On December 20, 2016, the Iowa Hawkeyes women’s and men’s basketball team played a true doubleheader, two games for a single ticket. I already had scheduled PTO – I needed to use excess days before end of the year – so decided to drive to Iowa City and watch the games. However, the highlight of that specific day were not the games.
Mom also skipped work and met me in Iowa City, and we spent a couple of hours together. After lunch at Z’Mariks Noodle Cafe, we walked (almost) next door to Prairie Lights Bookstore. I love Prairie Lights for its history section, which always has unique books that I didn’t know about – probably the bookstore I enjoy most for their history books outside of Foyles in London. Mom browsed, and though multiple books caught her eye, though I don’t know if she bought anything (typically she didn’t). Next we walked around the corner to Iowa Book and Supply (now simply Iowa Book) and perused the Iowa sweatshirts (my wife never thinks I have enough). Our final stop was Molly’s Cupcakes, where the treats are delightful and, after some pushback, she ordered one and definitely enjoyed whatever over-the-top cupcake it was.
Throughout our time together, at each stop and as we walked, we constantly talked about life, the universe, and everything. [Unfortunately, she never read Douglas Adams‘ The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and I had to explain the importance of the number 42.] Though the total walking distance was perhaps two square blocks, the personal distant traveled was immensely more important, some topics/subjects I don’t think we’d discussed before. After about three hours, she wanted to drive and get home before dark, and I had games at Carver-Hawkeye Arena to attend.
As we walked back to her car, I asked if this was the first time we’d spent together, by ourselves without other siblings, since my oldest sister was born. She thought about it and agreed that it might have been. [It may not have been, I am trying to remember who, if anyone, was with us when she drove me to college. Seems unlikely there was not at least one younger siblings along but truthfully don’t remember.]
When planning a visit my wife and I would offer to drive her way, but she preferred Iowa City and did not care about the extra distance. Future visits often included similar stops: one time sat in the Prairie Lights cafe for 90 minutes talking about this and that and whatever. However, the first time together in Iowa City was by far the most meaningful.
Image Credit
Courtesy of the Iowa City Downtown District.
