Merrie H. Reagan

Sunday, May 27, 2007
This morning, I visited French Memories, a café, located in Cohasset Village. Shortly after sitting down on a chair facing a small table here, I observed my brother, Jared, and Elissa, the wife of Jared, and their three children. All were entering the charming, small bakery and bistro. Having ended residing in Scotland, Jared and Elissa decided to inhabit Cohasset for several years, before residing in England, where Eilene was born and reared. Jared has not resided in Cohasset since leaving here after he graduated from high school; he has regularly visited Cohasset during holidays. Unexpectedly seeing Jared and Elissa and also greeting, hugging, and kissing five-year-old nephew Jamus, three-year-old niece Brynn, and one-year-old Rylan was contenting.
While sitting inside the café, I was wearing spectacles, which enabled me to read the Sunday newspaper. Alternately, I drank herbal tea and ate a blueberry scone. When I suddenly heard noise, which prompted me to look upward, I saw and addressed a former longtime Cohasset resident, Norrie Edwards. Norrie was also seated and facing a table that was situated near me. She was waiting for fellow Sunday morning church goers, who were meeting her at French Memories; the weekly churchgoers include a sister of Norrie, named Addie Simons.
As Norrie and I talked cheerfully for a few moments, I quietly recalled being a high school freshman. Ellen Edwards, a daughter of Norrie and her late husband, Bill Edwards, married her high school sweetheart, Mitch Harrison, sometime in the early 1970s. Mitch and I had dated for several months before he and Ellen met; a relationship with Mitch was the first boyfriend experience I underwent.
Mitch and I were close when he was a tenth-grade Cohasset High School (CHS) student and I was a ninth-grade student who also attended the high school. The “first love” relationship did not physically survive, beyond six months. Mitch and I have not seen one another, except for a few times, in passing, since we parted. Mitch and Ellen began dating shortly after Mitch and I broke up. Mitch and Ellen were married shortly after graduating from colleges they attended.
When Mitch and I were dating, one day I made him a chocolate birthday cake, which I covered with vanilla frosting, before placing it upon two paper plates and covering it with aluminum foil. I carried the present to school and directly thereafter, I carefully placed it in the high school locker that was assigned to me when the school year began. Not wanting him to dislike eating a piece of the cake, I was hesitant about giving Mitch the homemade birthday present. This is probably why I stored a baked good in a locker for nearly three full days. One afternoon, near or following the birthday of Mitch, I offered him a slice of the cake. He had not been informed that the treat had been sitting in a locker for almost seventy-two hours. Accepting and then eating a cake portion, he critiqued the food gift as being “delicious” and then said, “Thank you,” before he finished consuming the slice.
I was not anywhere near ready for a steady romantic relationship when Mitch and I were dating. If I was ready for such a relationship, would I have given Mitch an unrefrigerated, almost three-day-old slice of frosted birthday cake? I think not. I would have at least known how to pack it with ice.