Weddings

Weddings

Hoop-de-do! I got to go to a wedding. Well, wait a minute. That sounds like a chore I have to do. Let me re-phrase that. I am privileged to go to a wedding. This will be the first of my granddaughters to get properly hitched. That’s a pretty big deal, you know. I mean, I got a whole raft of granddaughters and most are shacked up with some passer –by I never heard of. So when one of them comes along and says I’m getting married, that’s cause for celebration for someone of my generation. I can relate to that. That’s the way we used to do things in the olden days. So I’m excited!

My wife has been fussin’ around for the last month or so tryin’ to figure out what she’s goin’ to wear to this shindig. Well, that’s not unusual. She has the same problem when she wants to go to the library or the grocery store. It’s one of them woman things, so I’m used to it. Me, I don’t have that problem. I knew the minute I heard about the engagement what I was goin’ to wear.

It’s goin’ to be a summer wedding – early August, just before harvest time. At one time you’d a said it was the big bash before you got down to the serious work of bringin’ in the grain. It’d be sort’a like Carnival before Lent season. So you’d get dressed to the nines for a shindig like that. You’d think. I’ve got five good suits sittin’ in my closet that retired with me, just itchin’ to go to a dance. I got three fine sport coats with mix and match pants, and all kinds of shirts and ties. I mean I’m armed to the teeth with what to wear for just about any occasion. And I know just what the doctor ordered. I got this off-white linen suit I call my ice-cream suit that’ll fit the bill just perfect. I’ll be the best lookin’ grandpa anybody ever seen at that wedding! My granddaughter will be suitably proud. I can just picture her introducing me around the groom’s friends as her special grandpa.

Well burst my bubble why don’t ya! The wife says it’s a small backyard wedding and it’s very casual. You’ll look out of place in that get up. Well, who gives a rip if it’s a backyard wedding or a back alley wedding, I protest. I want’a wear my ice-cream suit and that’s that! Actually, she says, she bought me a nice casual shirt to go with the pants of my charcoal suit, and a new pair of shoes and won’t I just look dapper in that? Try them on and you’ll see, she urges.

By now, I’m used to the wife’s urgings. They’re like judgments from the Supreme Court. So I cave in. I don’t like it, but I cave in. Well why not wear a shirt looking like pajama tops with a pair of suit pants? She’s happy with that so I’ll do it.

Of course, in my heart of hearts, I can still imagine myself in my ice-cream suit with a carnation in the lapel and my beautiful granddaughter on my arm introducing me around the room as her special grandfather. It never occurs to me that she has something completely different on her mind. I guess I’m getting older than I thought.

Well, we all have our dreams. Each may have a different version of the same dream, but they all come out happy just the same. That’s all that counts. At least that’s the way it seems to me from up here on the top shelf.

Just sayin’