You Can't Pick 'Em...

THE WEDDING, part deux:

So, it happened:  Sam and Carolyn got married on Saturday;  everything went off just as planned, without a hitch (well, they "got hitched," but let's stick to the original cliche).

Not.  (Do the hep kids still use that term?  'Cause I sure want to be hep.)  In fact, the hitches failed, and that led to all of the turmoil.

The ceremony was to be held at the home of Carolyn's parents, Mike and Betty.  She and Sam and her family spent hours uncounted, and mucho dinero, decorating and preparing the grounds.  Late last week, the chairs were set up on the lawn, and the tent erected--one of those (what has become) classic wedding tents, three spires, roll-down sides (in case of inclement weather--hoo boy!), staked where possible, ratchet-strapped to 400 lb. blocks of concrete where necessary.  The rehearsal was Friday evening, and there were two options:  Option One was to have the ceremony on the lawn, guests seated in the aforementioned chairs, then the reception under the tent.  Option Two was to have both ceremony and reception under the tent, if it rained, which the forecast said was not unlikely.  Rehearsal went off without a hitch, and we repaired to Popolo for a rehearsal dinner that couldn't be beat (thanks, Arlo--and Popolo).

At around 11 PM, Option Three elbowed its way into the mix.  A storm cell of very short duration and small area, but enormous force, passed directly over the intended wedding site.  Those 400 lb. blocks of concrete were upended and dragged 30 feet across the yard; the tent was reduced to a postmodern sculpture of twisted metal and ragbag remnant fabric.  One corner of the tent came within inches of smashing through the master bedroom window, on the second floor of the house.  The most amazing thing, and best indicator of the the incredibly compressed nature of the storm:  of the 130 chairs set up 75 feet from the tent, three (3!) were blown over.

Fortunately, Carolyn's family own Pinnacleview Equipment, a Kubota tractor dealership, with a large showroom.  So at 6:30 Saturday morning, with the wedding scheduled for 4:30 that afternoon, the calls went out: the whole showroom had to be stripped to the walls, display equipment moved out, and tables, chairs, flowers, lanterns, arbor, and dancefloor moved in and set up.  By 7:30 the place was filled with people working, including the whole wedding party, many of whom had had a GREAT DEAL of fun the previous evening at the dinner; the floor was cleared; soon, walls were denuded of their commerciality.  Tables got set up, decorations hung, flowers arranged, bar put in place, dance floor laid (I know of a great deal on 300 sf of Clicklock laminate flooring; call Mark at...); in short, the place had been transformed from a farm-and-garden implement showroom into a reception hall, virtually seamlessly.  I'm sure there are tons o' photos on YourFace or BookTube or TwitsRhere, or somewhere.

The wedding was beautiful, the reception a blast.  The place cleared out about midnight.

When I got back down there this morning at about 9 to help with cleanup and the Return Of The Showroom, the work was already 80% complete:  tables and linens were dismantled, folded, put into a trailer; the dancefloor had been disassembled and boxed up, vacuuming was underway.  By 10:30, the place was looking an awful lot like a commercial space again, pretty much ready for business Monday morning.  And this was all done by Carolyn's family, me, a little (and I'm sort of family, now) and my good friend Erik the Plumber (rather than a Viking sword, he wields a plunger).  Erik, with whom I disagree at least 187% politically, had absolutely no stake in any of this except his friendship and loyalty to Sam and me;  he's just one of those people, of whom I have many in my life, and I certainly hope you do too, who, when the chips are down, is there to help, no questions asked (Gary Smith is another; he lives at the end of the same road that Carolyn's folks live on; on his way to work Saturday AM, as he drove past the house and idly glanced up to see the wrecked tents, he immediately called me to say "What can I do?").

I found the whole experience quite amazing, somehow moving (pun maybe intended), and inspiring. I know, I know, on the grand scale--tsunamis, earthquakes, floods, bombings,--this event was less than nothing.  And yet it shows the importance of community, of family, of people pulling together to make okay that which appears not to be so.  In Boston this spring, a couple of people showed the worst side of humanity, blowing up totally innocent people and creating horrible chaos; and yet many many more people in that event ran toward the explosions, not away, intent not on saving themselves but on seeing how they might help others.  We are linked, and we need each other. You did not build that body.  As a species, we may not be totally hopeless, after all.

This week's show, then, is made up of stuff I could find which relates:  blowin' away,  family, help, maybe a little resignation.  Here are the songs from which I'll be choosing:


Salt Of The Earth                                                           Rolling Stones
Family                                                                            Dar Williams
Family                                                                            Pat Metheny
Family Affair                                                                 Sly & The Family Stone
Family Affair                                                                 Bobby Hutcherson
Family Man                                                                    Fleetwood Mac
Family Man                                                                    James Taylor
The Family Of Man                                                       Three Dog Night
My Family                                                                      Joan Armatrading
Ode To My Family                                                         The Cranberries
We Are Family                                                               Sister Sledge
Do For The Others                                                         Stephen Stills
We Are Not Helpless                                                     Stephen Stills
With You There To Help Me                                         Jethro Tull
Oh Well, Part 1                                                               Fleetwood Mac

Any Way The Wind Blows                                            J.J. Cale/Eric Clapton
Blow Away                                                                    George Harrison
Blow On, Chilly Wind                                                   Jesse Winchester
Blow Wind Blow                                                           Eric Clapton
Blowin' Away                                                                 Laura Nyro
I'm Blowin' Away                                                           Bonnie Raitt
Help Is On The Way                                                       Subdudes
Help Me                                                                          Joni Mitchell
Help Me                                                                          Sonny Boy Williamson
Help Me                                                                          Van Morrison
Help Me Make It Through This Funky Day                   Greg Brown
Help Me Now                                                                  Chris Smither
Help On The Way/Slip Knot!                                          Grateful Dead
Help Yourself                                                                   Joan Armatrading
Help!                                                                                Fabs
With A Little Help From My Friends                              Joe Cocker

Hope you'll join me, Tuesday Noon til Two, 100.1 FM, wool.fm on yer computer.

Oh yeah--in the continuing self-aggrandizement department, I'm also gonna post a little thing I wrote and spoke at the wedding.

...but you can still get lucky.