A Night to Remember...

We had a happy ending to our "Next Great Love Song" story on Sunday night. After winning the Valentine's Day contest where Mark Schultz took Toby's version of our love story and made a song out of it, we have been hoping that we might meet him and thank him. This weekend was our chance! We went to see Mark in concert in Greene, NY about an hour and a half away. It was held at a not so big church, so we were able to get nice seats near the front. We tried getting a message to Mark 2 weeks ago that we would be there and would like to meet him, but didn't know if he received our message. At the conclusion of the concert, they had announced that you could wait in line to meet Mark and he would sign autographs. So I waited in line. When it came to my turn I told Mark that he didn't play the song of his that is Number One at our house. He asked which song that was and I told him, "I Will Always Love You". He said, "You know that song?" I said, "Yeah, you wrote it for us!"

After a split second, he knew who we were and seemed very excited to meet us and we shared hugs and introduced ourselves. (It turns out, he never did get our email message.) And then he said he would play our song for us! He acted like he was going to do it right then, but I told him we could wait while he greeted and signed autographs for the rest of the line :o)

When he finished, we went back to the sanctuary and he sat up at the piano. He had Toby stand up and tell our story to the thirty or so people who had wandered in for this second little concert :o) After that he did a great job of remembering our song which I am sure he hasn't even thought of since he wrote it those 5 days in February! It was quite an honor and very personal.

After he finished the song, he asked the crowd what else we wanted him to play! Then he decided to play parts of a song he is working on and it was very good. I am sure we will be hearing it on the radio in the coming year and on his next CD! Maybe it will be right after "our song"....