If what some say is true, that there is one person for everyone, than surely fate or destiny must play a role in bringing those two individuals together.
For one Centerview couple, Marty and Sherry Moon, they owe much of their 38-year marriage to the Missouri State Fair and entertainer Charlie Daniels.
“It was 1979 and I was going to the fair with a friend,” Martin Moon recalled. “I had a cousin who was going to college down there and we met her and her roommate who got invited to go along.
“I had track seats to the Charlie Daniels Band Concert,” Moon continued. “At one point during the show this guy spills beer on this good-looking girls chair.”
Moon added that he then, being a gentleman, wiped the beer from her chair with his handkerchief.
“That’s when she started talking to me,” Moon said with pride in his voice. “That was August, in December of that same year we got married and have been together ever since.”
The couple have raised three children, sons Alan and Daniel Moon and a daughter Melissa (Moon) Satt, whose son Fletcher Satt has made the couple proud grandparents.
For many, that would be enough to make for a happily ever-after ending to the story; for the Moon’s it is just the beginning.
Twenty-five years later, Kansas City radio station 106.5 “The Wolf” was sponsoring a concert with the opportunity to meet Daniels backstage.
“I thought why not enter, so I did, and they pulled my name from the jar,” Moon explained. “We already had tickets but when he got there, there was a gentleman who was in the Navy who was going to present Charlie with a flag that was flown in Operation Desert Storm in Iraq at the Naval Offices there.
“We started talking and he was there with his daughter and wife, “Moon continued. “The only problem was they didn’t have tickets to the show for them all.”
Moon said it was a simple decision to give them the extra tickets to the show they already had.
“It was a pretty good night,” Moon said. “When we met Charlie backstage we told him the story of how we had met 25 years ago at his concert.
“He thought it was a ‘pretty cool story’ he told us,” Moon added. “It seems like the longer he keeps playing music, the longer we stay together.”
Moon described the couple’s wedding as a small church one and when asked if the couple danced to a Daniel’s song at the reception, he replied “no.”
“When I can get my wife to dance I think we would,” he said. “She doesn’t really like to dance and I’m not much of a dancer.”
The Moon’s fair story has two additional chapters, according to the soft-spoken Moon.
“Five year ago our home burned completely to the ground,” Moon said. “We were looking at rebuilding and the company that we eventually bought from has houses on display at the State Fair each year.
“The house that we bought, come to find out was one that was actually at the fairgrounds in 2013,” he added.
Throughout the 38 years of their marriage, Moon said the couple has missed a few fairs, but he added that they had made more than they missed.
Unfortunately, the couple was not able to attend the fair this year or the Charlie Daniel’s Band performance Wednesday night as part of the Southern Uprising Tour, which was cancelled due to inclement weather.
Moon doesn’t know if the couple will have another opportunity to meet the legendary entertainer, but they plan to keep listening to Daniels’ music and he does know the couple will come home to the fair next year if at all possible.
“We’ve been able to be together this long because we never take each other for granted,” he said thoughtfully. “We keep the communication open, and we always take it one day at a time.”
