When Mary Lesyna said “good morning” to Mark Robben at the coffee machine at St. Louis’ Forest Park Community College, she knew exactly who he was.

“He was the most beautiful boy in the college,” she said. For her, it was love at first sight.

Mark, then 21, was also struck by the blond 18-year-old who approached him.

“I don’t know if you can print this, but it was lust at first sight,” Mark said.

That was on Oct. 24, 1968.

“I remember that date, believe me,” Mark said. He asked one of his fraternity brothers to find out Mary’s phone number. Both born and raised in the St. Louis area, they began dating immediately. Ten months later, Mark got drafted in the Vietnam War. He didn’t want to risk Mary becoming a teenage widow, so they didn’t get married before he shipped out. But he did propose.

He made it back home after more than a year, and they got married a month later -- Jan. 29, 1971.

They ended up buying a home in St. Louis and raising two kids, Allyson and Eric. Mark worked in construction for a dozen years, then drove a truck and worked on loading docks. Neither of them finished college, so they pushed education as the top priority for their kids. Mark took an extra job delivering pizzas at night to put them through private schools. Mary worked in a doctor’s office, and also helped Mark deliver phone books for extra money.

Both of their children graduated from college, continued with additional schooling, got married and had children of their own.

Mark and Mary’s long marriage hasn’t been without some hardship and tragedy. The death of their daughter 5 1/2 years ago is still too painful to talk about. And the pandemic put a stop to travels and get-togethers.

“The trash goes out more than we do,” Mark joked. But, he added, “the bottom line is, we made it 50 years.”

In normal times, they might have taken a trip with the entire family or thrown a big party. This year, their son, Eric Robben, who lives in Wheaton, Illinois, sent them flowers and had dinner delivered.

He also had another surprise.

Eric heard a story about a woman who bought gifts for all the guests at her 80th birthday party, thanking them for enriching her life. He was inspired by that spirit of generosity.

He did the math and decided to mail 50 of his parents’ closest friends an invitation and a check for $50. They could donate the money to any charity of their choosing. He only asked that they send an email to an account he created, Happy50thMarkandMary, sharing the name of where they donated the money and their good wishes for the couple’s milestone anniversary.

“I thought seeing all those points of light, those little bits of joy, would be meaningful,” he said.

It took some detective work to create the list and hunt down all the addresses. He hand-wrote each check, and sent the stack out in early January.

By Mark and Mary’s anniversary on Jan. 29, there were already dozens of emails in the account. Eric joked that the hardest part of pulling off the surprise was walking his parents through logging into the new email account over the phone.

The responses overwhelmed Mark and Mary. Their friends and family shared memories, loving words, old photos and funny stories. Most of them matched the $50 donations.

“I cried half the day reading it all,” Mary said.

They had planned on going to Cancun to celebrate their 50th, but canceled it because of the pandemic.

“This was actually better,” Mark said. “We can go on a trip anytime.”

Their pride in their son is evident when they talk about how accomplished and kind he and his wife are. Eric graduated from Notre Dame and earned his law degree from Washington University, Mark told me. (He added that his kids got their smarts from their mom.)

In his email to his parents, Eric wrote that he remembers his dad leaving for work before they woke up and coming home from delivering pizzas after they were in bed.

“They always talk about how smart I am, and how proud they are of me, but I’m 100% sure none of that would have been possible without their love and example,” he said.

The way he decided to honor his parents reminded me of that old adage about parenting:

Apple, meet Tree.

My face-to-face conversations with friends now take place in the woods.

I started walking outside at the start of the pandemic. Eventually, it replaced every other social activity. I usually try to recruit one or two friends to join me, but most often, it’s just me and my 14-pound ball of white fluff, Frankie. We’ve hiked in more than 30 parks around Missouri in well over a hundred visits, I’d guess.

I tend to go all-in on my pursuits -- some might say overboard.

It turns out hiking helps keep anxiety in check. And I hadn’t realized how stunning the scenery is around St. Louis.

The forest became my refuge.

This past weekend, it was in the low 30s, and I was trekking through a rocky trail. A native Texan, I was wearing several layers, heated gloves, heavy insulated boots and a large furry hat. I would not have recognized myself a year ago.

I was walking with a friend I hadn’t seen in months. Both of us will be empty nesters in a couple of years, and the conversation came around to where we might end up when no longer tied to our kids’ schools.

My husband and I have toyed with the idea of moving out of the suburbs and into the city, I said, but reports of rising crime have given me pause lately. Who wants to deal with nuisances like petty theft, or worry about more serious threats?

The next day, Frankie and I headed out for our afternoon stroll in Castlewood State Park. Last year, I fell on one of the more challenging trails here, and have since switched to a flat path along the river. But on this particular day, that path was flooded, so we ended up walking on a deserted, paved road that cuts through the park.

I noticed how quiet it was, and how utterly alone we were. I wondered what Frankie would do if a wild animal or unruly human encroached on our space. I’ve seen him get scared by a large suitcase, so I would probably have to do any protecting required.

We got back to the car about a half-hour later, and I noticed a pile of something green and sparkly on the passenger side. Then I noticed the window was missing.

Oh, and my backpack that I use as a purse -- with my wallet in it -- was gone, too.

Well, this was awkward.

I flagged down a nearby patrol car. I held Frankie to calm him down, since he had started shivering while the police officer filled out the report. Frankie’s not the smartest or most courageous dog, but he is pretty intuitive. He may have sensed that our safe outing no longer felt so safe.

On the way home, I tried to avoid thinking of several recent conversations, the first one being the one with my friend about the dangers of city living. I also tried to block out the number of times over the past two decades my husband has warned me about leaving a purse visible inside a car. God love him, he refrained from rubbing it in when I told him what happened. My dad, however, did call later to say this is why he has always told me not to walk outside alone. My husband smiled to himself when he heard me on that call.

The thieves went on a shopping spree with a few credit cards before I canceled them. I spent a couple of days getting a new driver’s license, alerting bank accounts, calling the insurance company to get the car fixed and thinking about the sentimental mementos in my purse I’d never see again.

I wondered if the universe was trying to give me a sign: First I broke my hand hiking, now this. Maybe I needed to stop trying to make Outdoorsy Aisha happen.

Then, a tweet appeared on my feed from the St. Charles County police: “Numerous vehicles broken into at hotels across the county ... Suspects smashed windows.”

It seems the same trouble hit another suburban county -- and in a hotel parking lot, not a deserted state park.

Maybe hiking wasn’t the problem, after all. Our perception of safety may have something to do with our own awareness, preparation and luck.

I’m willing to give the park another chance.

This time, I’ll leave my purse in the trunk.

Like most parents with school-aged kids, I think my kids’ public schools do a fine job.

There’s a longstanding American belief along the lines of, “My local school is great, but most other public schools perform poorly.”

This pandemic has thrown a wrench in that paradoxical belief system. For the first time, I’ve been hearing from tons of middle-class and affluent parents pointing out how their kids were getting shortchanged by their schools. I tend to agree with them, or at least sympathize with their concerns.

Most students needing special education services have not been getting what they need through virtual schooling. In some schools that reopened, and where the vast majority of students returned in person, the few who stayed with online learning were treated as afterthoughts. It’s hard to watch students in neighboring districts attend in-person classes while your own kids are isolated at home for months on end.

Even though I understand and appreciate the reasons that virtual schooling has been necessary in many circumstances, I’ve also felt the pangs of education envy for the first time.

I wish my children were in a school that had all the resources and space needed to safely educate them, so they would not miss out on the experiences some of their peers are still having. And we’re among the lucky ones: Our teachers have gone above and beyond for their students.

The quality of education that kids are getting during this pandemic depends on many elements outside parents’ control: How well does your community adhere to CDC guidelines? How tech-savvy are your kids’ teachers? How fast and reliable is your internet service? How agile and responsive is the administration?

All of a sudden, inequality has landed on the doorsteps of those unaccustomed to it.

“Inequality” is another way of saying “unfairness.” Our society has long tolerated unfairness in schooling when it’s based on how much money people have: Kids from middle-class and wealthy families get better educations than kids from poor families. It’s been that way for so long that it’s hard for some people to imagine it could be any other way.

But in this pandemic, people of similar socioeconomic classes saw their children affected in unequal ways. And when we perceive that someone in the same boat as us is getting something better, for no apparent reason, it provokes a strong reaction.

In the Rockwood School District in suburban St. Louis, a group of parents became so incensed over virtual schooling that they threatened to sue the district, and insulted the teachers and administrators online. Last fall, more than 200 people protested outside the home of St. Louis County Executive Sam Page, demanding that he allow high school sports teams to compete.

It was strange to watch adults agitate for youth athletics while those same youth were still shut out of classrooms. But the outrage was about more than just sports; it was about what people feel entitled to.

Parents who felt their schools were denying their children opportunities argued that the detriments of virtual school far outweighed the risk of teachers and staff catching a deadly virus.

That’s still debatable.

What’s more clear is that the students who have lost the most educational ground are the most marginalized -- those from lower-income families, those with disabilities and those living in the most underserved areas. All the inequities that we know are baked into our education system, which affect students’ entire life outcomes, have been amplified and exacerbated by the pandemic.

The thing is, it’s hard to get other parents to care much about the plight of students who have less than their own. I wonder if we will remember this sting of unfairness, the desperation of wanting more for your kids, once the pandemic is over.

Maybe it’s wishful thinking, but what if this close encounter with inequity challenges our indifference to unfairness elsewhere?