I'm looking ahead some months. Sometime in the first two weeks of December, I'll have an important anniversary. I didn't note the date it happened-didn't know, you see, how significant it would be. So, I guess I'll celebrate across the whole two weeks. That way I'm bound to hit the day itself.

I'm celebrating a blustery winter afternoon in Annapolis, Maryland, full of sleet and blowing snow.

The old town's harbor is the same color as the sky above it, a grim pewter gray. People on the streets are leaning into the wind, stepping carefully, wary of patches of ice.

Two years a widower, I'm hunched on the lee side of a little red shack near the water, at the foot of Annapolis' Main Street. Next to me is a red Salvation Army kettle; and in my hand, a small bell. Oh, and I'm not alone.

With other service clubs, the Annapolis Rotary provided volunteers to staff kettle locations all over the town. I always asked for the Main Street assignment. The town is ancient by American standards (almost three hundred and fifty, now); and it grew up around its harbor and market area, with streets radiating off to climb hills toward various churches and the handsome, wooden-domed state capitol.

I liked the spot at the foot of Main Street because I could look up the rise of its hill, sizing up shoppers as potential donors. My favorites were families with small children. Kids, eyes on the red kettle, would walk crab-like as they dug into side pockets or plastic purses for coins. They'd shyly drop the money into the pot, then retreat behind their parents' legs.

On one blustery day, I watched a heavy-set man, red-faced and obviously drunk, weave his way down the sidewalk, fumbling for his wallet as he came. He tacked back and forth from brick building to light post, pausing at each to steady himself. The last tack brought him up against the little shack with a thump.

Wallet finally freed from his back pocket, he raised it toward his eyes, riffled through-and pulled out a hundred dollar bill. With a lopsided grin, he held the bill out in the general direction of the kettle and me.

"My friend," I said, steadying his arm, "this is a hundred dollars. Didn't you mean to pull out a ten?"

He drew himself up to his full height, bridled as if I'd struck him.

"Good God, man, where's your spirit?" he bellowed. "It's Christmas!" And he thrust the crumpled bill at the pot, almost knocking over its tripod.

Chastened, I steered his hand to the slot; in went the bill. He smiled at me in woozy triumph.

"So there!" he shouted. "And a Merry Christmas!"

I wished him the same and then watched him reel off towards the harbor. Thank goodness, he changed course before he got near the bulkhead and that freezing water.

Well, anyway, that's why I always vied for that downtown assignment. But it turned out someone else liked it, too. And in 1992, the two of us were assigned to ring our bells together through the cold afternoon.

I'd known this woman by sight from Rotary; but it's a big club in Annapolis, and we'd hardly done more than say hello. Now, both extended time and shared discomfort were ours. And the first thing I noticed was how good-humored she was about the weather. (It turned out she'd grown up in Calgary - out where they manufacture the "Alberta Clippers.")

We shivered, laughed, talked, and enjoyed the little kids and the midshipmen (just bigger kids, really, themselves). We even handled a couple of happy drunks, though none to match the hundred-dollar one.

By the end of our shift, though, we were benumbed. It was four-thirty, almost dusk; snow was falling steadily. When I suggested Irish coffee, she didn't just say yes. She gave a cheer. I liked this girl!

We walked to a Main Street bar, huddled over steaming cups, talked some more. I drove her home in the pick-up truck I'd already bought for the move to Fly Creek. And we began to date.

So I owe knowing Anne to Annapolis Rotary, and to the Salvation Army, and, I guess, to the snowy weather that day. Together, they've given me lots to celebrate in early December.

Jim Atwell lives in and views life from Fly Creek.