“The bells are ringing for me and my gal….”
When we were kids, marriage was as absurd a concept as flying to the moon. Who would ever do that? There would, after all, need to be girls involved….girls….who misunderstood baseball, detested playing in the dirt and had absolutely no use for frogs. It was an impossible idea. For us. For the girls, not so much. Oh, they certainly wouldn’t be marrying the likes of us, no doubt about that. No, they were more drawn to fairy-tale princes who would ride in on white steeds and sweep them off to their castles. The trouble always being there were disproportionately more potential brides than princes, a sad fact which remains today, causing a lowering of standards.
Girls have always preferred the idea of a marriage—the immaculate white dress, the beautiful flowered chapel, the ceremony of the vows, the classic exchange of rings—to the subsequent realities, of course. Boys, on the other hand, didn’t care for any of it.
As we got older and looked around us, we became uncomfortably aware of the eventual inevitability of marriage. After all, tough guys like Ted Williams and Joe DiMaggio had fallen into the abyss, what chance did we have? Not much, it turns out. Not a single tree remains standing in the forest of Neverwills, all of them are Sleeping With The Enemy. I got married at an early age of 21 to the beauteous Marilyn Todd, an English Professor’s daughter, after months on the lam from the minions of her dad. We tied the knot in fabulous Folkston, Georgia, where the Fire Department had graciously let us sleep in the front seat of Engine Number Nine the previous night. The marriage lasted a mere 2 1/2 years, mainly due to the follies of youth, inexperience and poor husbanding.
Nine years later, I tried again, hooking up with Harolyn Locklair, an eye-popping model from Miami. This time, it was a hippieish ceremony performed by Universal Life Church minister (and ex-roommate) Danny Levine at a pretty little park adjacent to the Gainesville airport. We invited twenty people and a hundred showed up, including Best Man Rick Nihlen, who released a crate of white doves, for crying out loud. The only unhippielike aspect was Harolyn’s floor-length dress, a form-fitting number in the American Indian versions of tile red, slate blue and maize, which I had liberated from Bonwit Teller’s for a cool $500, an astronomical purchase in those days. I did a little better this time—the marriage lasted ten years before foundering on the rocks of the parties “going in different directions.” Harolyn did get me into the horse business, although I’m not sure whether to thank her or curse her bones. Anyway, this marriage stuff did not seem to be working out too well for me. Oh-for-two and your batting average is, well, zero, right?
Meanwhile, across town, veterinary student Siobhan Ellison was having marital troubles of her own after a mere two years in. Following a nice, respectable wedding at Chalet Suzanne in Lake Wales, Siobhan and her new husband, Scott Cornwell, flew off in her little plane to a Carolina honeymoon before continuing her (and his) academic career in Gainesville. Scott was also pursuing a degree in veterinary medicine and suddenly decided there was no need for two vets in the family nor, come to think of it, any more of this airplane business. If you give a woman the choice of yourself or a career she has pursued since she was seven years old, prepare to be disappointed. So much for that marriage.
Not being especially skilled at it, Siobhan and I have never approached marriage, although those cute little chapels in Las Vegas are tempting and who doesn’t want to get married by Elvis? Of course, if I had my druthers I would prefer a ceremony on top of Half Dome in Yosemite National Park, but the only way you’re going to get Siobhan up there is with a very big crane or a helicopter. We have, by the way, known couples who have been married on the beach, on horseback on the beach, in the ocean, under the ocean, on mountaintops and in giant balloons, all fun locales to be sure. We have never known, however, anybody who decided to get married at the Waffle House. Not until now:
Don’t Sit Under The Pancake Tree With Anyone Else But Me
Once upon a time there was a lonely young man named Ken Foote. He was thirty-nine years old, had been married, then divorced and was having no fun. He got on a dating site called OkCupid, where he met a nice lady named Summer Buckles, who was thirty-four. (These names have not been changed to protect the innocent.) Summer was not enthralled but Ken persisted. Eventually, they took a trip to the Land of Heavy Romance, also known as Disney World, and Ken proposed. No dice. Her suitor was not deterred. Back they went to Orlando for another try. “Strike two!” the umpire said.
“Fraud!” cried the maddened thousands, and echo answered “Fraud!”
But one scornful look from Casey and the audience was awed.
They saw his face grow stern and cold, they saw his muscles strain,
And they knew that Casey wouldn’t let that ball go by again.
Now, if it were me, I might be trying Baltimore next time, or maybe Six Flags Over Utah. But nope, Ken stuck with Disney and his patience was finally rewarded. Summer Buckles said yes when Ken presented his ring (in front of Cinderella’s Castle, of course) and all that was left was planning the venue. The honeymoon, of course, would be in….well, you know.
Nobody really knows why the happy couple finally decided to get married in back of the Waffle House on Route 441 in Gainesville. I mean it isn’t Disney World by a long shot. And it’s not like it’s all the rage. Restaurant manager Danny Rodriguez said it’s the first Waffle House wedding he’d heard of in Florida. Or anywhere. Nonetheless, at 8:45 last Friday morning, Ken emerged from his car, ready for action. The bride arrived just before 9:00, wearing a knee-length white dress and carrying one oversized blue tissue-paper flower. Wedding party attire was semi-casual at best for the dozen or so family members who attended. “After all,” one of them reminded, “it’s the Waffle House, y’all.”
Foote and Buckles wrote their own vows, his short and sweet, hers, written on a folded piece of paper, a little bit longer. Both promised love and patience. Surprisingly, neither applied excessive syrup. Ken’s brother, Matthew, who officiated the ceremony, pronounced them husband and wife by the power vested in him by someone, somewhere. The small audience applauded before retiring to the reception at a couple of reserved tables. Foote and Buckles each cut a purple balloon loose from a bunch of white ones, signifying letting go of the past and moving forward together. They looked firmly into one another’s eyes, the picture of strength and confidence and headed off into their new life together. No one waffled.
Here Comes The Bride, I Think
Now, some of us might think a marriage ceremony at a breakfast restaurant is an oddball notion. You ain’t seen nothin’ yet. Marriage venues and traditions around the world vary from bizarre to incomprehensible. In Scotland, where everybody likes to get dirty just for the hell of it, they have a ceremony called Blackening The Bride. In order to properly celebrate the happiest day in a girl’s life, alleged friends and relatives of the bride show affection by filling up a bucket with such exotic delicacies as curdled milk, dead fish, spoiled food, tar, mud, flour, sausages and a partridge in a pear tree and then dumping it over head of the lucky woman, who is then tied to a tree for some reason—perhaps to prevent her from exacting retribution. After all this quiets down, the bedraggled heroine is carried off to a bar for a night of drinking. Now, wait a minute—all this has a purpose. The feeling being that a person who can handle all this can withstand anything, even marriage.
In China, wedding day preparation can be emotionally draining but brides and females of the Tujia people take matters to a whole new level. Starting one month in advance of the ceremony, the bride will be obliged to cry for one hour every day. Ten days into the action, Mom joins in and ten days after that, the grandmother. By the end of the month, every female in the family is crying alongside the bride. This is thought to be some kind of expression of joy but it sounds to me like a gathering of Red Sox fans after the 2014 season.
In parts of India, women born as Mangliks—defined by some wacky astrological business of Mars and Saturn both being “under the seventh house”—are cursed and thought to be likely to cause the eventual husbands an early death. But don’t you worry one smidgen, those crafty Indians have a solution to the problem. In order to ward off the curse, these women are first married to a tree. Yep, that’s right. Any old tree will do. Then, alas, the unfortunate tree is cut down. Deserts get started this way. Can we substitute large weeds in the future?
Better Hit The John, Bambang….It’s A Long Time From May To December.
You may want to send regrets if you get invited to a wedding in Indonesia, where honeymooners are housebound for three days and nights following the wedding and not allowed to use the toilet. Nobody is sure how this custom got started but recently there have been extensive protests by the porcelain industry. Anyway, the practice is supposed to produce a happy marriage filled with healthy babies, so try it if you’re having problems.
And while were on the subject, how about those Frenchmen? In France, the bridal party collects all the reception leftovers and mixes them up in a toilet bowl. The delicious results (still in the toilet) are carried off to the lucky couple’s room, where everybody remains until the bride and groom devour the entire lot. This wonderful concoction is supposed to fuel the couple for a great night ahead after they stop throwing up.
Back in India again, in 2006 a Hindu woman claimed she had fallen in love with a snake. In the U.S., we see this all the time, but wait—the Hindu woman was talking about the herpetological variety. Anyway, she decided to actually go out and marry the snake, who apparently had no say in the matter. Illustrating the lack of compelling activities in India, two thousand people showed up for the ceremony. None of them was the snake, who apparently had better things to do. The groom was, however, represented by a brass likeness of himself.
In Sudan (you know this one has to be good, right?), there is a law that dictates that a man caught sleeping with a woman must marry her immediately to salvage the honor of her family, which is all well and good. In 2006, however, someone extended this law to include goats. A poor schmuck named Charles Tombe was caught in the act with little Baabaara and subsequently forced to marry her. Surprisingly, the couple is very happy, enjoying a rustic life in the country and six kids. (Oh, stop it, Bill!)
A former soldier from San Francisco claimed she had fallen in love with the Eiffel Tower. The French Government would not permit a marriage ceremony on site but she changed her name anyway. So meet Erika La Tour Eiffel. Erika claims when she was young and didn’t know any better, she had a long-term relationship with a bow and she still cares deeply for a fence she keeps at home, but none of this compromises her wedded commitment to the Tower.
Finally, in England we meet the plucky Michelle Thomas, whose unfortunate fiance Kevin Lavelle was offed in a gruesome gang attack while working away from home to raise money for his wedding. Not one to be easily deterred, Michelle decided she was going to get married anyway—in the morgue of Oxford’s John Radcliffe Hospital, where Kevin lay dead. By all accounts, it was a touching ceremony which went off without a hitch. Except for that extended pause when the Catholic priest absentmindedly asked Kevin if he took this woman “in sickness and in health.” As for Michelle, there’s no doubt she did.
That’s all, folks. Especially for Kevin.
