TheBanyanTree: Frank

[Margaret R. Kramer]

Where to start with this?

I saw Frank’s profile on eHarmony and sent him a set of questions with
multiple choice answers.  He answered them and sent one back for me.  Then
he sent an icebreaker.  And I sent an icebreaker.  Then we began emailing
each other.  Then texting.  Talking on the phone.

And now meeting for the first time this weekend.

Last weekend, he was all set for us to get engaged.  But thank goodness,
cooler heads prevailed, and we’ve dialed that back down to Frank moving here
in the fall.

I can handle living together.  And so can he.  

And since we’re giving ourselves an open timeline, if things don’t work out
in a few months, we’re not over-committed.

Now, the weekend.

Frank lives in Sioux City, IA, but is working at a power plant construction
project in O’Fallon, IL, just outside of St Louis, MO.  He’s a boilermaker
and has been for 35 years.  He’s never been married nor had children.  He’s
just four months older than me. 

He drove up to Minnesota after leaving work at noon on Friday, May 28.

Nine hours of driving and 574 miles.

He got to my house about 1:00 am.

It was a bit awkward and uncomfortable at first, because I’m shy by nature,
and he is, too.  I’m a big shot online, but in person, it takes me a while
to warm up to someone I don’t know, even though we’ve been emailing,
texting, and talking for a couple of weeks.

But after that initial period of shyness, it slipped away, and it was OK.  

I cooked breakfast for us.  We read the newspapers and talked.  We drove out
to my childhood in my idyllic middle class neighborhood.  Then we drove by
Ray’s and my old house, which is still listed.  It’s in bad shape, even
though it looks like the inside has been cleaned up.

We ate a picnic lunch at Hidden Falls park along the Mississippi River.

We drove out to Fort Snelling National Cemetery and visited Ray and my
grandparents.  The cemetery is decked out this Memorial Day weekend with
hundreds of American flags dancing in the early summer breeze.  Many people
have left flowers and flags on their loved ones graves.

After we got back, I grilled wild rice brats for us on the grill that warm
Saturday night.

I found out that Frank likes to be outside as much as I do.  He loves
sitting on the deck and watching the birds flit in and out of the leaves in
the lilac bushes.

Shadow, who usually acts weird when a new person is in the house, treated
Frank just like one of us.  No weirdness, no displays of dominance, just
total acceptance.

Frank loved watching the interplay between the cats and the dogs.

Frank is physically loving.  He stays on an emotional even keel.  He has
arterial fibrillation and takes medication for it.

He drinks decaffeinated coffee while I load up on caffeine.  He drinks diet
root beer.
 
He asks lots of questions.  He doesn’t use the words “I” and “me” very much.
He doesn’t swear.  I do. 

He’s slow to reveal things about himself, so it’s special when he decides to
talk about previous relationships.

He helps in the kitchen, even though he can’t cook.  He doesn’t talk every
single minute.  Silence is OK.  He likes to eat.  He liked my homemade
rhubarb coffeecake.

We weren’t glued together.  We could separate and do things by ourselves.
He lives in the present.

We had lunch at Fort Snelling State Park yesterday.  A cold front came
through and pushed out the hot air.  We drove to downtown Minneapolis and
walked across the Stone Arch Bridge.  I had shown Frank my photos from the
35W bridge collapse in 2007 and from the Stone Arch Bridge, we could see the
new 35W bridge.

Frank loves things that concern mechanical and construction and engineering.


He’s never been to Target, so we stopped in and we bought more diet root
beer.

He’s never been to Chipotle before.  He loved those big, fat burritos.

He liked my Volkswagen.

He waited in the car while I went tanning.  He was surprised guys go
tanning, too, as he saw a guy leave the tanning salon.

We went out to dinner last night, DeGidio’s, an Italian place in St Paul.
He drove us there in his monster Dodge Ram diesel pick-up.

We sat in the kitchen with our laptops several times during the visit,
sharing information and showing each other various things.  I showed him how
to download his photos from his camera and how to attach them to an email.

He showed me his spreadsheet.  My goodness, he has a lot of money!  I’m
almost embarrassed to show him my finances and I probably won’t for a while.
He’s a tenacious saver.  He almost had a heart attack when I told him my
mortgage was $2,000 a month.

We talked about God this morning.  I’m not a believer, which kind of
bothered him.  I’ll never figure out why atheists in general are more
accepting of Christians than they are of us.  But there it is.  He was
raised Catholic and won’t even consider looking at another religion.

I suggested going to other places of worship, such as synagogues, churches,
mosques, Hindu temples or Buddhist services.  It seems to me that most
religions have so many common elements, that I don’t believe there is one
true religion, so why does it make a difference how or where someone chooses
to worship? 

I teased him and told him he was trying to convert me.  No such thing, he
replied, and seconds later suggested going to a Catholic church next time he
was up here.  Funny.  Atheists just want to be left in peace and not dragged
off to some church.

Our next rendezvous will be the 4th of July weekend.  I’ll have Friday
through Monday off.  The only plan I had was going to the Twins game.  I
ordered two more tickets for Frank and I.  We won’t be able to sit with my
family, but we can all go to the game together.

We shared lots of love.  Lots of conversation.  Lots of hugs.  Lots of
commonality.  He’s not Ray, but I can be comfortable with him, just as Frank
is with me.

We finished the introduction, and started on Chapter One.  Now we’ll see
where the story will take us.  Maybe it will be a short story or a long,
epic novel.

And we’re just going to take it slow and easy.  No diamond rings.  They’re
not needed.

Margaret R. Kramer
margaretkramer at comcast.net
www.linkedin.com/in/margaretkramer

The body is your temple.  Keep it pure and clean for the soul to reside
in.  
-B.K.S. Iyengar, Yoga: The Path To Holistic Health