The year is 2010, it is February 14th Valentine’s Day and what a surprise I got... My boyfriend at the time was stuck in California dealing with family matters so I hooked up with a couple of my single friends and we headed out to start the day with a hearty breakfast. On our way home one friend asked if she could borrow my camera. When I asked her ‘what for’ she explained that she wanted to take some selfies in the privacy of her own home to use for social media (remember this was 2010, she had a Blackberry and taking photos with your phone wasn’t really the “norm” just yet). We arrived back at my apartment, which was located above a bakery and gift shop called “The New York Store”, and I gave her a quick tutorial on how to use my camera. We headed back downstairs and outside to enjoy a bit of the unseasonably fair weather and do a little people watching; the little hamlet of High Falls was bustling with locals and weekenders. I noticed a snappy older guy dressed in a tuxedo headed my way, as he nears I say "Why, aren't you looking schnazzy today", he smiled and thanked me for the compliment. Three other gentlemen dressed in the same tuxedo, with deep red vests and bowties, joined him; at this point I thought there must have been a wedding or something somewhere and they were all coming to eat at the Depuy Canal House (the upscale restaurant that I used to work for that was located next door). The older guy asked if he was singing to me, I replied "Well Honey, if you're gonna sing you can sing to me!", still completely unaware of what was about to happen. A younger guy approached me and said something about ‘singing to Jamie’, that's when I got that dumb-founded look on my face like "is this some kind of joke”. He smiled and said… "Yeah, if you are Jamie McGlothlin, then we are here to sing to you". WTH??!! He handed me a single red rose surrounded by a cloud of baby’s breath, packaged up in cellophane and tied with a red ribbon. I took a seat on the porch of the New York Store and the four gentlemen lined up and serenaded me with a love song on behalf of my “one and only”. My friend used my camera to take some photos and captured the ending of the song on video; this was the whole reason she asked to borrow my camera… sneaky, sneaky. I never saw it coming... even my accomplice friends did a great job of letting on that nothing was out of the ordinary. Valentine's Day 2010 will go down in history as the most memorable to date.
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