On This Day In…
30 years ago today Mrs. Perils of Caffeine and I were married in Findlay, Ohio. We had moved in together after college, to the consternation of both families, in Bowling Green while I took some courses and waited for life to whisper something definite in my ear. The situation with the families didn’t improve, and we finally decided to get officially licensed.
We were over-the-top bicycle enthusiasts then, and thought it would be the height of whimsy to ride our bikes to the ceremony. We’d heard that the mayor of Findlay, the self-proclaimed “only Democrat in Hancock County”, would perform the honors free of charge, so we grabbed a good friend as witness and rode the 25 miles to Findlay. We encountered a strong headwind, the relentless kind of wind in Ohio unencumbered by trees or hills, and tucked in behind a farmer’s combine for several miles. As a result, the bride arrived at her wedding with chaff in her hair.
Afterward, we rode back to Bowling Green in time for the bride to work her shift at the restaurant at the Holiday Inn. She either liberated, or they gave her, a nice hunk of steak, our friend brought a cake and we had our wedding banquet after she got off work.
We could have, probably should have, given the families the opportunity to throw a traditional wedding. It would have healed a lot of things and made life a little easier for all of us in the years to follow. But I was stubborn, self-absorbed and - look at me - not really ready to deal with rooms full of people asking me what I was doing with my life.
All in all, though, things have worked out well. Though my parents live 2,000 miles away, I visit with them 5 or 6 times a year; my mother-in-law now lives with us as an invited guest; and the marriage has outlived the Kingdome and a gaggle of sovereign nation-states.
(Edit 6/7/18: all parents mentioned herein besides ourselves have long since passed on.)
Photo was taken on the ride home after the nuptials. Click photo to enlarge
