In fact, they met on a canoe.
Matt and Lynne’s mutual friend Mary Beth sets up a camping trip every year. In the summer of 2004, she planned a camping trip/float trip in the Lake of the Ozarks, in Missouri. As Mary Beth’s college friend, Lynne was invited. And, as Mary Beth’s high school friend, so was Matt.
Also invited was Mary Beth and Lynne’s friend Sarah. Important things to know about Sarah: Sarah is great fun and up for anything. When Lynne suggested that they join a softball summer league together, Sarah was all for it. When Lynne invited Sarah to hike the Grand Canyon, Sarah excitedly agreed. Of course, volunteering for such activities did not mean that Sarah knew anything about them or had any experience that might prepare her to participate. When she signed up for softball, Sarah didn’t know how to hold a bat, had never used a glove, and had no idea how to throw. Not to mention that she didn’t particularly like to sweat or get dirty. When she signed up for the Grand Canyon trip, she had a deadly fear of spiders and didn’t particularly like to sleep or pee outside. The sweating thing was still a problem.
So, naturally, when Sarah enthusiastically signed up for the canoeing trip, she had never actually been in a canoe. Although Matt would argue otherwise, Lynne contends that this detail is incredibly important in the Matt and Lynne Meeting Story.
On the first day of the camping trip, all campers (including such characters as Matt, his sister Megan, Best Man Alex Cruz and his now-wife Ann, Mary Beth and her now-husband Matt, Julie Get-Out-Of-My-Canoe Purpura and her husband Steve, and Lynne and Sarah) headed upriver to the starting point of the Float Trip. At this point in our story, most of these campers did not know one another. Their first task was to get themselves and all of their stuff into their canoes and push away from the riverbank.
Lynne, who had been involved in Girl Scouts from first grade through high school, took the opportunity to teach Sarah the basics of canoeing: where to sit, how to paddle, how to steer. They loaded their snacks, sunscreen, and spare jackets into the center of the boat and prepared to launch.
At this point, Matt intervened. He quite politely offered to help them into the boat and to push them off from the shore. But Lynne did not want to be babied by a guy she didn’t know. She knew how to canoe. Not to mention that fact that she was as strong as any guy, she thought. She could push the boat away from the shore herself, thankyouverymuch, and she didn’t exactly appreciate Matt’s assumption that she couldn’t. What was he, a sexist or something? So she told him no. She was perfectly capable of handling the boat herself. Hmfph.
Lynne and Sarah got their canoe into the water (unassisted), with Sarah at the front and Lynne steering from the rear. For the first 20 feet, the river was shallow and calm. Lynne gave Sarah further instruction in paddling and steering, and their boat floated—a little choppily—downriver.
Then they hit a ninety degree bend in the river—with a huge log stuck in the middle of it. The water moved fast around the fallen log. Other canoes were capsized, other boaters flailing to prevent collision. It was like an Indy Car pileup. Lynne and Sarah struggled. Sarah screamed that she didn’t know what to do. They paddled and steered, trying (in vain) to steer clear of the fallen log and the other distressed canoers. They ran into the fallen log with full force, and their boat got sucked under in the current. They capsized. Lynne and Sarah fell out. So did all of their (now soggy) snacks, their dry changes of clothes. Their canoe sunk deep into the water and floated downstream without them.
Lynne and Sarah handled this unfortunate incident like champs. They gathered together their paddles and their belongings, and they waded downriver to retrieve the canoe and pull it toward shore. The managed to drag the canoe, which by then was heavy and full of water, to the river’s edge. They piled all of their wet stuff on the sand.
Lynne knew what had to happen next. They needed to flip the canoe over, then get underneath it and push up—lifting the canoe high over their heads and allowing all of that river water to drain out. She explained these instructions to Sarah, and they gave it a try. Then another. But that million-pound waterlogged canoe was too heavy for them; it wouldn’t budge. They were screwed.
Just then, Matt and his sister Megan rounded the Curve of Death unscathed and spotted Lynne and Sarah struggling on the shore. They effortlessly steered their canoe over to the riverbank (imagine bugles playing in the background here), and Matt got out to help. He found it quite funny that Little Miss Super Girl Scout had managed to capsize within 50 feet of the spot where she’d entered the water. And, of course, he had not forgotten that—mere moments before—Lynne had told him to Take His Help and Shove It.
So Lynne had to eat her pride and ask Matt for help bailing the water out of her canoe. Matt helped, but not without teasing her about her super-steering skills. And that’s where all the magic started.
Since then, things have been much the same. Matt does his best to take care of Lynne, often going out of his way to be helpful and always appearing miraculously when she’s gotten herself stuck in a jam. And Lynne continues to be stubborn and to do her best to take on the world. But regardless of the situation or the task at hand, they seem to find themselves together at the end of it…laughing together and enjoying the ride.
And Lynne continues to blame any flaws in her canoeing ability on Sarah.
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