Joe wanted to go, so we did, driving 395 miles from about 9:15- 5:30 on Friday. I have a tuxedo from my brief time with West Virginia University's Community Choir; Joe rented one at Daniel's, a local men's store.
Possibly my oldest non-relative friend, Larry, lives in Rockland County, near where we were staying. I sent him a message on Facebook before we left, asking if we could see him and his wife, Renate, Friday night or Saturday. Larry's parents and mine were best friends from early in my parents' marriage, before Larry and I were born. He is three months younger than I am.
We saw Nanuet Diner near the hotel, and, both of us liking old-school diners, decided to try our luck. It was like the old days, with bright lights, chrome and neon and a twenty page menu. The difference is that the wait staff were all men, conversing with each other in some kind of Caribbean Spanish and what I think was Haitian Creole. We ordered eggplant parmigiana, each serving enough for three, which came with soup or salad, coffee or tea, and dessert. We stuffed ourselves.
We looked around Saturday a bit in New City and in Tappan, where Larry and Renate live. The New Jersey line is an easy walk from Larry's house, and there is a historic district at the center of the town. The house is of the era and style of the identical houses Larry and I grew up in on the same street in suburban Baltimore. He is a musician and clergy in Eckankar; she is also clergy and a health practitioner. She made us a healthy, low-carb brunch, and we talked about old times and new. Larry and I always looked a little alike, both short and cute, now both bald with little mustaches. His mother, who we called "Aunt", and was more of an aunt to me than my biological aunts, is 94 and doing well. She lives in Naples, Florida. For her birthday in September, Larry visited. A call came that they had to evacuate because of Hurricane Irma. Larry was able to drive her across Florida to stay with friends. When they came back, they found a palm tree had crashed the roof of her car. Larry helped her buy a new car- at 94.. She is the last of our parents. Larry noted that he and his two brothers (one older, one younger) are all older than their father waa at his death. In December 2018, I will be the age my father was when he died. My religious beliefs, which include miracles in everyday life, is that there was some arrangement that Larry would be at his mother's side when a hurricane hit. You can take that as possible or chalk the whole thing up to coincidence. We didn't stay too long with Larry and Renate because he was driving to Trenton at 3 P.M. to play a concert with some friends.
Our history is so close. We were inseparable as small children, but grew apart when we were older. I did well in school; Larry did not. This trip, we both acknowledged that, by today's standards,we were ADD kids; Larry with the added "H" that made it impossible for him to sit still. Someone recently posted a picture of my second-grade class on Facebook. Our school, new in 1954, was mostly windows, and that clasroom looked out on a woods. I sat by the window, and I know I was always deep in my own thoughts and enjoying the view, while typically not paying attention to what the teacher was doing. Larry said "I'm grateful that we grew up when we did. If it was today, they would shoot me full of ritalin." That might help some kids, but Larry, after his family moved to Ohio when we were eleven, became a visual artist, a guitarist, singer, songwriter, playwright and actor, and also ran a small referral agency for musicians. I have great respect for him and what he does, and it warms my heart to know his mother, our last link to that generation, is thriving.
Anyway, we went back to our hotel, crashed for a bit, struggled to dress ourselves in tuxedos, and decided to drive to the wedding instead of taking the shuttle, so we could leave before the shuttle, which was returning at midnight.
The venue was the Paramount Country Club on Zukor Road. Adolph Zucker, the founder of Paramount Studios, had an estate there. Steve, the groom's father, has stayed in touch with many friends from school, including Joe, and he invited them..We walked in with a group of sixtyish people. Joe turned to one woman and greeted her ."Diane?" She looked at him for a second before recognizing him and they kissed and hugged. He took her to their senior prom in high school. There were more friends from school, including a gay man, Peter, not Jewish, who Joe said he knew from elementary school.
The wedding was lavish with donuts and champagne before the ceremony and lots of food after Both the bride and groom are Jewish; they met in college. The rabbi at Steve's synagogue, who has been there since before Steve's son, Josh was born, officiated. He sang the blessings, was warm and kind. He greeted me and Joe after the ceremony as if we were all old friends.
Weddings follow a pattern, and each one reminds me of another one. The bride and groom each have a brother, and the brothers escorted their grandmothers down the aisle. I though about my sister's wedding, thirty-nine years ago, and how I walked down the aisle with our eighty year old grandmother, I in a brown corduroy three-piece suit, a full multi-colored beard and my father's old hairpiece; my grandmother in her traditional blonde bouffant, and a pretty blue dress she had picked out. It made me conscious of how much things change, even as they are the same. Hopefully, our traditions will continue, even if we who witnessed this wedding, join those who witnessed previous weddings, in whatever world there is to come. The couple is cute enough, and I found myself rooting for them to have a great life together. Steve and Elise, the groom's parents, kissed and hugged us over and over and thanked us for making the journey to their son's wedding. We are in New York almost every year, and we always see them, often taking a train from Manhattan to their home in Scarsdale. Their son was probably fifteen when I first met him.
The food was great, the band, with three wonderful singers, and a repertoire of mostly soul oldies, was terrific. They started off with a medley of Jewish tunes, the copy of the "Fiddler On The Roof" wedding, which passes for traditional Jewish content. Everyone was into it and the band wailed, so I joined in, instead of going "Bah! Humbug!" as I usually do. Everyone was lifted on chairs, like in the Jerome Robbins choreography in "Fiddler."
We didn't leave early. We left with the van after midnight. Joe was engrossed in conversation with his old friend Peter. I chatted up two of the other women, and their husbands, who were not part of that circle. I told Diane, Joe's prom date, past sixty, married with two grown daughters, that Joe had discussed her with me, that if they had been a few years older, and his sexuality had skewed a little more to center, he would have tried to make a life with her. I thought about the girl I took to my prom, and I might have said that, on my own behalf, to her as well.
I will admit that I was annoyed with Joe, that he sat talking to his friend, when we had to get up early and drive home Sunday. I slept less than five hours, and told Joe he would have to do most of the driving home. I usually drive the two of us because I don't mind driving, and his driving makes me nervous. We were out just after nine in the morning. I drove to the Pennsylvania line near Easton; then he took a shift. I drove again, then stopped in Maryland, where I let him take over. When I awoke that time, we were in the mountains of Western Maryland, and it was snowing. We were home just after five.
This was a shlep to do this, but I was glad to see Larry and Renate, and happy for Joe that he was able to connect with his old friends. And of course, it is a mitzvah, a commandment, to rejoice with bride and groom, which we did, with gusto.
And we leave for Memphis Wednesday. Oy!
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| Larry and I on chairs from his parents' house when we were children |
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| Larry, his wife Renate, Joe and me |
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| Joe and I in our tuxes by the wedding canopy, the chuppah |
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| Snow on I-68 in Western Maryland |
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