A Match Made While Hitchhiking

Our "meet cute."

A couple years ago, I posted this video to instagram, promising to share our “meet cute,” but never got around to it. Today is the day! In an ever dark and disturbing world, why not share a love story. Thanks for indulging me.

Yes. We met while Cree was hitchhiking cross country. 

He was very into Jack Kerouac. Picture a barefoot, scruffy, college kid with a vintage penguin paperback permanently in his back pocket while riding a vintage Schwinn. He was most certainly “a mood.” And as any normal person reading Jack Kerouac would do, he was inspired to hitchhike all the way from Utah to Kansas City. He wanted to see The Get up Kids perform their final concert. (Which turns out wasn’t really their final anything.)  

Long story short, he grew up in a family that never missed church…like ever. And I grew up in a family that always got to church early. I remember it being 30 minutes early and my mom said, “Well it was certainly before the organist!”

The morning after the concert, he woke up early, looked up the Kansas City bus schedule and serendipitously arrived 30 minutes early to the same meeting as me. He sat alone, but my parents, endearingly always the first to welcome new faces, invited him to sit with us.

I was simultaneously mortified and thrilled.

He was wearing vintage polyester pants, a vintage pearl snap shirt, a striped 70’s tie, and well worn cowboy boots. (I can’t remember what the pythagorean theorem is, but you better believe I remember details like these—priorities!) His hair was shaggy with the signature “swoopy” bangs of the 2000’s. All of this made my almost 18 year old heart swoon. He plopped down next to me, but I didn’t dare say a word. I think I mustered a “hi” as my cheeks blazed a bright red. (If you’re also a blusher, you know and understand the deep mortification. No secret is safe.)

After the service, he asked my mom if anyone lived on or near Troost Ave. We in fact lived in the opposite direction, but my mom told him we’d be happy to give him a ride. I heard her whisper to my dad, “This boy is tailor made for Amanda!” When we reached his friend’s apartment, mom, suddenly suspicious, asked how he was getting home home. He said he planned to hitchhike back, and her whole body tensed up, her face stone walled. She asked if his mother knew where he was? He said no, and that was that. As the door shut, my mom said, “Just goes to show, you never really know someone!” She was appalled by the hitchhiking, fearing we had escaped with our lives I’m sure. I, on the other hand, went straight home and wrote a whole journal entry about the cute hitchhiker in polyester pants and cowboy boots. 

Sidenote: I later asked Cree, now knowing he kept a journal too, if he’d written about that day. He had! But it was unfortunately about a cute girl he’d met at the concert, the people who picked him up on the road (the stories he could tell!), and the nice lady, Kathy (not mom’s name) and her daughter (no name), who had given him a ride home from church. 

Fast forward two years later…I’m in the trenches of design school, and a friend mentioned in passing that she’d like to set me up on a blind date with one of her husband’s best friends. I’d never been on a blind date. I was intrigued! So I said yes. She told me to wait for his call that night. I went home straight after class, showered and dressed in my finest “twee” and waited. I won't humiliate myself by saying how long I waited for him to call, but I finally texted my friend later that night admitting I’d been stood up. She apologized and said, “I”m so sorry. Cree can be a real flake.”

I’d only met one Cree before, and asked, “Wait, does he hitchhike?” When she texted, “yes…why?!” I suddenly forgot I’d been stood up and called to tell the whole story, squealing. 

She then filled him in, and I, of course, facebook stalked him as one did in 2007. The swoopy bangs were still intact!

He was even cuter than I remembered. I messaged him, “What?! Do you remember the shy 18 year old and her mother who gave you a ride through downtown Kansas City?” 

He did! After a quick back and forth, he sent this: 

In hindsight, a little pretentious, which is so not Cree. But I took the bait and gave him my address.

I was once again “stood up,” more or less. He never wrote! 

Sidenote: Cree asked me to clarify that he and I were both dating other people at the time. We were half a country apart, AND he was genuinely really busy doing Teach for America and a simultaneous masters degree. (I’ve done my due diligence! But I mean, come on Cree.)

Then, two months later, he sent this from Portland. I was not impressed. 

I was in fact, not in Portland. So when he messaged to ask me out the following summer from Philly, I played it “cool.” I was rooming with the friend who’d set us up initially. We were both interns in New York City. He was coming to visit her, and I was over being stood up! So I made sure I was busy. I did however, leave the possibility of a rain check. 

Two weeks later he had a job interview in the city. He asked me out again, and I said yes.

For old times sake or anxiety—we may never know—I arrived at Penn Station 30 minutes early.  I spotted him immediately. He called right away to tell me he was there and, as one does, I pretended I couldn’t see him. (I wanted to play it safe for a minute. He was, after all, a hitchhiker!)

When I felt brave enough, I walked up behind him and tapped him on the shoulder. He turned and gave me a big hug. I remember even then, he felt safe.

In my pre-date anxiety, I’d put together a very long list of questions I could ask in the event of conversation lulls that were stored carefully in the back of my brain. (I still do this when I meet new people, lol #socialanxiety) I’d also given him a suggested list of date ideas. He picked lunch at the original Shake Shack and the David Byrne art exhibit down by the pier. So, we hopped on the subway and headed to Madison Square Park. When we arrived, the line was so long, it wrapped around the park perimeter. Panicked, I suggested we try somewhere else, but he said, “Let’s stay! We can get to know one another better in line.” Green flag! I continued to pepper him with my pre-prepared questions. Once we got our food and sat down, we took these photos of each other.

The art exhibit was beautiful. He asked me to sit next to him on the floor so we could listen to music while we watched the attendees experience the display. He suggested I play him some favorites, so we listened to Ella Fitzgerald on my ipod. 

After Ella, we walked to see the Statue of Liberty. I remember him sighing as he looked out at the view. Always one to assume the worst, I asked if he was okay. But I’d soon learn that he was very rarely bothered and was always straight forward. He said matter of factly, “It’s just been a really good day.”

I’d had enough “not great” first dates, to know this one was a good one. 

In true 2008 hipster fashion, I had tickets to see She & Him at Terminal 5 that night, so we said our goodbyes right after he asked me out for lunch the next day before his train. 

Teach for America wrapped up a couple weeks later, and he decided to come back to the city. He’d wait for me on the window sill across from my internship at Mucca, and then we’d waltz off for dinner or a movie in the park in the evenings while he followed up on law school applications and job inquiries during the day. When my internship ended, I had a week left in the city, so he stayed too, and we lived it up. Jones Beach one day, art museums the next, kissing and holding hands on rainy walks through the park. 

He’d applied to Columbia for law school, and it was the last school he was waiting to hear back on. When he got his rejection letter, he asked if I’d skip my flight home and let him drive me home from Jersey City (where I lived) to Baltimore (where he’d been living before Philly), and then to my home in Kansas City, before he went back to Idaho. My parents reluctantly agreed. (Thanks mom and dad!) He helped me clean and empty out my apartment and make road trip mix CD’s full of Death Cab and Bright Eyes and The Shins before we hopped on the road. We took our time exploring as we traveled, to my parents' annoyance. (Sorry mom and dad!) But to their credit, they knew very little about this guy aside from the hitchhiking. We stopped to thrift and walk through corn fields and eat at old drive-ins.

I was anxious to re-introduce Cree to my parents. The last time I’d brought a man home to “meet the family,” it was…not great. (My mom wept through dinner and the movies while we all sat on eggshells. She said it was her “time of the month,” but we all knew! She was not a fan.) So I braced myself for the worst! Instead, she reacted in quite the opposite way! Kissing him on the cheek on the first night and professing her “like” for him. A different kind of awkward to be sure, but no tears! (Insert collective sighs of relief.) My family really liked him, and quite frankly, to be honest, still prefer him to me.

I guess the rest is history! 

The older I get, the more I realize how lucky we are that we still like each other. I don’t take that for granted, and I’m really grateful we found one another.  Thanks for indulging my trip down memory lane. It’s fun to remember our young love story in this chaotic and busy, but equally wonderful season of life. 

Baby girl (our fourth) came safe and sound a little over two weeks ago! We are bleary eyed and so in love. She is cozy and cuddly and smells divine. I’ll share more on her birth soon.

Wishing you all a safe week amid the heaviness of the world and news and, well, life.  On this note, if you haven’t listened to Governor Pritzker’s speech, I highly suggest it! Makes me proud to be an honorary Illinoian.

Hugs!—AJJ

PS. I’m going to try and twist Cree’s arm to share some hitchhiking stories, or at least the one that brought us together!

PPS. If you have a fun meet cute, please share! I love love and all the details. Maybe we could make it a reoccurring “column” of sorts.