30 years ago?

Dear Blog Reader.

I hope that this finds you doing well. I am doing fine, thank you very much. The lovely Miss Beverly

and I are on the cusp of our 30^th wedding anniversary. Very cool. Yes, 30 years ago tonight we were in the basement of the 1^st Brethren Church of North Manchester looking at coveted slides of younger versions of Roger and the lovely Miss Beverly; eating Kentucky Fried Chicken. At the time I was wondering, why my mom was making such a big deal over eating Original Recipe in the basement. I was wondering, why the red checked table cloths, the candles, the family photos on the tables. My mom was a pioneer in wedding décor overkill—she really would have loved Pinterest. This was all just too much hassle. I thought, “Just get me through the next 20 hours or so.”  

30 years ago we were stopping by the farm where my soon to be brother in law, Mike was volunteering his sleep time to stay up with the roasting pig to marinate and turn it until it was done.

Maybe when you read this; 30 years ago Bev and I would have been stopping by the park amazed at all of the work that the friends were going through for this hog roast/square dance/reception in the park. The McDonald’s orange drink machine was set up. The roast pig was coming through the door; the outside crisp and juices oozing through the cracks, the smell heavenly. Or maybe the cake was being delivered, anticipation growing over whether there would be cake smashing or kindness at the cutting time. Over there, under a tree, you may have seen a freshly cleaned horse tank half full of ice water and 100 watermelons because that is what $100 would buy you when your dad gave you a $100 bill and told you to go to the wholesale vegetable depot and buy some watermelons in 1985.

Maybe at the time you read this, 30 years ago, I would have been sitting on the church steps waiting to get changed into the tux, talking to my Uncle Stanley on said church steps, or listening through an open window to the bridesmaids laughing while getting dressed in the side room to the sanctuary. The day would have been warming up, getting hot for an early June wedding, decisions being made way above my pay grade to keep the sanctuary closed up tight until just before the ceremony to “keep the morning cool in and then open the windows right before the ceremony to let the little breeze there was in to keep us as cool as possible.”

Thirty years before your reading of these words, my best man, Craig Huss (Hip-pie) and I would have found the masking tape to spell out HE  LP on my left and right shoe soles to be revealed when I knelt down to wash the lovely Miss Beverly’s feet during the foot washing ceremony; a ceremony that was scandalous for my side, (Grandma Nannie was rumored to have whispered, “didn’t she wash her feet before the wedding?”) and perfectly normal for the 1^st Brethren cultists, who practice foot washing at holy communion.

In other breaks of tradition, I would have been getting my first sight of the Lovely Miss Beverly carrying a bouquet with daisies, and more daisies in her hair for pictures before the ceremony. And her seeing me in my tux with yellow tie and yellow cummerbund; ridiculous in hindsight, but hey, we looked smoking back then. We were bound and determined to get the pictures out of the way before the wedding because there was pig and watermelon to eat in the park and squares to dance in the shelter.

At the time of your reading, thirty years earlier, the lovely Miss Beverly would have been walking down the aisle. Roger Callahan, our campus minister, would have already taken the handkerchief out of his breast pocket to dab at his brow. Jim Miller, the lovely Miss Beverly’s youth camp minister would have been cool at the side.

Maybe your 30 year flashback would have been Roger saying that he paused when he heard that we wanted our wedding scripture to come from a lamenting prophet; Jeremiah; all doom and gloom Jeremiah. How do you craft a wedding message from a lamenting prophet? But He had a plan for us, a plan to prosper us and not to harm us, plans to give us hope and a future. And after describing a lot of bad stuff, “therefore build houses and settle down; plant gardens and eat what they produce.” Then Roger read to us a small excerpt describing marriage as a lifelong conversation, knowing the other person is there even in the silence; until one day, the silence signals an end. There were the vows about purified gold through fire. There was the small town noon fire siren going off during the lovely Miss Beverly’s memorized vows that she never remembers hearing. There was the kneeling for foot washing, the small titters for those who could see my shoes, and suddenly we were husband and wife.

If you read this around 2:00, we would have been standing on a side walk under a big shade tree receiving hugs, well wishes and firm handshakes from loved one from near and far. There we are in the back of Hip-pie’s convertible Chrysler Lebaron, top down, and riding on the backseat back rest to the park like it was the 500 parade.

How could 300 people eat that big of a pig that fast? There was the uncomfortable explanation to my Grandmother and Great Aunts that we would not be opening the presents at the reception. There was too much eating and celebrating to do. Plus we had to square dance. I can still see three very sour expressions in a row right in front of the gift table. Bev and I still chuckle when we use the phrase “the judge’s stand”. Maybe you remember seeing them smile at the dancers.

By now 30 years ago, the rest of the afternoon was a blur. There is dancing, refilling friend’s glasses with beverage, more pictures, a little angst between my dad and cousin about who was going to drive 2 hours home for the evening milking and how late that milking was going to get done (dairy farmers). Three hundred people can eat an entire pig in about 30 minutes flat. Its remains looked like a skeleton pulled from the Amazon during piranha season. However, they can’t eat one third of a watermelon apiece. What was I thinking? But they can take them home with them so maybe you remember one rolling around in your back seat on the way home.

The shadow’s getting longer, changing out of wedding clothes, walking over to the green Camaro, finding the “honeymoon night survival package” from the Faulkners, and driving off to a small apartment in West Lafayette, suddenly married.

All of that 30 years ago. Or was it yesterday.

Take care.

Roger.