This was my first date with a girl. Keep in mind that this was nearly twenty five years ago.
I didn’t have a car at the time, so I borrowed one from a friend. Since it wasn’t in such great condition, I had to promise him that I wouldn’t take it out of Brooklyn. It wasn’t a great car, but hey… beggars can’t be choosers right?
I was going to pick the girl up after Shabbos and we were going to go miniature golfing on a nice spring night.
Well, Saturday night rolls around, and it’s pouring. I don’t mean just pouring, but POURING… sheets of rain, gusts of wind, lightning, the whole bit. Needless to say, miniature golfing was out — and, being a typical young man, I had no backup plan.
So, I arrive at her home, pick her up and we get in the car. We quickly decide that since miniature golfing was out, the next best bet might be bowling. We head over to Maple Lanes on 60th Street, only to find out that they had no available lanes and, due to league bowling, were not likely to have any for a while. We then tried Elmwood Lanes (no longer around) and Avenue M Bowling (also no longer around)… no such luck. It seems that bowling was out as well.
Worse, each attempt required us to get out of the car… and get soaked anew.
After a few attempts we decide to give up on bowling. She offers up ice skating as a possibility. Desperate to do *anything* fun that evening, I quickly agree and ask her if she knows of a place. The girl gives me an approximate location and off we go. After a few more minutes of rain soaked driving, we arrive… only to find that there is no ice skating rink in the area. As it turns out, the place closed down long ago.
Defeated and hungry, we decide to simply go out for pizza. We park near Avenue J, run through the pouring rain (on a night like that, even umbrellas didn’t help very much) to a local pizzeria. We’re just wiping the dripping water from our hair out of our eyes when we hear a bunch of cheers… a number of her classmates are there and are cheering for us. No, it was done nicely and in the spirit of friendship, but being a laid-back type of people, it was disconcerting for both of us.
At least I managed not to get my food and drink all over myself.
We finished our meal and, after another rain-soaked dash to the car, I drove her home.
Oh, and yes… we did get married. For a long time afterwards, we would talk about our two “first dates:” the one where none of our plans went right and the next one (to the Statue of Liberty) where things ran a lot more smoothly.
The Wolf