A Tiffany Monday

To tell this most-unusual love story about two seventy-five year-olds, author John Sager retrieves more than 200 e-mails which he and Jo-an shared in the six months leading up to their wedding, shown in this photo. He had been in love with her since the first grade; she had never imagined such a thing. Not long after she "gets it," she falls in love with him. Soon enough, they slip away in his motor home to a quiet Pacific Ocean beach to talk about the "M" word.

Their electronic exchanges, taken verbatim from the original texts, tell of a growing love story of intriguing proportions: infrequent face-to-face get-togethers, owing to his peculiar work assignment for the CIA, the power of prayer in their daily lives, a bit of office intrigue and, eventually, a wedding under a palm tree beneath Diamond Head in Honolulu. Then five years of incomparable wedded bliss.

It is a beautiful story, told as the two lovers wrote it, and sure to warm the hearts of seniors everywhere, and of the not-so-old as well: Keep the fires of love burning and never give in to the notion that it is too late