My first impressions of Joe’s home was, “wow”, It was beautiful but also very much a bachelor pad. I didn’t care considering I came from an inner city senior apartment building in Baltimore. Coming up to spend time with Joe again seemed like a dream. Why would this nice man want anything to do with me. There has to be something wrong here. No he didn’t expect anything from me in return other then companionship, friendship and love. We learned much about each other that weekend none of which was inappropriate or riskay. For the record I slept in a separate bedroom down the hall from him and never did anything that would make family question what was going on. It was very much like we had never been apart, talking, laughing at inside jokes, playing games, and just listening to music were just a few of the activities we loved to do together.