A couple’s date to remember

“I believe in luck, fate and destiny,” says Christopher Trudeau.

So when Trudeau, 27, and his bride-tobe, Joann Durbin, 24, realized that this Sunday comes up 10-10-10 on the calendar, they rescheduled their wedding to coincide with what they think will be an auspicious date for them.

“I don’t know what’s going to happen to me in 10 months or 10 years or even 10 minutes,” says Chris. “But 10-10-10 is something I can keep in my memory bank and never forget.”

“I have a degree in commercial design.

Besides luck, I love the symmetry of 10-10- 10. It’s distinctive – the way the ones and zeros line up, like mathematics of the binary calendar.”

Luck plays a role in the couple’s entire relationship. They met a year and a half ago when Chris was a patient at St. John’s Hospital where Joann was a student nurse. It wasn’t exactly love at first sight, but it was close.

“Chris suffers from cardiomyopathy,” says Joann. “It’s a heart inflammation that’s led to him having seizures. I remember walking down the hall and seeing him in intensive care. I thought then that he has the most beautiful eyes I’d ever seen. I just wanted to get to know him.”

“I was pretty out of it,” says Chris. “But then I woke up and Joann was there. We had our first date as soon as I got out of the hospital. It was on the 10th, another reason why we think 10 is our lucky number.”

Now a registered nurse, Joann tries to coordinate her work shifts with Chris’ family’s schedules, in case another seizure occurs.

Chris, who has both a defribillator and a pacemaker to help regulate his heart, says he’s doing well on an experimental medication.

Now he’s planning his future as an entrepreneur.

Working with his mother, Caren, and some close family friends, Chris wants to market a line of artisan beers using hops, wheat and barley grown on his family’s Rolling Meadows farm northwest of Springfield.

Using brewing techniques he learned at an institute in Chicago and a course in master brewing at the University of California, Chris and his group are adapting Caren’s recipes for small-batch beers to create estate bottled and draft beers he plans to market locally and beyond.

“We’re using organic farming and capitalizing on the national trend toward foods grown close to home. We’re brewing small batches to get flavors that even the beer snobs will be blown away by.”

“We will start out selling business to business and see where it goes from there. Springfield has had microbreweries before. I want this one to be sustainable. For me, and for Springfield.”

For more information about Rolling Meadows brewery go to RMBrewery.com.