Memorable Dates

A Pair of Firsts
By Eric Weicht

It started with a text.

“Hey! Want to come over for a bonfire tonight?”

We’d known each other for weeks by this point, but it still made my heart race to text her directly. Usually, I’d have sent out a text to all of the Lutsen summer guides, inviting everyone over for a bonfire even though she was really the one that I wanted to see. But, on that clear-skyed June afternoon, I wasn’t so sure that I wanted other people to come over. I wasn’t so sure that that’s what she wanted.

“Sure!” she replied. “What time?”

I gave her a time.

“Great see you then!” she said.

It was the summer of 2016 and we were both working as summer guides at Lutsen Resort. I was living in a little red cabin 20ft from Lake Superior with no running water or electricity and had little in the way of a “life plan.” She had just graduated from undergrad that spring and was taking the summer off to be a kayak guide before committing herself to med school.

We were two wildly different people on two completely different life paths brought together by chance, a mutual desire for adventure, and a love for paddling big water. The future was anything but certain.

The sun started to cast lengthening shadows from behind the trees, so I lit a fire in the fire pit and continued to wait outside. Stars cut through the darkening sky, while Superior gently polished the rock shelf behind my little red home. I read Jack Kerouac’s rambling prose to pass the time and distract from the growing, almost unbearable feeling of excitement in my chest.

An hour passed before movement on the path behind me caught my eye. I looked up from my book and saw her walking towards me, wearing a flannel.

“Did you invite anyone else?” I ask.

“No,” she replied, “Did you?”

We laughed and swapped knowing glances.

We spent hours talking by the fire, sharing stories and describing childhoods while the little red cabin danced in the background by the lit of the flickering flames. When we ran out of firewood, we went inside to play cribbage under the light from a headlamp. When I got tired of losing, we decided to walk out on the rock shelf behind ‘Little Red’ to look at the stars.

I was shivering in a t-shirt and exhausted from a big day at work, but I toughed it out because it was her! And I was starting to fall. Hard.

Finally, after hours of staring at the stars across the largest lake in the world, I built up the courage to ask, “May I kiss you?”

She said yes.

Fast forward to four years later and I’m back behind the little red cabin, waiting for her to finish the scavenger hunt that took me weeks to plan and put together. I’m a little bit older but not all that much wiser, still just wearing a t-shirt when I probably should have had on a sweater.

I look up and see her walking down the path towards the Lake that first brought us together.

“Will you marry me?”

She said yes.

Our First Date
By Kim Casey

It was the late 1980s, and I was thoroughly enjoying my single existence. This did not go over well with my grandmother, who feared that I would never settle down. So concerned was Ida, that she would call me at work every few days to see if I had found a man yet. And each time I would report with a sigh, “Nope, no change.” What I didn’t tell the persistent woman was that I wasn’t even looking. I had come to the conclusion that things, especially of the romantic nature, should never be forced, but evolve on their own, if they are meant to be. And that is exactly what happened.

One evening a friend and I went to my favorite coffee shop on Cumberland Street, and there in the corner sat this handsome man with a radiant glow. Turned out my friend knew him and she introduced us. Except for a little misunderstanding over an ashtray, we seemed to hit it off. After that I kept bumping into Jon at various places in my neighborhood, and the connection between us became even stronger. So much so, that I could no longer deny I was really interested in the charming man. But before I would consider anything serious, I needed Jon to meet my grandparents. As they were great judges of character, and after all the mistakes I had made with the opposite sex, I greatly needed their guidance.

Jon and I dropped by Ida and Norman’s house early one evening and we started playing cards. There was a nervousness in the air and things felt a little awkward amongst us all. Midway through a game of crib, Jon announced he needed to use the bathroom, which was located off the kitchen where my grandparents and I were seated. While he was gone, the three of us were chatting about the weather, when this loud BRRRRRAAAAP came from the bathroom. My grandparents and I immediately stopped talking and were looking at each other with raised eyebrows. Then we all burst out laughing. Jon obviously was in no rush to rejoin us, and when he did finally arrive at the kitchen table, his face was bright red. But it was not long before he was also laughing about his gaseous emission. And it was at this moment, that everything shifted. Everyone relaxed and the rest of the night went exceedingly well.

Later when I was alone with my grandmother, she announced Jon was the one. Her reason being that he and I laughed a lot when we were together, which was the sign of a good relationship. And of course, she was right, as we are still together. And no matter what challenges we have faced, we have never lost the ability to embrace the lighter side of life.