What I did over The Summer

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I can now reveal ---albeit in a limited way--- what has kept me from posting up a storm over the last several weeks.

Firstly, of course, in the political arena, nothing really interesting and substantial has been happening.  The White House has been curiously inactive, but it is a tricky endgame leading up to the elections and the sort of gambling that takes place at this time is difficult to second-guess, especially since the various assumptions they might be working on are a sort of discontinuous set, possibly wildly differing from each other and from our own guesses.

Secondly, I haven't been listening to music very much.  And why is this?

Because I have been busy.  I was seeing a lady friend, and the sight was getting more intense as the weeks went by.  We decided to marry around midsummer ---which was a lot of excitement, but not of the sort you might expect; it was a quiet ceremony at a country Magistrate's office, in between petitions for zoning variances and evictions, etc, the actual "swearing in" attended only by the two of us and the Judge--- after which we planned to have a nice big party for a few of our friends.

The Party was planned over a couple of months.

We first rented a room.  It was a small ballroom at the school where I teach, the perfect size for a party of forty people.  The most exciting piece of the arrangements was that we had to obtain an event insurance policy for a million dollars!  It only cost us $50, but we walked around for a couple of weeks, pale beneath our tans, pondering the enormity of the undertaking.  We were also forbidden the use of alcohol, and we knew many of our friends would have trouble loosening up without alcoholic inspiration.  But I figured that if alcohol had been found on the premises after a major fire had broken out, I would be in roughly a million dollars' worth of trouble.  But we held firm, and decided to have a certain modest amount of liquid entertainment at our home ---a mere 100 yards from the party--- for Afters.

Next, we got some music together.  Since we couldn't afford a disc jockey or a professional master of ceremonies (or even an amateur one), we decided to compile a collection of pieces we both liked, jointly and severally.  She liked most of my choices, but she wanted additional tunes that I did not have.  So the compilation was partly complete some weeks before.

We then compiled the list of invitees, a most amazingly wonderful collection of people in our separate estimates.  I had met a half-dozen of her friends who lived close by, and a couple who lived in New York, and liked them right away.  She had met my daughter, and the two of them had struck up a roaring friendship.  Junior was having her own romantic adventures (which I am not at liberty to report on), but managed to organize a frighteningly complicated itinerary for her 10-day visit from distant parts.

As my readers might know, Junior is an amateur musician of sorts, and it turns out, so are the daughters of my new wife, Katie.  Of course, therefore, we must have the girls sing!  The kids had never met, but began a tentative correspondence via the evil FaceBook.  My girl, being older, was much more relaxed about the whole thing.  The other girls were much younger, and therefore more uneasy about matters.  Still, they responded, and I really cannot tell you much about what they discussed.

Meanwhile, down at the farm, friends were e-mailing me, asking what they were to wear.  We were determined not to have a formal event, so we had to first decide what we would wear.  I finally settled on a sort of Hawaiian shirt, and a nice pair of pants---until I saw the most brilliant T-Shirt, with a fake Tuxedo printed on it!  So, of course, that's what I decided to wear.

We forbade any presents, mostly because we live in a small house, and there just isn't enough room for any more Stuff.  (Thankfully, all but five families abided by our request.)

Finally, Junior arrived, and we picked her up in Baltimore.  The next day, she spoke directly to Katie's youngest daughter on the phone, and they began a brain's trust about what to sing together.  They simply could not agree on anything, but with some nudging, I made Junior suggest a song by The Seekers: I'll Never Find Another You.  Now she had to teach that to Katie's youngest daughter, who was going to arrive a couple of hours before the party.

Everything went smoothly.  My Canadian friends, father and daughter, had arrived the previous day, and very ingeniously kept us distracted, and helped get the house ready for the after-party party!  On the day of the party, it began to rain, but the tribes gathered notwithstanding, and before we knew it, it was under way.  The food was wonderful, the music was apparently satisfactory to all---Junior had helped supplement my folder of music with Katie's more rhythmic, bluesy selections from the fifties and sixties.

When everyone had eaten, Junior and Katie's youngest daughter went over to the microphone, and sang.  That broke the ice, and then Katie's oldest sang one of her own compositions, followed by Junior, who writes her own songs too, and Katie's youngest, who first sang a song of her own, and then, to my astonishment, gave a fabulous rendering of Me and Bobby McGee, in Janis Joplin style.

Shortly afterwards we brought the party to a close, and everyone headed either to their homes, or to our small home, especially those who could stay overnight.  After the rest of us had beer or wine, respectively, Katie's oldest and her young man sang a lovely duet, and the young lady sang alone, followed by Junior with one of her own, and then we all began to sing songs from the sixties: notably Mrs Robinson [Simon and Garfunkel], If I had a hammer [Pete Seeger], and Blowing in the Wind [Bob Dylan]!  (If photos become available, I'll post them.)

Hopefully, my regular rants will resume in the Fall, though Katie keeps me steadily distracted.  [Added later: a few photos of all of us, including some taken later in the week, when we visited some relatives in New York and New England.]

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