Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

War veterans memorial at park

On Saturday, The Gryphon and I got up bright and early for a trip to Central Pennsylvania, as we needed to meet with The Pastor to discuss our wedding ceremony.

Even though we got up really early, around 6 a.m., between getting showers, packing the rest of our stuff, printing out our vows and having breakfast, we didn't get on the road until about 10:30.

We hit some traffic on the Northeast Extension, so by the time we Allentown it was noon.

I got a call from my mom, who wanted to know how far we had to go. The original plan had been to meet with her and my mom for lunch, although we hadn't set an exact time. They were expecting us, however, on the earlier side of the afternoon. My mom was disappointed to hear how far away we were, and she told me that she had some business to take care of out of town and had to leave for that in about a half hour!

At this point, I got very emotional, so I handed the phone to The Gryphon, who I knew would remain calm. He learned that she had to work most of the weekends between now and our wedding, so she'd been counting on using this day to drive to the Nittany Mall, about an hour and a half away, so she could find us a wedding gift and possibly an outfit.

The Gryphon managed to arrange with her that we could meet at the church at 6:30 p.m. instead, and after The Pastor confirmed this would be OK with her, our revised plans were set.

We reached Central Pennsylvania at about 2 p.m., going to my Dad's place, where we stay when he's in town. We'd given him our revised plans, which were fine with him, too. We'd planned to go to the homecoming at the small community where I grew up, but the only thing that changed was that, instead of going together, we'd meet up with him after meeting with the pastor.

When Dad got back after his rounds, he and I talked quietly in the dining room while The Gryphon, who was tired, took a nap on the couch. At about 5 p.m., we woke him so we could all go for dinner.

We tried a new Mexico place that had opened in a former Italian restaurant location, which had been flooded out twice, since it was close to the river. But the property hadn't seen real damage, and it had since been cleaned up and renovated. Some vestiges of Italian decor remained, such as the beautiful Greek statues in the front terrace, but there were paired with Mexican colors, paintings and decor.

The food consisted of your standard Mexican are of burritos, fajitas and enchiladas. I thought it was at least a cut above the chain restaurants you find everywhere. For my dinner, I had a bean burrito, side salad and rice. However, I also had a margarita, which I wished later I hadn't ordered, since it had far more calories than I'd expected!

We had about half an hour before meeting with The Pastor and my mom, and we headed over to the church with about 15 minutes to spare. We met in The Pastor's study and talked about our ceremony.

About a month or two ago, we'd sent her our selections for the different portions of the ceremony, taken from a book she'd lent us that contained everything from invocations to prayers to vows. We'd also sent her some ideas for thoughts to work into the meditation portion.

The only thing that had changed was that we had written new vows based on some contemporary vows we found. I got them from a file I'd put together for my sister when she and her husband were planning their ceremony a couple years ago.

We went over the ceremony step by step, talking about each section. For example, we had to decide when Mom would read a poem she'd written for me back when I graduated from high school many years ago. It's about watching me head out for a brand new, exciting life on my own, and Mom and I agree it's just as appropriate today. The pastor suggested we have her read it after the greeting, which would be the time that the parents, both of whom are walking me down the aisle, traditionally would say anything they had to say.

After we'd worked out the entire ceremony, I wrote down the exact order of the different sections, which we'll use when we design our program for the wedding guests. I promised to share that with Mom and The Pastor when I'm done, in case there are any details I miss.

Then we chatted for a while about the wedding ceremony plans, and The Pastor gave us a few suggestions of things she'd seen different couples do. They will come in useful as we finalize details.

The whole meeting only took about an hour, but it was well worth it, since it's such an important aspect of our plans. Afterwards, Mom told me that she'd found a very nice dress and also a great gift for us. She was excited about it, which makes me feel good. I had worried about her finding something she liked to wear, since I know Dad is wearing a tuxedo and Mom didn't own anything formal. She assured me she found something that is both formal and very nice, so I'm sure she'll look great.

We drove them the short distance to the little community park where my brother played baseball when he was young, where the community Easter egg hunt was always held, and where my brother and I spent many hours playing on the playground equipment. The parking area was filled with cars when we walked up, and the strains of country music filtered across the green.

Things have changed a bit since I was younger, both good and bad. They have improved some things, such as the bathrooms, but other things needed repair, such as the siding on the big community building that contains a large open room for events and underneath has an open area containing picnic tables and a kitchen.

While even five or six years ago, when I last lived in the area, the homecoming event was populated primarily by families with children, now it was mostly elderly. The games set up at the various little permanent wooden shelters also seemed more fly-by-night than I remembered, with hand-scrawled signs rather than the brightly painted carnival colors I remembered.

Dad was in the midst of placing tickets in something called a Chinese Auction (believe it or not). It's basically a raffle, where you purchase a sheet of tickets and then distribute them as desired in cups in front of the prizes you'd like to win. Dad bid on a number of things, including several toys for his grandchildren, my brother's son and daughter.

While Dad was doing that, I introduced The Gryphon to the church organist, who was manning a table of White Elephant items, which if you don't know, is sort of like a grab bag. The items are donated by, frankly, people who don't want them, and they're wrapped in bags so you don't know what you're getting. It's only 25 cents for each item, so I gave her a dollar and chose four women's items that seemed to be in jewelry boxes. Sure enough, each contained a costume jewelry necklace. I'll decide later which to keep and which to donate to the Salvation Army.

We got Dad's attention, then, and walked to my car to leave my White Elephants. On the way back, we stopped at the little ice cream cart. I should have known that a small serving would still be huge: the equivalent of two servings, by my reckoning. It definitely wasn't low fat ice cream, either, so Saturday was more of a splurge than I'd originally intended. Still, my peanut butter ice cream certainly was tasty, and I hadn't had any ice cream that rich in a long time.

Soon, they started calling out the winners for the Chinese Auction, with one guy going around to the various prizes, taking the tickets from the cups, shaking them up and choosing a winner. While we stood there, Dad won two toys: a couple Matchbox cars and a toss-and-catch game with Velcro paddles and a tennis ball.

The drawing took quite a long time, so The Gryphon and I walked around to check out the other games. We played those that interested us. We didn't bet on the cake wheel, because we weren't interested in winning a cake. But The Gryphon and I did play a penny toss game, which was much harder than it looked.

You were supposed to throw your penny and land it exactly inside a square, each of which were numbered with how many pennies you'd win if you did it correctly. When The Gryphon tossed the first one, it flew way across the board into the gutter."Oh, that is so not a winner," I exclaimed, which got some laughs from the people running the booth. He got better after that, but neither of us won anything.

He had better luck with a pitching game, where you're supposed to knock a bowling pin off a steel drum. If you did this twice, you'd win a candy bar. He did it the first time but couldn't do it after that, but it was getting late, and the guy running the game let us choose a candy bar anyway. I put it in my purse, to give to my Dad later, as an extra thank you for hosting us.

There was also a game where you tried to throw darts into balloons, and another where you pitched coins into glass containers, winning whichever one you got the coin into. Plus, there was a ring toss game where you tried to throw a ring around a bottle of soda. We didn't play either of these because we weren't really interested in the prizes.

For kids, there was a "fishing booth," where you pay a little money and the kid puts their fishing pole behind a blind. A volunteer then pins a prize, either for a boy or a girl, to the line. The kids could also make sand paintings or play a lollipop game, where you pay a certain amount of money (a quarter, I think) and choose a lollipop from a stand. Those that have colored tips are good for an additional prize.

All of these are games they've played at this event since I was a child. It's just that in previous years, a lot more people were playing them, especially a lot of young people, and the prizes were bigger and flashier. Evidence, I guess, of the changing community and the changing economy.

The strangest game, though, seemed to involve trying to flip a beanbag into a toilet. For some odd reason, this game was located near the ice cream booth! This was not something we ever had when I was younger. It looked sort of jerryrigged and sad.

After we'd made the round of the games, we walked back to see how far they were in the drawings. They were still only about halfway through, so The Gryphon and I walked over to the playground to sit on a very wobbly bench which sat on a slope.

Here was apparently where the kids were congregating, as a number of preteen kids ran around, playing on the swings and on the merry-go-round. Families with younger kids had presumably already left for the day. I was happy to see that at least the playground equipment had been maintained, and even a few items added since I last used to play there.

Our wobbly bench was making us nervous, and bugs had started to bite, so we returned to the auction, which was just finishing. Dad wanted to stay and listen to the music by McNett Country Road Band, which was playing a lot of old-time folk interspersed with bluegrass and the occasional rockabilly tune. A folkie from way back, Dad could dig that kind of music.

The band was a family band which was being led by the sons, now that the father had passed on. The sons were enthusiastic and had lots of great stories but weren't the best vocalists, to be honest. I was, however, very impressed with Don Clark on steel guitar and Ray Rinker on fiddle. These guys have been around the block when it comes to music, and they got a chance to show their stuff on some great bluegrass tunes.

The crowd seemed to really have a good time, including one elderly fan who kept calling out "Wipe Out" until they played a '50s medley including a drum solo of "Wipe Out".

The Gryphon and I snuggled together as the evening grew colder.

We stayed until 10 p.m. when the music ended, and all the people headed slowly for their cars. Dad seemed to have had a great time, but I was still waxing nostalgic for the bright painted memories of my youth.

More on Alyce's wedding planning:

Musings on Alyce's Wedding

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

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