Thursday, June 13th, 2019

Matt, Joey, Heather, Victoria, Ned, Teresa and Joe, Ned's dad.

        I spent the weekend of June 7-10 in Hull, Massachusetts, as a wedding guest of an event held on June 8th. I’ve known Ned, the groom, his parents, and his family for over 30 years; and met the bride previously too, as the young couple had been a couple for several years and were finally making it official.

     Needing more senior-aged people to round out the Cultural & Age Diversity Guest listing in their wedding registry, the wedding couple invited Alex (72) and his wife Nancy (69) from Apple Valley, and my wife Jackie (75), and I (67) from Wannaska, supplanting the Cultural requirement with the ‘Farthest Distance Traveled’ alternate. 

     At 1419 road miles and 1765 road miles, respectively, our foursome beat out Ned’s uncle Pete, (63), from ‘Fargo’ (yah, you betcha), at 1647 road miles, and Ana, youthful maybe 50-year old family friend from Milwaukee, Wisconsin (Go Brewers!), at 1096 road miles, who used to occasionally babysit the groom and his older brother when they were but boys.

     Honestly, I wasn’t excited about going as I’m just a ho-hum kind of guy in reality. I could envision this wedding extravaganza as just another huge dawn to dusk beach party blowout with several gigantic bonfires, an endless supply of keg and bottled beer, dozens of wild scantily clad young women and men gamboling about playing volleyball and having all night corn-hole tournaments under nightly fireworks; having popbottle rocket wars and engaging in triathlon events between the groom’s family and the bride’s--all in which my wife would happily participate, even if she became the last standing victor, again--as she has been, on more than one raucous occasion, and thus a few years ago, had coined the globally popular phrase: “This ain’t my first rodeo, baby.” (Who knew?)

    As it happened, Jackie was unable to go because of an unfortunate illness, which allowed me to opt out gracefully, because, presumably, I would have to stay home and take care of her in her frail state. And Nancy, Alex’s wife, had to sit the wedding out too, because of due care for their three aged cats, none of whom they wished to leave at an unfamiliar pet boarding facility, so Alex was also off the hook.

    That is, until, Nancy insisted he go because the groom’s father was such a dear close friend whose feelings would be hurt if Alex did not attend the wedding of his youngest son, Ned, the last of his three sons.

     Frankly, I didn’t want to spend the money. I’d just send the boy and his lovely new wife, a healthy check and they would be much happier than if I showed up, lean in the debit card department. Likely, I’d be pinched shoving handfuls of party mints and peanuts in my pockets for a late night nutritional supplement, by a inquiring groomsman,
“Steve who?”

     Okay, maybe I’m exaggerating. They’d know me better than that.
“Oh, you're that Steve ...”

     Well, I’ve known Ned since before he was born, just a wee one--and yes, to all you naysayers, Ned was, once upon a time, ‘wee.’ We all start out that way. Some of us grow out of it, as Ned obviously did, although he took it to extremes, later dwarfing his two older brothers as well as his folks: his quite lovely mother, such a petite lass, and his storied father, who is, of course, a pencil-thin storyteller of a man capable of spinning a fairytale ending so wondrous that Ned’s mother has pondered it to this very day.

     A month before the wedding, I got a call from a telemarketer. It was a ‘612’ area code, so I didn’t answer it of course. We have caller ID too, like everyone else, even though we live in a remote region of the northwoods where the moss actually does grow on just the north side of the trees. (Very few areas of the U.S. can make that claim; and Ned's Uncle Steve can back me up on that, just ask him.)

     I thought it strange that the telemarketers would call and leave an undecipherable message that sounded just Greek to me. I thought they were just persistent annoying ‘bastids’ and ignored them further. An hour or so later, there was a series of calls from ‘952’ area code, all ringing longer than the standard three rings by people somewhere in India, just doing their job.

     In the meantime, I had gone outdoors, which, in our case, means I could be gone for hours--or days--depending on the job I was tackling as our yard is a mite bigger than the standard city lot and it’s circumference measured in half-mile lengths, not square feet. All the same, I came back indoors a few minutes later, was slow to leave, and Jackie put the grab on me.

    “Alex called and wanted to talk to you. I told him you were outside doing, Lord knows what, and he seemed to know what that meant for some reason. He said for you to call him at your earliest opportunity.”

     “Hmmm, I hope everything is okay,” I may have said thoughtfully, thinking back to the last phone call I got from Alex--which was, like, never. He and I weren’t close friends, per se, as it was Ned’s father who had introduced us so far back I can’t remember, and whom I saw, with one exception in 2017, only before my three previous trips to Boston.

     Ned’s father and Alex were Dunwoody Tech grads, about a hundred years ago, and remained close friends ever since, even traveling to Greece for a two week vacation with their wives in recent years. They’d go to Alex and Nancy’s to take advantage of their free parking and chauffeured rides to the airport, as they lived so close to it then. When Ned’s mother couldn’t go on trips with Ned’s father, I would, so it was on these occasions Alex and I became acquainted.

     In September of 2017, I purchased Nancy’s 1998 Subaru Legacy/Outback wagon, a mint of a little car with less than 68,000 miles on it. Using my GMC van and trailer, Ned’s father and I drove to their house to get it, and bring a container ship-worth of tools and equipment home with us, including a riding lawnmower, a practically-new snowblower, two almost-new ladders, a two-tier Snap On tool cabinet and a tug of other small tools and such that Alex and Nancy were eliminating because of their move into a condominium and wouldn’t need any of it. So, dialing his phone number, I called Alex.

     “Hell-o Alex! This is Steve,” I may have said, giving him a moment to realize I wasn’t a telemarketer. “I bought Nancy’s Subaru a year ago or so ... I know Ned’s dad ... I’m from Wannaska ...”

     “Oh yes, Steve ...,” Alex said, adding somewhat tersely, “I heard you aren’t going to Ned’s wedding. Why aren’t you going? If you don’t go, I won’t know anybody there. I think you should go.”

     “Alex, Alex, Alex,” I said light-heartedly, trying to rally his spirit. “You’ve been in Ned’s family conversations for over forty years--everybody knows you! I can almost guarantee your every need and concern will be addressed immediately by any one member --maybe two--of the clan. They’re very warm and friendly folk.

    “You should go. I know you. You know me,“ Alex repeated, in monotone. “Nancy thinks you should go. You can share my room.”

     “I just can’t afford it, Alex,” I said. “What with Trump’s new tax formulation, and all the taxes we had to pay just disemboweled us, and by the time I added up what this trip was going to cost the little woman and I---she’s not feeling good enough to go either. I can’t leave her here all alone...”

     “FOR CHRISSAKES!” Jackie bellowed clearly, from the other end of the house. “I DON’T NEED YOU TO STAY HERE TO TAKE CARE OF ME, SO DON’T BE USIN’ ME FOR NO STINKIN’ EXCUSE!”

     Steadfastly, Alex piped in, once again, “You can share my room. Nancy, she's not going. Someone needs to be here for the cats. I won’t know anyone at the wedding. Ned’s dad will be too busy. ”

     “YOU OWE ALEX BIG TIME!” Jackie hissed from the dining room. “YOU’RE GOING! YOU TELL HIM YOU’RE GOING! WE CAN MAKE IT OKAY. YOU’RE GOING!”

     “Looks like I’m going then, Alex,” I said accepting my fate. “What flight are you on? Can I catch a ride to the airport with you this one time? Maybe spend the night before? Oh, that’d be great, Alex, yeah. We’ll make the arrangements... I'll call you later with the details.”

     It was my fourth trip to Hull, that nice little city by the sea just south of Boston. The first trip was in 2000 when Ned’s father and I flew to Hull from Minnesota, and then, with his two young sons aboard, drove a 1989 Honda Accord back home, that his father had sold him. The old car had began to require increased maintenance so the father had decided to purchase a new car instead of pouring money into an old one.

     Ned’s father had outlined the apparent problems to the boys and I, earlier that morning, but knowing that his much-loved sons sometimes had short memories and even shorter attention spans at the most inopportune times, he made it a point to reiterate it all once again, concluding with the most accessible flashpoint possible--the electric window switch, on the passenger side, rear seat, that was even taped-over to preclude even the remotest possibility that anyone would accidently activate that switch.

     “Now Ned, don’t touch that passenger-side window button back there because Dad said the window won’t go back up without a bunch of fooling with it. We don’t have anytime to waste. We’ve got to get on the road, it’s late as it is. Let’s say our goodbyes to gramma and grandpa.” (Or words to that effect)

     Of course, there are always last minute issues as people get situated for a very long road trip of 27 hours. The boys were secreting away their stashes of candy, drinks and foodstuffs in the various hidey-holes they discovered in their ‘new’ car; Ned’s dad was putting his sunglasses in the holder of the sun visor and making last minute double-checks of necessary items when Ned asked plaintively from the backseat,

“Hey Dad, I can’t get this window switch to work ....”