The Wedding Book

(Reposted and slightly revised (to change the first two stanza from present to past tense) for the 70th Anniversary of my parents' wedding date: 2-10-2021)

I had gone back to our homestead 

 in the dead of winter and deep snow 

to keep my mother company for a few days 

in the now-quiet house our family built 

those many years ago. 

 It is a quiet comfort to step inside the one place 

on earth that in your mind is "home"-- 

not the house where you now live 

and share life with those who know the present you-- 

oh, that is home indeed, make no mistake, 

but I'm speaking of a corner in your mind... 

that place you left when it was time 

 that gladly takes you back again. 

If such a place exists for you, 

I highly recommend you go there while you can, 

and if inside there is a face to greet you at the door... 

then you will know the meaning of these lines. 

 I stood there with a gentle knock

 after a day at work and a four-hour drive. 

The front porch light was on, 

but the windows were dim,

and Mom was asleep on the davenport 

(as mother always called a "couch"), 

 but she woke at my knock, 

and stumbled to the door as if

her legs had not awakened with her.

We visited into the night until I nodded off 

and suggested we continue 

reminiscing in the morning. 

(Reminiscing is what becomes of conversations

stretched through time.)   

Rising early and alone with a pad and pen, 

I was drawn to the davenport and the pillow

still pressed in from Mother's head the night before. 

Sitting there, I noticed that 

the living room still knew the meaning of its name 

(but now a quiet sort of living to be sure). 

Gone were the days of horsy-back rides, 

our daughters’ song and dance upon the hearth, 

and wrapping paper strewn on Christmas morn. 

That sort of living in the room had faded like a snapshot 

left too many years upon a windowsill. 

It had been twelve winters (and twelve springs) 

since that bustle in the house 

that draws the tie that binds and finds 

 a way synchronize the laughter and the sighs 

till joy returns to vacant eyes 

enough to start the long goodbyes as one by one 

life calls apart what death has brought together. 

I smiled at how the many things find ways to gather 

undisturbed in corners where the carpet was not worn— 

and in countless numbers scrawled on torn scraps 

and backs of envelopes in the nook 

where the phone sat atop the yellow pages 

 left waiting on the corner chair. 

Across the room, was a row of photo albums 

in the shadow of the attic stair 

beside boxes waiting to be carried up 

next time the need to climb them came. 

And there it was I saw the wedding book 

was left waiting on the bottom step. 

Reaching through the banister I took the book in hand. 

Its pebbled ivory cover took me back the fifteen years 

when last it lay upon lap, 

the time my girls sat spellbound at my side. 

I'd borrowed it to make a video photomontage.

They'd never seen the book before-- 

a splendid volume of full-page black-and-whites 

with details crystallized in time: 

You can almost feel the softening varnish 

on the blackened backs of pews; 

and smell the winter on the woolen coats; 

and hear the hatted women in the crowd whispering, 

“Don’t look at the camera,” 

while children gaze bewildered in the lens.

It’s as if the photographer knew
these weren’t just wedding pictures—
especially in the group tableaus—
it’s as if he knew…
this was the cast party
of the unfolding play
that was our life before we lived.

Each shot is in the old historic church that shares its name
with the fort that once stood there
and the old lighthouse still standing
and the avenue that in its day
tied Port Huron to Detroit
and all points in between…
and thus became the byway of our lives.

The Wedding Guests

I rose to put some coffee on,
and when the pot had sputtered its last sigh,
Mom was up to share a cup
and ask me what I had there in my lap.
And so began a conversation
that saw us through to lunch and gave a glimpse
of how life’s yarn is spun and knit…
and how a Providential twist
can turn into the tie that binds.

I opened to the reception picture,
the most intriguing of them all.
There’s a clock on the wall
that says it’s nearly nine, and in that moment
the basement of the church is filled
with shared contentment.

Mom pointed at the page.
“Doesn’t my dad look handsome there?
Look at Mumma, and your Dad’s mom,
and that’s Aunt Edith beside her.”

“Isn’t she the one who kicked
her underwear off the bridge?” I smiled.

“No. That was Aunt Dean,” she laughed,
turning back a page to point her out
and obliged to tell the story once again.
“Jupiter! She was walking home
across the 10th Street Bridge
in downtown Port Huron—
not Military Street, the other one—
and right in the middle of the bridge,
her elastic snapped and down they dropped
like a parachute 'round her ankles.
Do you remember?” Mom laughed.
(I wasn’t there, of course,
but nodded so as not to break her thought.)

“On the spot she had to choose—
her dignity or her drawers?—
she could not have them both.
The coming traffic forced her call,
and with a flick of her less than dainty foot
she nonchalantly kicked her panties
through the railing on the bridge—
pshhhhew—and let them billow down
to the boats below. Black River’s
busy that time of year, you know.
And then she walked right on home
like nothing happened.”

“Enjoying the cool summer breeze,” I added,
since she’d left out that line.

“Yep. That’s what she said
whenever we made fun.
But you have to remember,
that was during World War II—
there was a shortage of rubber,
and they were chinsin’ on elastic.
My land! we couldn’t even buy stockings—
we had to draw hose seams
on the back of our legs with eyebrow pencil.
Between the air-raid drills and Hitler
and our loose underwear,
we ladies lived in constant fear."

I’d heard the story and its tie-in to the war
a hundred times before
(as I had the many that followed),
but it was wonderful
to hear Mom’s laugh
and the lilt in her voice again.

The Wedding Cake

Mom turned the page
to the picture of the cake
and told me something
that I’d never heard,
nor was there cause
to hear it until now.
“Did you know Bob made
the wedding cake we served?”
“Your Bob?” I asked,
wanting to hear more.

“My Bob,” she smiled.

“His family owned a bakery
near the corner of 10th and Lapeer—
just five blocks from the bridge.”
“The underwear bridge?” I asked.
“Just a walk from there, and around the corner
from our house on Lapeer Avenue.”

“Time out, Mom. I’m confused.
You just said OUR house on Lapeer?"

“Well, we didn’t live there yet, of course,” she said.
"We didn’t move there ‘til you were born—
Let's see... Kathy in ’52; Paul in ’53;
Dave in ’54;and you in ’56—
So this was five years before.
Those were fun days weren’t they, Tom?
You in droopy diapers riding Duke,
and Dave and Paul wearing pots on their heads
in the sandbox, and Kathy playing dress-up...”

She drifted off to someplace in her mind,

a place I knew mostly from old photos

and the stories Mom and Dad so often shared.

“They were magic years, Mom, but… the cake.
You were telling me about the cake.”

“Oh, yea… Well, Bob and I
were in class together since 7th grade.
He’d come over to talk sometimes
when Barb and Jean and I
were sitting on the back-porch swing.
(She turned back to the reception page.)
That’s Barb there serving cake—
but that wasn’t the cake I’d ordered.
You see what happened was…
an acquaintance of ours had offered
to make a wedding cake,
and she brought it to my house—
you know, Grandma’s house
on Forest Street—the day before.
But the cake was not what I'd described at all,
and soon as she left, I just bawled.
I had no time and no money left to fix it
and then I remembered Bob.
He worked at his folk's bakery on 10th.
So I caught the bus, and...”

“Wait a minute, Mom.” I interrupted. “Why a bus?"

“I didn't have a license; I didn't have a car—
it was your dad who taught me how to drive,
but that was later on;
and Daddy, my dad, was workin' I guess;
and Dad Collinge was probably at the Grotto;
and Mumma never drove—ever...
but we always managed to get around—
just like she still hops a bus to the beauty shop
and she's just pert-near 100. Isn't that something?
I used to take the bus every day
from Riverview to Stone Street.
This is when I worked at Star Oil."

"I remember that you worked there—
it was by Pine Grove, but I guess
I never heard about the bus."

"Here's something else
I'll bet I never told you about Star Oil:
I worked in accounts receivable? Imagine that.
Me who flunked bookkeeping—
all I remembered about bookkeeping
was it being the only word
with three double letters in a row,
but they hired me just the same.”

My jaw dropped,“Now that I did not know..."

“What? About the double letters?”

“No that you worked in accounts receivable.”

“Ironic isn’t it, but that’s what I did…
right up ‘til a few months before Kate was born.
That was the only “job” job I ever had.
Then you kids became my job
and your dad, of course…
but he was working that day ‘til five,
climbing poles for Bell,
saving his days-off for the honeymoon…
so I knew he couldn’t take me.

I never even asked...”

“Take you where?” I wondered aloud.

“To the bakery to see about a cake.”

“Oh, yea. You got me thinkin' about that picture
of Dad smiling at the top of a telephone pole.
Most of your stories I know by heart,
but this cake one I’ve never heard,
and we keep veering off...
So it’s what time? Noon?
The day before the wedding...
and you still need a cake...
you get to the bakery… and then what?”

“I was afraid it was closed.
The door was stuck, but then
I pushed it, and the bell that hung inside
rang so loud it scared me.
No one was at the counter—
which was fine because I knew
I was about to cry again…
so I just stood there staring
at baked goods behind the glass.
I loved the smell of that bakery.
I used to walk you kids
there for doughnuts. Remember?”

“Mom, the cake. I’m like five years
from existing at this point in the story.
If you don’t get this cake,
I may never be born.”

Mom laughed, “You know how I like to tell things—
they're not tangled they're connected.

"So… I’m standing there and Bob comes
from the back to the green counter out front.
We’d lost touch since high school—
I’d heard he was married now—
but he was always such a friend.
‘Hello, Bev!’ He says, ‘What can I do for you?’
He said that. So I asked: ‘Do ya mean it, Bob?
Can you really do something for me?'
I think he could tell something was wrong.
‘I’ll sure try. What do you need?’
And then I just bawled.”

“Mom, you just walked into Bob’s bakery…
after not seeing him for what--three years?

And ya started crying? What did he do?
Had he seen you like that before?”

“Oh, probably. Everybody knew I cried easily,
but he just smiled and said:
‘Bev, for you I can do this.’
‘How can you do this by tomorrow?’
(I was so embarrassed to ask.)
‘For you, I’ll bake it this afternoon,
let it cool overnight, frost it in the morning,
and deliver it to the church myself.’
He scribbled the order on a pad,
open and closed the register drawer,
and said, “No charge.” And I cried again.

The cake was there the next day.
It was beautiful with little roses
on each of the sheet cake squares.

That was the last time I saw Bob
until our 50th Class Reunion
seven years ago. You know the rest."
I did know the rest,
but this story brought a smile
that had been missing
from a chapter of our lives.
Some things take time to understand.

Mom went to the kitchen for a bite,
and I turned to the last picture
at the back of the book.
Mom and Dad are sitting cheek-to-cheek
in the back of a borrowed sedan,
smiles beaming with all the love and happiness
they gave to us for forty-some years to come.

Dad died unexpectedly in ’95,
and Mom lived alone for a while.
Then the Class of ’48 called to see
if she was coming to their reunion.
She was ready.
By stepping briefly into her past
she was able to re-enter the present
and look ahead. Long story short…
Bob was also there and alone that night,
and their friendship was rekindled.
It slowly grew in the forgiving soil
that comes with age until it called for
a gathering of friends and family
about a mile from the other church
(the one in Mom's wedding book).
In a little chapel there
we shared another wedding cake
that as far as I know…Bob didn’t bake
the afternoon before.

Mom was right: Her stories aren't tangled at all...
they're unbelievably connected.

© Copyright 2008

The following video was made during my parents 40th Anniversary Year (which happened to also be my Grandmother's 80th Birthday. 

At the 2:02 mark of the video, you'll see that "they still had it" after a long sabbatical from the dance floor. We only recently discovered this footage on an unmarked Hi8 video tape that had been unwatched nearly 30 years then digitized just in time for the reposting of this story.