This is just adorable. On my afternoon peregrination around Hyde Park, I came across this new historical marker, which sits in front of the former location of Baskin-Robbins. Although my photo cut it off a bit, you can read what it’s about:
This is the kind of historical marker I like.
Transcript:
“On our first date, I treated her to the finest ice cream Baskin-Robbins had to offer, our dinner table doubling as the curb. I kissed her, and it tasted like chocolate.”
President Barack Obama. From an interview in O, The Oprah Magazine, Image courtesy of Blackpast.org
On this site, President Barack Obama first kissed Michelle Obama.
Google revealed that this marker is apparently well known. The Chicago Tribune describes it, along with a comment by a cynical member of Generation Z:
But things are a lot different today than they were back in 1989.
Fifteen-year-old Justen Jackson, a ninth-grader at Hyde Park Academy, said it would be hard to find a girl who would be impressed with a first date at an ice cream shop.
“It’s nice, but I wouldn’t bring anyone here on a first date,” Justen said. “They’re going to want to go somewhere better than Subway or Baskin-Robbins.”
Since when did love become more about fancy repasts than togetherness?
Someone tell him “Look inward, grasshopper!”
Mark Twain reflected to the effect that when Clemens himself was a boy he thought his father the most stupid man alive, and that when young Clemens himself reached manhood, he was amazed at how much the old man had learned.
No one possibly knows as much as an adolescent male, especially in the U.S.
I too have forgotten that vast tome of knowledge I held at 15. 🙂
Would that I could have myself now advising myself at 14, inasmuch as at the time I didn’t have a parent so inclined. It’s desirable to have a parent interested in what’s going on beyond ones arm’s-length or beyond the local gossipy Peyton Place area or beyond the province/region.
loverly!
Justen Jackson knows nothing about love. I think a lot of girls would love a date at a café or ice cream shop. I have yet to meet a girl who doesn’t like icecream.
Lots of people have simple beginnings to what will turn out to be the beginning of a major twitterpation. I and my wife of 25 or so years got our start over an awkward conversation about some dead bugs in her window. On our first date I drove the wrong way down a one-way street. ‘Ya never know!
My first date with my then future wife was a complete disaster for me. I was sure I would never see her again.
Looking at that photo created a lump in my 86yr
old, thrice-married throat !
Wow John. Thrice…I’ve only done it once for 39 years so far.
Memorable first dates are not about the where or even the what but more about how things happen. My first date with my now late wife didn’t even start out as a date – it was supposed to be a group going to a movie – and I didn’t even like her romantically then, but then something happened on the way to the movie and there was no turning back for either of us. It didn’t hurt that the movie was rather steamy.
“Since when did love become more about fancy repasts than togetherness?”
Exactly.
and any person who feels otherwise is not a worthy mate. period.
“Since when did love become more about fancy repasts than togetherness?
The advent of “infotainment” and social media?
This is a lovely story.
I think Justen Jackson is doomed to have a rather sad love life if this is his attitude, and this is the type of person he has first dates with.
And now she goes by FLOTUS!
Aawww – the photo on the historical marker is really sweet. May the Obamas (and all the partnered WEIT readers, for that matter) have many more happy, healthy years together.
Things are not that different back in 1989,except for this stupid internet and cell phones that run peoples lives .
My favorite B&R flavor is the summer seasonal Baseball Nut, vanilla with black raspberry and cashews. My long time favorite, of any ice cream is black walnut ( thanks to my grandma) but, if anyone is passing through or near Olathe, Kansas, stop in at Sylas & Maddy’s Homemade Ice Cream Shop, you will not be disappointed! Now to prove that pessimistic young whipper snapper wrong…any takers, Ladies? Turn this single scoop into a double?
just kidding. I’ll die alone, but with plenty of ice cream!
Justen is probably looking for a girl who likes video games anyway
I never really thought about it expressly before, out of deference to the First Lady and her husband, but now that it’s out there, somewhere in my subconscious I always imagined that kissing Girlfriend would taste like a fine, rich Godiva chocolate, whether she had recently eaten ice cream or not.
What’s with this Gen Z? Don’t they listen to Pink?
Shouldn’t it be “the kerb doubled as our dinner table”?
Also…my wife does not like ice-cream and she doesn’t like chocolate. And, believe it or not, our first date was an overnight snow camp half way up a mountain. I was leaving the place where we both worked and, on my last day, as I was departing, I mentioned the solo snow camp I was planning…and she asked if she could come.
Reblogged this on Shashank Patel.
I love it! Very romantic.
Aww. 🙂
I met my husband when he came down to my lab to borrow a pH meter…I doubt there’s a plaque…
Ha ha – well if the plaque said what you wrote, I think that would be a very good plaque because it would make me laugh.