Dancing With A New Partner

Cowboy Bob, Miss Gail and Internet Dating

Photography by Stu Hoefle and Contributed by Gail Cushman

Rachel Wolchin once said, “if life can remove someone you never dreamt of losing, it can replace them with someone you never dreamt of having.”

The quote perfectly describes the relationship between Robert Mitchell and Gail Cushman whose paths would have never crossed had either of them failed to consciously decide to “get on with their lives.”

Gail was married to her late husband, Tom, for over fifty years. Serving as a Marine, teacher, principal, and superintendent of schools in Idaho before beginning her writing career, Gail, with Tom by her side, managed to find time to raise two children and travel the world. Her life with Tom was full and active. They loved cruises and visited all seven continents together.  

Now a published author, Gail launched her writing career with a fictional series about several couples in their sixties and their comical antics. When Tom fell sick, her career was placed on hold for almost a decade as she was his primary caregiver. His passage in 2020 was an enormous loss and she asked herself “what do I do now?” For so long, her focus had been caring for her husband once he was gone, a void remained.

Robert Mitchell’s life shared similarities. Married to his wife, Patty, for over forty years, the adventurous couple also crossed the world in their travels. Patty was a commercial airline pilot and Robert an aircraft mechanic. He spent years as a consultant for establishing aircraft painting shops around the country and was also an expert witness in aircraft corrosion.

He and Patty owned an FBO in Belgrade before the change to raising breeding stock on their ranch in Carbon County and along the Musselshell River. Craving a grand adventure, just fourteen years before Patty’s death, the couple sold everything, bought a 48-foot boat and, for a decade, explored the Great Loop, a continuous waterway from which boaters can explore Eastern North America.

“We had a lot of fun,” Robert said. “We spent time in the Great Lakes, then on the Intercoastal Waterway up the east coast to New York.”

When that adventure had run its course, Robert and Patty settled outside of Columbus, Montana and began enjoying a slower paced life. Then Patty became sick, and Robert tenderly cared for her until she lost her battle with cancer in 2020.

“After Patty’s death, I likened the time to the sound of silence,” Robert said. “After her funeral, I remember hoping someone would stop by or call.”

Gail agreed.

“It’s a very lonely time,” she recalled. “Especially if you’ve been caring for someone. You really do wonder what to do next.”

For Gail, with encouragement from her daughter, the next move was blogging. “Write what you know: cruises and being old,” her daughter said, half-jokingly. So, in addition to continuing to write books, she added a twice weekly, humorous blog to her repertoire and cautiously set up an online dating profile.

Six months after Patty’s death, Robert’s grandson spoke rather bluntly with him. Robert felt stuck and knew if he didn’t do something he would stay stuck. His grandson simply said to him, “Get a grip, Grampa. It’s time to start living again.”

Without a clue as to how to “start again,” Robert, too, decided to try online dating. He gathered several humorous memories from dates before meeting Gail.

“Her picture stopped me first,” he said, his eyes twinkling. “What a nice-looking lady.”

Gail laughed and said she took it very slowly when Robert reached out to her.

“For months we messaged through the site and then by text, finally phone calls,” she explained.

When they decided to meet, it took sacrifice from both as they lived 600 miles apart. At an agreed upon restaurant, halfway between Boise, Idaho and Columbus, Montana, Gail waited. She promised herself, “if he’s fifteen minutes late, I’m leaving…”

He wasn’t and she didn’t.

“He said, (to the server), ‘we are internet dating, and this is our first date,’ and picked up my hand and kissed it. My eyes got big, but I didn’t say anything,” Gail wrote in a blog post about meeting Robert.

“‘First date? You guys are a little old for a first date’ the server said. Her badge read Trainee, and her accompanying trainer punched her in the arm. She corrected herself, ‘well, you can’t be too old to try something new.’

“‘True, I’m 75 and he’s 77. Do you think we are too old for going on a date?’ I said, smiling, wondering what to do about my hand, which had moved to his cheek, but I was uncharacteristically silent.”

And so began what they would both say has been “a hell of a good time.”

Gail’s blogs have since shared of many aspects of their relationship from the trepidation of dating and their mutual decision to take the next step to her choice to sell her home in Boise and move to Columbus and the many conversations about their families and how they would accept, or not, their growing bond.

“We might have moved fast,” Robert said. “But we’re not going to get any younger.”

In an unexpected twist to their journey, Robert started blogging along with Gail. His humorous stories, in which he pokes fun at himself, offer historical accounts of Carbon County folks and he shares perspective on his relationship with Gail.

“My Idaho lady, Miss Gail, who most of you know writes books as the Wrinkly Bits series and her blog, is a heck of writer. She wrote and published four books and has about four or five more written but not published. She is a bundle of energy, smart, sassy, and beats me in Scrabble with both eyes closed. My saving grace is that I know how to make her laugh and sometimes can distract her when I play a word like ‘quzt’ and give her a meaning that she must find in the dictionary. Anyway, this old cowboy tries to keep up with that young lady and after I did a few blogs, I found I really like to write,” he wrote in his portion of the blog on which he signed off, ‘Cowboy Bob.’

Now, the two have collaborated and are in the process of writing a book together entitled “Widows and Widowers, Dancing with a New Partner,” a humorous, yet serious guide to senior dating. In it, the two share their love story about how two happily married people were suddenly left alone and death and grief took over their lives. They share about how they picked up the pieces and made the decision to do something about their loneliness, how they met and fell in love over the internet, and how laughter and adventure became part of their lives once again. Their hope is that others in the throes of loneliness will find encouragement in their story and utilize their suggestions on the top dating sites for seniors and how to cautiously move forward.

“There’s a lot of ‘I wish I would have…’ when you lose your spouse,” Robert said. “We have been given a second chance. Romance is a wonderful way to make you feel alive.”

“So, these two old fools are headed for adventures, come hell or high water, although she added no ice climbing, snowshoe camping, or naked sky diving. No ladders, no driving over triple digits, and a few more. Well, a man has to give a little, and she is doggone sure worth giving up one or two of those, and I had to agree about the ladder thing, but the rest, what she doesn’t know won’t hurt her,” Cowboy Bob wrote in his joyous outlook for the future.