Whizzing Past a Milestone

I write this from shores of the great Gitchie Gumi.. Lake Superior. The Big Lake.

I’m in Superior Wisconsin attending a wedding. A milestone wedding if you will.

I haven’t been to a wedding in, hell I don’t know, 15 years or more? Weddings are kind of generational and all the kids of my generation married off. Tonight I‘ll be going to the first wedding of a kid from the next generation, a daughters wedding. Daughter of a very close family friend.

Wedding One if you will. First of what I’m sure will be a big flurry of weddings in the next 10 years or so. Might even be a wedding in the Sank-a-ray Family.

Could be. That’s 10 years, I’ll have kids in their 30’s by then. I had a kid by the time I was 30. One kid.

This is one wedding that I’ll always remember. The date anyway, whether or not I remember the actual wedding remains be to be seen but I have been warned. I am representing the family.

Don’t embarrass us.

That covers more than drinking I assure you.

I’ll always remember this particular wedding because, by coincidence, on this same Saturday night, August 4, 27 years ago Mrs S and I celebrated our wedding. I remember it like it was yesterday, she in her bone off white dress.. not because of any adherence to social custom mind you, and not that that’s any of your business, but rather because Mrs S is blessed with a complexion that makes snow look dirty. A white dress on her would make her look  like Glenda the Good and would have thrown off the photographers and guests sense of white balance.

Better to have a slight contrast in shades of whiteness. Skin, Dress, Hair and Soul all the same color gets a bit much don’t you think?

Huh? What was that? August 4, 1985 was a Sunday?

Same thing.

This will also by my first wedding at “sea”, if you can call Lake Superior and inland sea, which I think you can. Well be on a boat.

I’m a little anxious about this to be honest. A little. I’ve puked on boats bigger than this one. On bodies of water smaller.

This year Mrs S and I will have a spiritual celebration- she will be imbibing in spirits mixed with tropical juices and chunks of pineapple at the Oceanside Canoe club at the Four Seasons resort in Kailua-Kona Hawaii. I, will be celebrating by bobbing on a boat out on Lake Superior. We’ll both be on the water, enjoying the spray, she on biggest ocean in the world, me on the biggest lake in the world. She’ll be enjoying 84 degrees and tropical tradewinds. I’ll be enjoying 58 degrees and northwesterlies coming across the Canadian border, Duluth’s famous natural air conditioning.

And while we won’t be together I suggest that the very fact that we don’t have to be physically together to be “together” speaks volumes about how well we get along and just how mature our marriage remains. We’ll catch up when she gets back.

And for the happy couple.. the first of their generation to tie the knot, I sincerely hope their August 4th turns out as perfect as mine has.

And if not it’s a nice excuse for a summer boat ride.