BURGERS AND BASKETS
Some nineteen years ago, around the time our youngest son turned two, we had committed to a weekly or bi-weekly date night. When our children were young, I didn’t like to leave them. Occasionally we hired a sitter but mostly we just made time for each other at home. We learned from early on in our marriage, that time was the most precious thing we could give each other. During those early years, Alan worked 90-120 hours a week, trying to establish our new company. I was a busy home educating mom, I worked nights on a little side business and volunteered with a teen parent program. I had the added challenge of answering our business phones all day. Time was not something Alan and I felt could ever be wasted.
After thirty years of marriage, were had become conditioned to movie and dinner type dates. With our schedules, just sitting down was a luxury! Our children had been gone from home for a couple of years, when we set the goal to date through the alphabet. As empty nesters, we were instantly lost how to spend our time. So we found ourselves at the second of our 26, alphabet inspired dates. Once again we began with food! We reasoned that food should always be part of every date, especially if it contained dessert! We hadn’t really planned anything for our B themed date, already we were falling short on our goals. Alan had brought home a beautiful bouquet of flowers. These were really brightening the early spring day. B words were beginning to flow.
Determined to find something to do, we headed out for dinner. We decided to head to Scott’s Harbor Grill. Except for burgers, there was nothing on the menu that began with the letter b. What a dilema! Alan ordered fish. Waiting for our meal to arrive, we passed the time pondering b words. We were seated by a window, overlooking the boat docks and the bay… we were on a roll. A bird landed nearby. We got the giggles, people were beginning to stare.
My husband is very witty. As he realized how much he was making me laugh, B words soon began to flow out of him. We were both babbling silly nonsensical things. Then he began calling me all sorts of lovely names, like his best friend, his beauty and his babydoll. Soon I was blushing! As our dinner arrived, we looked at each other and began laughing all over again. An inside joke had formed as we realized his fish had come, served in a basket. We were pleased with ourselves as we realized how talented we had become with this alphabet thing! We could now call this date Burgers and Baskets. We had our B theme and so far, it had not been boring! The winter chill had been brightened by our banter.
If you don’t like the cold or snow, there is not much to do in a Northern Michigan town, that caters mostly to summer tourism. True, we could have gone bowling but we were both making excuses…it was too far away, it was too much work, blah, blah, blah. We considered trying to find a bar and a band…hmmm, neither of us drink and it was a Sunday evening. Oh, and did I mention we live in a small town? We thought about what was nearby and finally decided to explore a little theater that we had never been to. It is called the Bay. Even though we had still ended up on a dinner and movie type date, we had been creative, so we felt that we had fulfilled our date night goal. The theater is situated in a historical building, built during the 1930’s. Formerly it had housed the towns blacksmith, followed by the volunteer fire department. The building then sat empty throughout WW II and was eventually purchased as a theater in 1946. Unlike the plush luxury found in many modern theaters, we found ourselves sitting upon hard, wooden, body forming seats, the standard of the 1940’s and 50’s. These were set on the original hardwood floors. There is a quiet charm to discovering a place like this, a step back to a less complicated time. Alan and I had a lovely evening, watching the block buster movie, OZ, The Great and Powerful. Next time perhaps we’ll be more creative. For today, we will just enjoy being.
