Great News!

The date was November 27, 1999, a day that my fiancée' Patricia will hopefully remember for the rest of her life and a story that will hopefully be told for many years to come.

For months, I had been telling Patty that I wanted to go up to the World Trade Center Observatory deck. I had not been up there since I was about 8 years old. I had been planting this seed in her head for months so that when the time came she would not suspect a thing. I told her that on November 27 I had to be in New York City for a conference that I needed to attend for my job so it gave me a good excuse to get all dressed and spiffy. She was not working that day and decided to get her hair done. I had asked my parents to act very inconspicuous and to deliver Patty to me a few blocks from the World Trade Center and I had asked Patty the night before that I wanted to go tomorrow to the World Trade Center, just to do a tour and some sightseeing. She agreed hesitantly since to New Yorkers, these are the places that you don't go often because they are so readily available to you and you figure you can go there whenever.

So that morning I left my apartment like I was going to work to make final arrangements for the surprise I had in store for Patty. My parents managed to get a hold of her and bring her to me. So we walked into the World Trade Center and met a young lady who "SUPPOSEDLY" was a highschool friend that I hadn't seen for years, considering there was a huge line that Saturday to get upstairs. She was Godsend, mind you I had met her that morning...So anyway, we were escorted to the elevator and taken to the observatory, meanwhile I was giving signals to the people in the elevator about to help me pull this off. We walked out onto the observatory and began looking around. Ok, this is when I began to get real nervous. But I managed to mask it as much as possible. She saw a group of cameramen and photographers and said to me, "I wonder who's coming up here, it must be someone important", working closely with the press at her current job she was real keen on these things. But she blew it off. So I said to her, "Pat lets look at New Jersey and the Hudson". It was time, I asked her to look in the distance at a tiny airplane that was now turning towards us. When it turned completely Pat was finally able to read the inscription on this huge banner being towed by this single engine airplane and it read the following, "PATTY BLAKE, WILL YOU MARRY ME!".

In a roar, Patty and I were bombarded by the camera men and the photographers behind us taking pictures, as I got on one knee and pulled out a small black box out of my coat pocket and said, "So, will you be my wife and marry me?" She said, "YES,YES,YES!!" She was so happy and quite embarrassed but never the less in a state of shock. We interviewed with many people and took tons of pictures. We were on page three of the Daily News and the New York Post in that Sunday (Nov. 29,99) papers. We were also on channel 2,7,9,11, and 41. We were on WCBS FM, 1010WINS, and 77AM radio news channels. It was certainly more than I expected, but I am grateful it was a huge success and more importantly that I had just made my soon to be wife, the happiest person on the planet, that whole weekend. You can imagine how many phone calls we both received. It was seen as far as Florida and the Dominican Republic where family members and friends had watched in amazement and celebrated with us.

Kenny