A Wonderful Wedding and a Helluvah Hora!

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A Strange Welcome to Wormtown

I flew out of Bozeman early Friday morning and arrived in Boston, Massachussetts that evening just in time to grab the silver line bus to South Station to meet Nick, an old high school friend of mine who had come east from Seattle to attend the ceremony and get some R and R as they call it. After Haggiling with the Bostonian vendor at south station I procured myself a fine cuisine of Apple Pop-Over and Nantucket Necter's most precious half and half (1/2 lemonade and 1/2 iced tea, some may know of it by the legendary name "Arnold Palmer") and Nick and I procedded to hope on the commuter train from Boston to Worcester. Nick and I discovered quite an amazing fact on the Commuter Train, one way to quickly make friends with managers of High Quality Buisness Shoe companies in Boston, is to bring up the classic game "Oregon Trail". Nick and I were discussing a shirt I had seen that had a starting inventory of the Oregon Trail on the front and on the back the phrase "Set the Rations to Meager and the Pace to Strenuous" and how it was kind of humorous and the ridiculous hunting scenarios, where one kills, quite literally, a ton of Buffalo, and you only take 100 something pounds of meat. This attracted our Shoe Store Manager friend, and we continued to chit chat about Apple II's and all that is early computer games. More proof that the inter-generational Nerd Bond is strong to the present day. Upon arrival at Union Station in Worcester Nick and I were surprisingly greeted by the Harvey Ball, a black tie fundraising festivity put on by the Worcester Historical Museum. It was strange because not being invited to this event, one looks to leave the building in an inconspicuous manner, the Harvey Ball wouldn't haven't though. As a matter of fact some of Worcester's finest and Union Station Security Officers were standing by the only way out, which was right next to the Harvey Ball. It was almost like some bizzare Zoo exhibit, where we could walk around and look in at the Harvey Ball, but "Don't get too close kids, these well dressed Worcesterites may look well dressed and well behaved, but they'ld kill ya and dance on your bones quicker than you can say "HOLY MOLLASSES BATMAN!"" So after Nick and I regained our senses and adjusted to our surreal surroundings, we gathered our courage and proceeded to walk the "runway of ritz". I'm not sure what possessed me as I took my first steps out into the ballroom, but for some reason or another, I threw up the Nixon Era, double barreled piece sign pose and shouted "I love Worcester, FOUR MORE YEARS, I love Worcester" and walked smiling and waving to the crowd. Now as unsurprising as that may be for me to do such a thing, the reaction I got was indeed very surprising. No sooner than had I thrown up my hands and started my profession of love for "Wormtown" attendees of the Harvey Ball started clapping, and applauding me, but as I waved and pointed and smiled, the applause started flowing across the ball room and than people started standing and cheering -the most surreal and unexpected standing ovation I have ever recieved in my life had just occured. Pictures of the Harvey Ball can be found here and if I had known that a man named Harvey Ball had invented the ever so popular smiley face icon of American Culture and that this ball was named after him, that the standing ovation probably wouldn't have been nearly as surprising. Needless to say Nick and I left Union Station asking the time old question "What the fuck just happened?".

Some good visiting, some good food, and a great ceremony!

Needless to say it was a blast to reconnect with so many old friends from High School and the whole weekend was filled with little sleep, much talk, and good food (Kurtis' made a Cookie Pie and Sunday made me Banana Chocolate Chip Pancakes, hospitality knows no bound). Saturday consisted of the picking up the Tuxedo's, going to the Rehersal and the Rehersal dinner. Sunday was show time. This was my first Jewish wedding that I've ever been to or experienced and it was a beautiful ceremony and a wonderful time. The reception was such an amazing time. There was tons of dancing, feasting, and mirth making! I got a chance to catch up and congratulate two other couples on their marriage (which unfortunately I couldn't attend this summer) and with my old school friends. I got to practice my two step with some very lovely ladies, and got to hoist the bride, the groom's mother, and the bride's father up on chairs and dance them around, what a blast! I don't think I stopped dancing for one song, I danced so damn much, it was unbelivable. It must have been the altitude difference, I was like an unstoppable Jigging Jugernaut, cha-chaing left and La Cookarachaing Right. If only Ed McMann (who was staying in the hotel where the reception was held) had seen me, his so called "Star Search" would have been over. Rumor had it GWAR was also there that evening, but their stage show puts mine to shame. One thing I can say about all these dang weddings I've been too this year is that there is beauty in the joining of not just two people, but two families, a ceremony that rebuilds and resollidifies the bonds of human companionship and community. A ceremony of rebirth in taking the pieces of each life and putting them together to make a much more beautiful and complete mosaic. Sure there is pain and hurt and bad times in all life, but that is part of the beauty of the tapestry we call life. It is part of the elation of the human experience and it is beautiful. So to all you readers out there who are in love, or in pain, who are lonely or overjoyed with company, I charge you with this one task, throw a party, get together as a group of people and rejoice. I got up early the following morning and grabbed the first train out of Worcester back to Boston to start my exodus back to Bozeman so I could get back to teaching on Tuesday and that is when the real adventure began.

The peaceful feeling of passing the point of no return

As the train pulled up to a stop at Boston South Station, I was very nervous about missing my plane, I had never done that before and I wanted to be back in time on Monday to open up the American Indian Research Opportunities study hall that I monitor on Monday's and Tuesday's. As I got to South Station I ran to grab the silver line bus to the airport, but unfortunately had to wait for a good twenty minutes before the bus got there. Now I don't know if any of you have flown lately, but they have these cute little "time saving" devices where you slide your credit card in them and supposedly they give you a bording pass, but that didn't work for me...some reason it wouldn't read my credit card, so I had to stand in line to talk with a person behind the check out counter and this whole time I'm getting more and more anxious and nervous that I wasn't going to make my flight. I'm sure you're all familiar with that feeling, all your senses are on overdrive, trying to take in as much information as they can looking for anyway to expediate getting out of the stressful situation. By the time I got to a US Airways representative and explained my situation (I had printed out my e-ticket number and everything, but in a very Luke manner had left it in Bozeman) she told me that I will definitely miss my flight. Now this news was strangely releaving as I know KNEW that I wasn't getting back to Bozeman that evening, so she put me on Standby and I went to the terminal and did some Math (beautiful thing about Math is you can do it anywhere). Here is a little known fact about Sunday October 15th 2006, EVERYONE AND THEIR PARENTS were flying from Boston, to Colorado. So I didn't get on that next flight out, and I talked to the Travel Agent at the counter, who could confirm me a seat tomorrow morning at 7am. It was a done deal and I was feeling so silly and so crazed that I called my brother Zak and asked if he wanted to come pick me up in Boston, he wasn't able to, but my friend Andy was willing to rent a car with me and drive to Maine that afternoon! So Andy, bless his soul, skipped the rest of his classes came to the Airport and we rented a Van and drove the four hours to Maine to arrive at 7pm that evening. I had dinner with my family and Andy went to visit his Dad and his brother. I hung out at my parents house until about 10pm and than went to Zak's new apartment and hung out until 11pm. Then Andy and I decided to leave the fine state of Maine and drove back to Boston arriving at roughly 3am (Boston is easier to navigate at this time of day, though construction is all over the damned place). Both of us were exhausted so I parked the car at the Hertz rental lot and slept for one whole hour. Than I returned the van, grabbed the bus to the airport and had a breakfast of dunkin doughnuts and Moxie (it was all that we had for a beverage and nothing promotes gut rot like Moxie in the morning). I jumped the plane back to Bozeman on Tuesday and arrived to a freshly dumped carpet of snow in the valley. It's good to be back, but it was a wonderful way to end this Year Of Weddings!

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Photos

Zak, Michelle, Uncle Moses, Andy, and Don
Uncle Moses is the dog formly known as Chewbacca

Landscape
Guess who waters their lawn?

The New Andy Warhol
Pictures in Pictures

Lord Vincent Galligher
looking rather dapper