The episode title refers to the 1973 film '' The Way We Were '' . Similarly , the twelfth episode of Season 2 was titled " The Way We Was " . The camps '' See-A-Tree '' and '' Land-A-Man '' are an apparent homage to the 1960s sitcom '' Camp Runamuck '' which focused on a camp for unprivileged kids and another quite different camp for girls . When Homer needs to cross the river to meet Marge for their date , Homer looks between the water and a nearby rowboat , and states " Hmmm ... It 's row versus wade ... and it 's my right to choose . " Near the end when Homer is rummaging through his memory box , he finds a letter from his " old pen pal " . Then he says : " Someday , I 'll write you back , Osama " . When Homer shows Marge his half of the heart , he says he put it next to his IBM stock — ing . The Sea Captain sings a verse from the 1958 Kingston Trio song " Tom Dooley " . It also contains a hit song by The Turtles entitled " Happy Together " which later appears in '' The Simpsons Movie '' . In her flashback , Marge tells Homer during their date that she likes Parliament , but not Funkadelic , a reference to the fact that they were both fronted by funk musician George Clinton . The scene which depicts Homer and his friends escaping by bicycle from a landing jet plane is a loose reference to a similar situation involving teenage Art Zuke during the events of the Gimli Glider incident in 1983
Gimli Glider
Gimli Glider
The Way We Weren't