Yes, I'm that girl and we are that couple! We totally got caught kissing in public…AGAIN!...execpt this time we made the news! ;o) (we are at the beginning and end of the article)

In Silicon Valley, thankful for a holiday break
By Mike Swift

Mercury News

Posted: 11/27/2008 05:28:05 PM PST

Kathy Kutch pinned on her Lions earrings one more year. Henry Costa and Melissa Novak smooched by the bargain CDs. J.C. Smith hopped on his Harley. Shinda Singh watched friends play cards and waited for a cab fare. And Wesley Berg hugged his son at Baggage Carousel 1.

Amid the cacophony of a year that brought a historic presidential election and a battle over gay marriage, and was laced with terrorism and wars and economic gloom, Silicon Valley turned it off Thursday. It was Thanksgiving, and whether you were attending the annual high school football classic, meeting kin at the airport, or just getting a jump on the Christmas shopping, the holiday was really about sharing time with the people in your life.

In San Jose, Lincoln High School and San Jose High Academy have been meeting in the annual Big Bone game since 1943. And for Kutch, it's been 50 years — maybe 51, she's not sure — since her first game with her late father.

Like many people who treat the Big Bone game as an unofficial reunion with family and old classmates, Kutch, a fan of the Lincoln Lions, considered the people sitting nearby in the stands as important as the action on the field.

"This is more important to me than the turkey dinner. This is tradition," said Kutch, standing with her son and daughter and husband outside the stadium at San Jose City College; they were to meet other old friends on the bleachers inside. "It just makes us remember our dads;

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it brings us closer."

Smith, a local blues musician and a member of San Jose class of '73, pulled up on his motorcycle, his Big Bone transportation of choice. His band had played the night before at the annual pre-Big Bone reunion party that drew 300 alums of the two schools.

"I just started doing it in 1989 with about 10 friends, and it just kept growing," said party organizer Bill Kleidon (San Jose class of '74) who stood with old friend George Morado, class of '72, before the game.

Other than Big Bone, "sometimes the only other time I see him now is at funerals," Morado joked of Kleidon.

Giving trigger-happy Christmas shoppers a head start on Black Friday, the Big Lots store in Milpitas opened at 7 a.m. Thursday, and by midday, business was good.

Near the bargain bin of Christmas CDs, Costa and Novak shared a quick kiss and secret smile. It was their first Thanksgiving as a couple. Asked about the significance of the holiday, Costa had one word — "togetherness" — before the couple vanished off down an aisle, past the pork rinds and caramel corn.

Baggage Carousel 1 in the old terminal at Mineta San Jose International Airport was a clogged crossroads of togetherness, too.

The rangy University of Northern Colorado women's basketball team, all baggy sweats and blue and white sneakers dangling from shoulder bags, crossed paths with the Arvada Hockey Association, whose members worried about a few missing sticks. Both Colorado teams were playing in Bay Area holiday tournaments.

Out in the parking lot, a group of South Asian cabbies used the seat of an old chair as a makeshift card table for a game of Dosari, looking hopefully toward a 737 disgorging passengers.

"No business. Very slow this year," said Singh, waiting four hours for his first passenger of the day. A measure of the slow economy, he said.

Berg, a retired IBM manager who lives in a senior housing complex in San Jose, sat silently as he waited for his son and daughter-in-law to arrive from Gallup, N.M.

"People will tell me, 'You're a good man,' " said the son, Ron Berg, after meeting his dad. "And I always say, 'I've got good parents.' "

Very very cute, Missy.  :)  Glad you have so much to be thankful for this year!!!

I feel like for the first time in my life, i'm living, truely living, and I can't belive that others have had this too and now it is my turn. They're are so many haters out there, family members included, that try to bring us down to there level but i'm bound and determined to have my time to shine. My parents have been smooching for the last 35 years so i know it's possible to make this feeling be long lasting! ;o) I know love ebbs and flows but if it is true love it alway's stay's together, its us against the world and i'm VERY thankful for all of my blessings. I've worked so hard and now it's my turn! ;o)

Absolutely, Missy.  Enjoy every minute of it, time is wasted if you don't. 

okay…that was so cute, it just melted my heart.

I am so happy for you Missy.

Thank you David and Jen!