On this date, in 1983, my wife and I were married at a Methodist church in Irvine, California. The church sat on a rise above an intersection near a municipal park. We were married at 'High Noon', pacific coast time, on what was apparently the hottest day in recorded history in Los Angeles. Some members of the wedding, specifically my mother and father in law were concerned that there would be an accident at the intersection during the ceremony.
But no, it didn't happen that way. I remember standing at the front of the church, watching the members of the party come down the center aisle. As the music flourished for the bride, I watched Cindy and her father walk down the aisle toward me. I hoped to catch Cindy's eye as she walked down, but she kept her eyes to the ground. I don't know if it was shyness or trying to avoid her dress and the train from tripping her as she walked, but she looked at me, finally, when she got up to the front of the church.
We had two pastors, one the assistant pastor of the church (Al) and the other was
the father of one of Cindy's friends. At one point during the ceremony, Cindy and I walked around the communion table and kneeled, facing the audience. As the organist played something I don't remember and maybe someone sang, we held hands there at the table. I remember slowly leaning over toward Cindy's ear and joking with Cindy that I was surprised that she was able to fit my wedding ring over my "massive paw." That was a reference to one of my favorite Doonsbury cartoons in which Zonker Harris interviewed B.D. about the allure of playing football. B.D.'s response was depicted as follows:
'Crushing a beer can in his massive paw, "I like to break heads," said the alleged human being.'
That was always one of my favorites. Cindy giggled and I still wonder what the audience in the church thought I might have said to her.
After the ceremony, the photographer marched the wedding party next door to a building site and took several pictures out in the open. Meanwhile, some friends of my in-laws waited in their Rolls Royce to carry Cindy and me to the reception.
At the reception, all of our relatives and my friends from back East seemed relatively cool. However, anybody who was from California, which included most of Cindy's friends and the friends of her family looked like they were melting. Our wedding pictures are a testament to this. You can virtually tell who were relatives and who were friends of the bride by seeing who looked like they were dying and who looked like it was just another warm day.
The two main statements made to me by the folks from California were as follows:
"I am so sorry about the heat and humidity" and "So, you live in Georgia. Why do you live in Georgia?"
I guess the appropriate response would have been, "So I can survive the extremes of heat and humidity, rather than being a _______."
You can fill in the blank as you deem appropriate.
After the photographer arrived (he had gone to the wrong place for the reception) Cindy and I spent the rest of the reception being photographed. It seems like the last part of the wedding reception passed in a blur until we left to go back to the house.
After taking a bath and changing clothes, we finally were driven into Los Angeles and the Hotel Bonaventure for our wedding night. I remember that we checked in to the hotel and got to the room where a bottle of champagne was waiting on us. Rather than drinking the champagne, we rode the elevator down to the lobby and tried to find an appetite to eat. I think we had some sandwiches and then retreated to the room.
The next morning, I woke up when the room service waiter delivered our breakfast. He opened the drapes in the room and we were able to look out onto the Hollywood sign on the hills overlooking LA. That was pretty iconic.
After a somewhat hurried breakfast, we caught a shuttle to the airport which flew us back to Atlanta. I think we arrived around five. Several hours later we took another jet to London, which arrived at Gatwick Airport around eight in the morning.
The most memorable thing about the flight to London occurred when some idiot three rows in front of us opened the window during the only time when we could try to get some sleep and tried to take pictures of what we were flying over at the time. Of course, the only thing we were flying over at the time was the North Atlantic and and a lot of water.
We found out later that if we had flown directly from LA to London it would have only taken one more hour than the flight from Atlanta to London. But no, our lovely travel agent, a South Afrikaner, who was bigoted and didn't like dealing with Cindy, who had more time to deal with these things than I did, not only gave us three more hours in the air, but made us spend most of our honeymoon in twin beds like Rob and Laura Petrie in the Dick Van Dyke Show.
When we arrived at the airport outside London, I handed the ticket man our train tickets into London, who promptly cut himself on the staple which kept the tickets together. I apologized and he sent us on our way, probably thinking something appropriate for two neophyte travelers from America. We rode the train into Victoria Station and appropriated a taxi to our hotel.
When we got to the hotel, we just wanted the opportunity to take a nap and refresh ourselves from all the traveling. Instead, the desk clerk informed us that they had no information about our reservation and didn't have a room available at that time. This was problematic, since our travel agent was six hours behind us. Knowing that our agent wouldn't be there at 5:00 in the morning, the clerk offered to send us to another hotel down the road for the night until they were able to straighten out our reservations.
So we hopped back in another taxi and made our way to a second hotel. After checking in, we went up to the room and crashed briefly in the bed. I say briefly, because after several minutes of quick nap, there was a knock on the door. The knock came despite the "Do Not Disturb" sign on the door. I got out of bed and, without opening the door, asked who as knocking. An English voice answered me and told me that they wished to change out the windows. I inquired again as to what they wished to do. He informed me, again, that he wished to change the windows. At that point, secure in my understanding of what the gentleman wished to do, I asked him if he could come back later. He answered politely that that was fine and I fell back on the bed to sleep for an hour or so. Cindy awoke enough to ask me what they wanted. I told her then went back to sleep. Cindy remembers telling me that the guy could just wash the windows instead.
Later that afternoon, Cindy and I awakened and exited the hotel to take a walk through Kensington Park, which spread out across the street from us. Kensington Park held the residence of the Prince of Wales and Princess Diana. We walked past it to Cindy's excitement. Of course, our marriage has now outlasted that of the Prince and Princess.
Later on we found a park bench to sit on and talk quietly. Much to our chagrin, an Englishman, walking a bicycle, came up to us and started cursing at us. Not really comprehending the offense which had caused this man to decide he had to vent on our solitude, Cindy and I calmly walked away from the park bench toward our hotel, only to have the man follow us down the sidewalk until he finally gave up.
This wasn't the only time I've been cursed at by Englishmen for no apparent reason. I don't know if it is my physical appearance or my dress, but it did happen more than once. It did make me look longingly on the American flag flying over the American Embassy on Grosvernor Square, when I had to travel there to take care of some business when I was a college student traveling in London.
The rest of our trip to England and Wales was mostly delightful and full of little memories. I guess I could talk about them now, but I'll leave that for another time.
It was a delight and particularly so with my beautiful wife by my side.
Wednesday, August 6, 2008
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