I follow a discussion forum, where a recent topic was best/worse dates. I wanted to clip mine here to have it for posterity:
Best date with a woman:
My wife and I had a mutual friend who was a pilot wanting to add to his hours. I talked to him and arranged a flight in a little four-seater plane he had access to out of Raleigh, NC.
For my wife’s birthday, all I told her was that we were “going out for dinner.” I drove us out toward the little “Raleigh East” airport. As we headed out to that airport, which is in a direction away from the city of Raleigh, she said, “Where in the world are we going for dinner?” As I turned into the little airport, I said, “Tangier Island in the Chesapeake Bay.”
I had made reservations at this little (turns out, only) restaurant on the island. After an exhilarating flight, and landing on the tiniest — and questionable — runway ever, we walked to the restaurant. As we were walking up to the restaurant I remember thinking, “I hope they haven’t messed up our reservation.” We had no worry about that, as when we opened the door, we found the place completely empty. They were expecting us. We ate, and then walked around the little island (LITTLE island). I have this thing about cemeteries. I visit them wherever I travel. As we passed one and observed the tombstones, I noticed that almost all of them in the cemetery shared two or three different last names.
We flew back in the twilight hours and it was quite beautiful (albeit LOUD) in that little plane. We got diverted from the Raleigh East airport, and were directed to land at Raleigh-Durham — with careful attention to not get “caught up in the wake” (or is it drag?) of the big boys landing ahead of us. It was a cool landing — that little plane — teetering in to that grand strand of blue lights.
Later on, in the weeks after the trip, while telling a friend about it, they said, “TANGIER ISLAND? I just saw a special on TV about that place! It seems there is an inordinate amount of incest in the culture there — families marrying within — and the population is being studied from a sociological point of view.”
The memory of the tombstone names made me laugh out loud.
Best date with a man:
On my second date with a guy, we went to Snoopy’s Hot Dogs (a dive stand with dogs to die for), got two each to go, drove over to Fletcher Park, sat on a bench and ate them. Then, we made out behind a tree. I was 44 and he was 49.