I’ve got to run to Walgreen’s this morning and get me some waterproof mascara! We are going to a wedding tonight. People, I don’t even know the bride and groom — the fella is one of my husband’s co-workers. But, I know I’ll turn on the waterworks. I always cry at weddings. I even sob when I watch them on the television, and I know that isn’t real.
Why do I cry? I have no clue. It’s not because of the abysmal odds for marriages these days (what are they saying now, that 50% of them fail?). I think that I cry because I love romance. Despite all the evidence to the contrary, I believe in “Happily Ever After.” How could I not? I’m a professional storyteller, for Heaven’s sake. All the old stories tell me that there is such a thing.
I’m sure this wedding won’t be as “interesting” as ours was. When Mr. Tucker and I married, we “hopped a broom.” It’s an old tradition used on the frontier when preachers weren’t available. Hopping the broom signified a couple’s intent to live as man and wife.
Mr. Tucker, being an engineer, thought we should hop a vacuum cleaner, too (and we did). I told a story I had written for our wedding, but I had to tell it in my Irish accent so my in-laws wouldn’t make fun of my Texas twang. And, I did not come down the aisle to the Wedding March. A “big band” played “Hey Big Spender” as I vamped down the aisle. We exited in a conga line to the tune of “Sing, Sing, Sing.”
Yes, it was “different,” but it was fun. Nobody was crying at my wedding, because they were laughing too hard. In fact, one of my friends from high school said, “Shelly, that wedding was the most fun wedding I’ve ever been to; it even beats all three of mine!”
I got the wedding I wanted (the second time around). But, I think about one that happened back in 1915, and I’m sure it was not the wedding of which the bride had dreamed. It was on February 7th, to be exact, and it was pretty darned cold here in Texas. Reona Addie Wismer and Andrew Duncan decided to “get hitched” that frosty morning.
Reona had been living with a “foster family.” In those days, in some foster families, the child was the equivalent of an indentured servant. Such was the case with Reona; she had a pretty hard life. But, then Andrew came along like a knight in shining armor to save her. Reona was fourteen years old, and Andrew was twenty-seven, but that wasn’t so unusual back then.
On her wedding day, the day she and Andrew decided to elope, her foster “mother” grew furious at losing her unpaid help. She took all of Reona’s possessions, piled them in the yard, and set fire to them. Andrew came to get her in his wagon, pulled by his faithful horse Domino (an all white horse with one black spot on his side). Reona climbed up in the wagon beside him. Her only worldly goods were the clothes on her back. She was wearing the wedding dress that she had made out of red plaid taffeta (she said she always loved that dress because it “whispered” when she walked).
Andrew drove that wagon over to the preacher’s house. He had been dining on greasy fried chicken when they pulled into the yard. The preacher man got up from his table, wiped his hands on his pants, grabbed The Good Book, and “hitched” them right there in the yard. They didn’t even get down from the wagon.
Now, I’d love to tell you that Andrew and Reona, my Granddaddy and Grandmommy, had their “Happily Ever After.” That was not to be. But, it’s a story for another day.
Right now, I’ve got to run to get mascara … because I don’t want mascara to run. I hate having “raccoon eyes,” don’t you? And Kleenex! I’d better not forget to have some tissues.
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It is a pretty story about your grandparents. I hope you enjoy the wedding tonight
Hugs!
Lolas last blog post..Fruto de la quedada
Thank you, Lola. I hope I enjoy, too. I have lots of Kleenex. Hugs back.
How does one ‘Hop’ anything?
You had to be there.
It was the tail end of the civil war and Tabitha sat on the porch in a rocker. There was little food left, but when Rueben rode up on his horse and said, there were Union soldiers coming hard behind him she went in and started some bacon and biscuits for the handsome stranger. When she came out, the other soldiers were on the nearest ridge. As Rueben left he called out, “I’ll be back for the biscuits and I’ll be back for you”. He did return and always said they were the best biscuits he never et. 70 years later, Tabby came home from the funeral and went to sit in her rocker. She didn’t leave it again because a mistake had been made if Rueben wasn’t there at home as he had always been. Six days later they laid her by his side one last time.
Jamies last blog post..Eight Days of Hanukkah
You made me cry…and I bet it’s a true story from your family.
Awww. I always cry at weddings, too. I kinda pisses me off. I think I like to think of myself as One Tough Cookie, (it goes with the whole tattoo artist thing, don’t you think?) but the truth is I’m a steel covered marshmallow. I weep at the drop of a hat.
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I don’t know whether I’m crying because it’s beautiful, or because of the sad statistics for marriage
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