For my fellow “boomers” who read this column, a meme is an image, video or a piece of text – typically humorous in nature – that is copied and spread rapidly by internet users, often with slight variations. The “how it started vs. how it’s going” meme template has taken over Twitter and Facebook, with people using two images to compare how their lives have changed over time.

April of 2024 has been a very wedding-centric month for the Imel family. Our son, Zach, married Gabriella April 6 in Pittsburgh with a great party afterward at Oakmont Country Club. Daily News colleague Grace Ramey McDowell, a fellow photojournalist, was married April 20 at St. Joseph Catholic Church with a wonderful reception at The Potter Farm. April 25 was wedding anniversary of Ryle and Megan O’Dea Reynolds, a couple I photographed 15 years ago on the night I forgot my own anniversary. And yes, April 25, 1992, is the day I married Tracy Ann Imel 32 years ago.

With all of the wedding talk, my social media, mainly Facebook, has been pushing wedding and anniversary content in my feed. I am seeing all kinds of advertisements for flowers and wedding-related items. I am seeing wedding and anniversary memes more than in any other month of the year. Why does this happen? Of course Facebook is listening in on your private conversation with friends, catching key words, then serving you tailored advertisements. They might deny it, but I will believe it to my grave.

With that said, I thought I might share with you my own “how it started vs. how it’s going” meme by way of my column about the events on the weekend I proposed to Tracy. As background, Tracy went to West Hardin High School and I attended Fort Knox High School, were I played football and wrestled. Tracy, the daughter of a coach, was at all of the sporting events. We knew a lot of the same people, were at the football, baseball, basketball and wrestling matches when the two schools played each other from 1979 to 1983.

We didn’t meet until the summer of 1987 when she was a resident assistant at Hugh Poland Hall and I was an R.A. at Keen Hall for the football team. We met when she and a friend were hanging out at Keen Hall where I was working the front desk late one night. We hit it off right away, but I was slow to pick up on her cues, and we didn’t start dating until 1988.

The summer of 1989 found Tracy working near Indianapolis at a group home for court-ordered juvenile offenders. I was still in Bowling Green sowing my wild oats. We made plans to meet at the Kappa Sigma summer party on Parkside Drive. Tracy hitched a ride to Bowling Green with a mutual friend, pre-partying on Little Kings on the way down. I was preparing for the weekend partying at one of our favorite haunts, Green River Lock and Dam No. 5. The “Locks” was a staple on the weekends, when the weather was nice, or when we decided to cancel classes as a group.

I had an inkling that I might want to propose to Tracy at the summer party, but I really didn’t think it through. Marriage proposals these days are carefully scripted social media events that are more of a production with photographers, family members, party favors and a beautiful view. I went in the completely opposite direction. I was wearing cutoff sweatpants, a pink Ocean Pacific T-shirt, my favorite Nike Air Force One hightops, a Kappa Sigma hat and a fuchsia (pink) do-rag that was given to me by one of the WKU football players on my floor for letting him sneak a girl in Keen Hall after hours. I truly was a sight to behold.

Tracy arrived with the summer party in full swing. There were a hundred fraternity brothers, their dates and a dozen kegs stacked up next to the volleyball court. I was already well over the legal blood alcohol content level and Tracy was catching up quickly, filling an empty champagne bottle with Old Milwaukee beer from the keg. Sometime near dusk, as the sun was setting over the party, Tracy and I were sitting on the hood of my “hoopty,” a 1976 Buick LeSabre four-door land yacht with bullet holes in the side (courtesy of the previous owner).

It was at that moment, still dressed as I described, that I dropped, or kinda stumbled, to a knee and asked her to marry me. I apologized for not having a ring and told her my plans were to sell some of my guns to make it a proper engagement. She took a big swig of beer out of the champagne bottle and screamed “yes!” We hugged, kissed and then went right back to partying. The rest of the night was a blur for both of us as our mission was to empty the kegs.

As we often did, we had a lunch of chicken wings and a few pitchers of beer at Reno’s on College Street on Sunday before she had to ride back to her job in Indy. This weekend was no different. As we sat across from each other chowing on 10 cent wings and hammering $2 pitchers of cheap beer, she had a weird look on her face. I knew right then, she beat my BAC the night before and had forgotten. I asked if there was anything she wanted to talk about and she quietly said “no.”

I knew I was going to have to propose a second time, right there in Reno’s pizzeria. I asked her if she remembered what I said the night before and she admitted it was kind of foggy and thought she had a dream about marriage. Undeterred, I reached over with wing sauce soaked hands, held hers and popped the question for the second time in less than 24 hours. Thankfully, she said “yes” just as quickly as the night before.

It was a long five-year engagement as we both worked to get jobs in Bowling Green so we could begin our life together. It took me a couple of months to sell the guns and get her a proper ring and ask her dad for his daughter’s hand in marriage. One weekend when we were visiting her parents in White Mills, I dropped to a knee and surprised her with a ring in front of her parents. We were married in 1992 and have been together ever since and loved each other more each day the entire time.

That is my “how it started, how it’s going” story. It’s a lot to put into a meme and only one photo exits of that weekend. I hope you have a meme or story that brings as much joy as my marriage proposals. At the end of the day, all we have are memories, and this is one of my most precious.

– Daily News General Manager Joe Imel can be reached at (270) 783-3273 or via email at joe.imel@ bgdailynews.com.