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My boyfriend and I met at work and ended up being 2 of a 3 person department in very close quarters... our desks touched. After dating and working together like this for several months, he had a scheduled surgery that required he be out of the office for over a week to recover. I happened to be "sick" at the same time so that I could tend to him. I wasn't there every day all day, but missed a significant amount of work during his recovery.
Now I can't imagine that everyone was clueless (both to our relationship, and to my convenient absence), but I have no regrets. I sat by his bed, tending to him lovingly while he was in complete misery. I loved him more with every wipe of his nose, with every glass of ice water, with every Vicodan.
There were many other foolish things I did for him along the way. The worst of which was believing him when he encouraged me to take a new job. He dumped me shortly after, having freed himself from the binding part of the relationship (in his eyes) -- our mutual work.
Despite the loss of him, I'll never regret all those foolish things and only hope I'll have the chance to do it again someday for a new love, because that's what it's all about.
Jess Durrant, Minneapolis, MN
Maybe some of you know what it's like to get to the point in life where you almost immediately know the one when you've found him? Well, not very consciously I needed to put my amour through a little test. We had met folkdancing and our first date was a walk around Lake of the Isles in Minneapolis. You may be familiar with the romantic moods of this lake and its grounds. I asked my companion if he would climb some trees with me—they were willows on the bank of the lagoon—at least one of them is gone now. He said that he would, without any hesitation. These are easy trees to climb and to become comfortable in, which we did. We agreed about the wonder of seagulls, our eyes met, and I knew he was the one. He had passed my test of true love!
Hilary Ziols, Northfield, MN
This isn't a foolish thing, but it's inventive. I was Lady Ann in the town production of Camelot. I rushed out between acts to call my boyfriend on the pay phone. Since it was near Thanksgiving, I decided to paint him a pumpkin with the beginning of Maya Angelou's Caged Bird poem on it. "A free bird floats on the edge of the air, and floats downstream until the current ends..." He took the poem and painted me a picture of nearby Pelican Lake. It was a year of crazy, foolish things for love, including him leaving his $100 Subaru running all night as he would visit my apartment in minus degrees. In his wooing, he would fill my car with balloons and sparkles.
A year after our courtship, we welcomed our daughter into the world. In honor of the the pumpkin poem, we named her, "Maya."
Mary Dailey, Watertown, SD
One summer between college years I worked for a drive-in hamburger shop as a car-hop. This was back in the "old" days when there WERE car-hops and drive-in hamburger shops! Our tips from the generous customers were ranging from 10 to 25 cents. A young man driving a truck from the local Wrecking company would come in many evenings to get coffee and a sandwich. As the summer began to wear on, the young man started tipping me a $1 each time, while continuing to tip any other car-hop the traditional 10 cents. The other girls said "He's yours!" and would alert me each time the truck came into the drive-in.
Occasionally that young man, no longer young, tells me it was a foolish thing for HIM to tip so large, but doesn't really seem to mind; we are going to celebrate our 38th wedding anniversary this summer.
Connie Peterson, Shakopee, MN
Anyone who is IN LOVE, IS a Fool. Would we do the things we do, allow the things we allow, BUY the things we BUY, if we were not in Love? Although Love and Logic are close in the dictionary, they certainly are not close in meaning. We lose all logic when it comes
to Valentine's day, especially. My experience as a married man of 13 years, is every year it gets harder to find logic at this time of the year. We get nervous, anxious, worried we won't find that "special"gift for the 14th of February. Just when we are trying to recover from the stress of Christmas, they dump Valentine's day on us. I hope there comes a day when someone, maybe it'll be me, puts out a book of ideas regarding Valentine gifts for married men. This anxious time leads to not so logic purchases that raise the gnp, but does little in relieving the stress and add joy and Love to THIS Valentine. Oh Calgon, take me away?..
Gary Schmidgall, Cannon Falls, MN
While waiting for a drink behind a young woman at a local music and film festival party, I was impressed by her enthusiasm for pouring hot candle wax on her hand. At a loss for a opening line that would warrant the interruption of her activity and in an attempt at engaging her in conversation, I panicked and loudly asked my friend next to me:"Hey, did you listen to Science Friday today?" Before my friend had chance to stop laughing at me, she had put the candle down and walked away.
Gary Dodge, Minneapolis, MN
Tru Luv
I fell in love in the fall of 1952. She sat across from me in Mrs. Green's 3rd-grade class at Mounds Park School on St. Paul's East Side. Her name was Alice.
Alice had blue eyes that could make you forget your multiplication tables. Her smile could make your heart play Pump, Pump, Pullaway with your rib cage.
Of course I couldn't tell her. We exchanged hellos and clues to the Winter Carnival treasure, and once I got up the nerve to show her my decoder ring. My atomic joy buzzer and exploding fountain pen would have to wait until we knew each other better. My code of honor wouldn't allow me to press my advantage. That code, of course, was the code of the cowboy. Hopalong Cassidy. The Cisco Kid. The Lone Ranger. Men of flint-hard principle and few words, who might kiss a horse on occasion, but never a woman.
That year Gary Cooper won an Oscar for his performance in High Noon, the best western of all time. His eyes harbored secret pain. His off-center gait defied gravity. His words were measured out in monosyllables. He made awkward masculinity a virtue. He was my role model.
Television reinforced the ideal of the hard working, unassuming hero. Jack Webb, whose range of emotion was almost the equal of Cooper's, started solving crimes that year for the LAPD on Dragnet. George Reeves, the original Man of Steel, was saving Metropolis from madmen and still fooling Lois lane and everyone else at the Daily Planet. And Casey Stengle's New York Yankees won the World Series, as they had for as long as I could remember (four years, half my lifetime).
In addition to her beauty, Alice was smart, so there was little opportunity to help her solve long-division problems or show her how to find north by floating a magnetic needle in a cup of water. But time was on my side. I would prove myself as an above average student, worthy of her favor. If nothing else, I'm indebted to her for good study habits.
I bided my time until Valentine's Day, 1953. Following tradition, the class decorated a cardboard box with colored paper, hearts, and lace to serve as a post office for our card exchange. So as not to slight anyone, we were required to give everyone in the class a valentine.
I found the perfect card for Alice. It featured a cowboy who, defying the laws of physics, twirled a lasso in the shape of a heart. The words read, "Darlin', Be My?? with the lasso supplying the rest of the sentiment. I thought she might even catch a faint echo of Tex Ritter?s song from High Noon, "Do not Forsake Me, Oh My Darlin".
The cards were passed out, and I searched my pile for hers. There it was. A honeybee buzzed around the words "You're Sweet."
Bingo!
I waited until after school. We were in the cloakroom, bundling up against the cold for the trip home. I thanked her for the valentine. "Sure," she smiled, then hesitated. "Well,See you around."
"Yup," I said, with my best Gary Cooper impression, trying to rein in my excitement. "See you around."
She didn't show up for class the next day. Or the next week. I finally asked Mrs. Green if she was sick. "Oh, no," she said cheerfully, "she moved to another school."
I tried to hide my devastation, the way a cowboy might on learning he had to shoot his horse.
The world changed that year. In the fall the Cold War visited our school in the form of monthly air raid drills. The Korean War had ended, but Commies were everywhere. The Soviets had the A-bomb. We built the H-bomb to keep a step ahead, and the race was on. Once every month we crouched under our desks, arms over our heads to protect ourselves from nuclear fallout.
The only constant was baseball. The Yankees won another World Series, but it was to be the end of a dynasty.
That same year Marlon Brando was voted Best Actor for his performance in On the Waterfront.
I had a new hero.
Joel Jackson, Maple Grove, MN
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