It was a brisk Tuesday in late-February, during the spring semester of my senior year, that 17-year-old Chuck drove 17-year-old me to a basketball court behind a church. We’d met one another about six months prior at an after-school job. We attended separate schools in seemingly separate worlds, but we had a ball together at The Daily Bagel – laughing, goofing around, and, eventually, flirting.
According to my terrifically embarrassing journal entries, I was smitten with this boy early on, but I was determined to stay unattached so I could go off to college in the fall without anyone holding me back.
Yet, this boy was persistent and we talked often about starting a relationship. The journal entries – again, so embarrassing – are lengthy sermons to myself about keeping things close but friendly. I had a whole life to live and it was going to start promptly after high school.
But then that Tuesday rolled around. February 27, 1996. It was shortly before sundown and we’d just left work for the night. Per usual, we didn’t want to say goodbye yet, so we played a few minutes of basketball and talked about relationship stuff again. This time, I didn’t argue or deflect or be that wishy-washy girl I’d been those last few weeks.
Instead, 17-year-old me told 17-year-old him that I was ready to be boyfriend and girlfriend, to which he responded, “Well then let’s do this right.”
He went to his truck and pulled out a rose. Dang it all. I was hooked.
We went back to that same basketball court the following year and took this photo:
Forgive me for the cliché, but it applies: And the rest is history.