North to Alaska

Get me to the Church on Time!

“Ding Dong! The bells are going to chime.” Remember those lyrics from My Fair Lady?

Well for me it all started back in August of 1968. There I was in my little Corvair (those were the days) speeding to Seattle with my groomsmen when suddenly, ‘poooo”! The car suddenly swerved and I fought to gain control. A blowout on my way to the wedding! Now that should have been a warning to me. But I persevered and in a few more days I was married.

Fast forward to 1994. My bride to be and I had journied to Sissy’s Log Cabin (I am not making this up) to pick up her wedding ring. It was a dark and dreary night when suddenly a deer raced across the road in front of us. Well not exactly in front of us. It hid the driver’s door and rolled across the hood. For a few moments there that big guy there and I were eyeball to eyeball. My bride to be was driving and did not notice the whites in his eyes. But just like Jimmy Driftwood said in the “Battle of New Orleans, “ I didn’t say a word until I looked them (him) in the eyes. Well there I was looking old Bambi right in the old eyes, and when my voice returned it asked a blessing on the poor old creature. Well it was not exactly a blessing but at the time it was all that I could think of. At a time like that your whole life is supposed to pass before your eyes. Well it didn’t happen that way at all. But I did get a real good look at the future although I did not know it at the time.

About a year later I was driving down the 610 loop in Houston heading to my daughter’s wedding. I suppose that I should have been conscious of what was going through my mind. “Get me to the church on time.” But there we were stuck right smack in the middle of a massive traffic jam. Every few minutes we would move a foot or two. Then the car in front of me moved a foot and I did as well. Ding! Ding! The car behind me moved a little more than a foot and his bumper greeted my bumper. Since my real damage was visible we proceeded on to the plantation where my daughter was waiting rather impatiently for us. I knew they wouldn’t start without us, since I was supposed to give the bride away. After wedding vows were exchanged she threw the bride’s bouquet and it quickly became a many-splintered thing as it expressed its heart-felt greetings to the ceiling fan.

Ok. Fast forward a year or so. My wife and I are driving my stepdaughter to the church for her wedding. She had become a little frantic (don’t all brides?) that me might not make it on time. We were stopped at a stoplight. The light turned so I tapped the accelerator. We were about half way through the exchange when the car in the left lane suddenly realized that the light had changed and floor boarded the Cadillac. I frantically accelerated hard to the right and tried to avoid the collision. It was to no avail. Our read door was broad sided. As we waited for the officers of the law to arrive, the bride to be was becoming increasingly frantic. When the officer did arrive I patiently gave him my account of the event and the youthful driver of the Caddy did the same. Meanwhile the bride to be became even more frantic than before. It turned out the other driver was driving was using a borrowed vehicle and had never driven in a big city before (where you came from 12,000 was a big city). The officer had now become conscious of the frantic bride and told us to head on to the church while he wrote a ticket to the other party.

Fast forward to 2008. Our youngest daughter just up and out of the blue decided to get married. Apparently aware of my reputation, she decided to avoid the church all together and get married by a justice of the peace. So far so good. Convinced that she had somehow avoided her father’s curse, she had a wedding reception a few weeks later. It was a great reception—up to that point. We drove back to our sleepy little town of Portales. As we drove up to our house, we could not help but notice that our street was flooded. We rushed inside to check our faucets. When your crawl space has been flooded once before with 10,000 gallons of water, one naturally assumes the worst. However, this time it was not our water supply. However, that did not much matter because we had no water supply. In fact the whole town had no water supply. We headed to the store to pick up a couple of gallons of water. Six blocks from our house we stopped for one of the six stop lights in town and waited. After a few moments a bid Dakota came calling and greeted our car. Ding! Ding! The driver explained that his foot had just slipped off the brake. I looked across the street at the Baptist Church. I looked 300 feet to my left at the Methodist Church. No bells were chiming. But I could still hear “Ding! Ding!” in my ears.

So when it comes to weddings, beware! It doesn’t matter if I am coming or going. Beware!