August 13, 1989, Lynn and Wilford get Married

      I loved this day, my mother was happy and it was great to see my both of my Brothers - James and Geraldo and all of my friends. We were all just brimming over with joy!

      My Sister Lynn and her Husband-to-be Wilford met in college. They helped each other to get through college working and sharing the many responsibilities that life brings.

      My sister and Wilford waited until she was almost thirty-two years of age, before they married. They wanted to have their education behind them. My sister got her degrees in anthropology and museumology. Shortly after she got her degree she became a director for some department at the Smithsonian Institute in Washington D.C. Eventually they moved to Massachusetts when Wilford got a job for Ocean Spray as an agronomist, and part of management. They waited two years before they had their first child. They wanted to save a load of money, buy a fixer-upper house below market value, put a sizable down payment, and build a modest nest egg before having kids and that is just what they did. I admired their game plan. 

      I felt that every adult should strive to have the maturity to do what my sister and my brother-in-law did before thinking about having kids. From my experience everyone that I met who used this approached usually fare much better in life. This game plan makes life much easier for both the parents and the kids. In the event that things in life go wrong and they almost always do, it helps to have financial and emotional buffers. Planners historically pulled themselves up out of messes much better than non-planners.

      I have to confess, as much as I believe in striving for emotional maturity and creating good game plans, I often fall short.

      The night before the wedding we took Wilford my soon to be brother-in-law out on the town for a bachelor party. My Brother James and I decided to put Wilford through the paces. Unfortunately I put myself too far through the paces and somehow I was found sleeping nude in the dewy grass early the next morning.

      My Brother Geraldo was instructed to take the riding lawn mower and mow the part of the field that they usually ignored. My Brother said that he thought he was coming upon a bed of deer, -- this where the deer roll around in the high grass to make bedding for themselves. I must have rolled down the high grass for my bedding. I don’t know how I ended up in the field nude…the last I remembered was that it was too hot and humid in the house. That morning I felt chilled from the low temperatures and the wet dew. My Brother Geraldo nearly ran over me with the mower. No doubt the site of my nude body traumatized my Geraldo for life.

      Regardless how traumatized Geraldo was the rest of the wedding went well and my Stepfather Jake had picked up the tab for the entire wedding and wedding reception. It would not have surprised me if my Sister’s Wedding had set him back about Ten Grand. In addition to paying for the wedding as customary for the father of the bride to do, he also gave Lynn away to Wilford as is also customary for the father of the bride to do.

      I could not help but feel bitter irony that my own Father had set in motion events that would have him sit back uninvited and have to content himself with the fact that another man had help his daughter through college; another man had paid for his daughter’s wedding; another man had proudly given away his daughter’s hand in marriage to her future husband.