MLK holiday.

The Martin Luther King weekend holiday this year was pretty eventful.  The weather turned bitterly cold and it snowed briefly after a spate of unusually warm weather.

 On Sunday I went to the evening wedding of the daughter of a friend and former colleague of mine down on the new DC waterfront on the Anacostia River. The bride and groom made for a handsome couple, and we danced into the night and I made the last Metro train for the night back to Virginia by a bare 4 minutes.

On Monday, being the actual holiday, I went to the local gourmet pizzeria for lunch, where I had a tasty Cheese Steak pizza, which tasted much like a Philly cheese steak sandwich, and enjoyed an excellent Allagash Curieux draft, brewed by a Portland (ME) brewery in a process that ages the beer for eight weeks in barrels formerly used to age bourbon.  The place was busy so I ate at the bar and planned my next three lunches there next month, on President's Day and the two birthdays of my February babies.

After lunch I went down the street a short way to the Stray Cat Cafe, a sandwich, draft and hamburger place that had recently undergone a makeover to add all-day breakfast, Mexican food and shakes and floats to its menu and renovated its interior.  Inside I made the acquaintance of a retired scientist and we had a fascinating conversation about sound waves, mudslides, political assassinations, reading and writing, GIFs and, wait for it, divorce and its deleterious long-lasting effect upon children deeply affected by a parent suffering from a narcissistic personalty disorder (NPD).

A Wedding Wish

Dear Dan and Laura,

Congratulations on your wedding last year.  A neighbor told me you were married.  I'm sure you'll be very happy.  And Laura, welcome to the family.  Although I have never met you, I'm sure you'll be a wonderful wife to my youngest son.  Enjoy the cooking mat!  And Dan, good luck and I hope the shirt fits!  Since I don't know your address, I'll throw these items in the box of your stuff that I keep in the basement for now.

As ever,

Dad.

An Adam Henry?

I was running with a friend telling her my latest intel on my 3 estranged sons whom I haven't had nary a word from in almost a decade.  It turns out that the youngest one, now 27, got married over a year ago.

"You mean he got married and he didn't invite you to it or even inform you of it?" she asked.  This woman is as sharp as they come and as good a Christian as I know, but she is also a loving parent.

"What an asshole," she muttered.  She had just pronounced judgment on the boy's (now a man) actions and attitudes for the last decade and a half.

It was the first time this good friend had offered an unsympathetic outlook on any of my children.  I think her point was that this adult, regardless of how he had had his will maliciously overborne as a minor by adults during the divorce, was now a fully mature adult responsible for how he conducted himself and he had squandered a chance to effect a change in the hateful nature of the relationships in his life.

You can't go home again.

My boyhood friend Erik from Staten Island got married last weekend in New Jersey in a beautiful Catholic church and put on a sumptuous reception nearby at a spectacular mountaintop restaurant in upstate New York.  His bride, a divorcee, could get married in the Catholic church because her first marriage was a civil ceremony and so never occurred (a nullity); Protestants like myself find the convoluted rules governing Catholic membership and available services incomprehensible.

Afterwards I returned to Staten Island for a trip through nostalgia.  The street beside the house I lived in when I was twelve, which I remembered to be plenty big enough for our numerous games of touch football and kick the can, seemed too narrow to be suitable for such activities to an adult eye.

The garage to that house with its simple one-level rental unit above it (the third story was a mere loft used as an attic) was sold off separately later as a carriage house and the property was separated.  I spoke with the papergirl delivering the Sunday Staten Island Advance and she filled me in on many of the folks I knew in childhood, who still had an association with the neighborhood.

For instance, the boy next door who was exactly my age and wanted to be a priest grew up to be a real estate agent, always lived at home, inherited the house and now lived there alone as a recluse with major health issues starting with "bad teeth," and the fireman on the block, a friend of my dad, had passed on recently and his widow lived on in their home with their son, a friend of my brother, who had never left the house and worked for the post office.  I eschewed knocking on any doors in the old neighborhood although apparently, half a century later, I would have known several of the people who answered.

You can go home again.

After attending Erik's wedding this past weekend in Ridgewood, New Jersey, I spent the night on Staten Island, where I spent my boyhood.  The Holiday Inn where I stayed was horrible, check out the view from the window.

Sunday morning I got up and went to the old hood in Westerleigh.  The house I lived in from 1963 to 1973 was there, in all its grandeur.

Later I went to the old homestead in Stapleton, where we lived from 1958 to 1963.  It was a pretty fine house in its own write.

That part of Staten Island is quite hilly and close to the water.  Check out the view from the top of the hill behind where I lived.

Erik got married.

Erik was my best friend as a boy.  Practically every weekend we played army or Rebel and Yankee together on the hills of Staten Island or conducted interminable battles with little green army men on the floors of our bedrooms.  (I saw Erik in late 2012.)

He was 364 days older than me so one day a year, on my birthday which was a day before his, we were the same age.  We were inseparable, having sleepovers, going miles and miles into the hills, assembling models, going to the Army Navy store to buy left-over WWII equipment to equip ourselves for our "patrols" on the Haystack, a nearby hill, or purchasing another set of lead soldiers for 19 cents each (they were the Americans in our massive battles on the floor) at the dimestore.  (A wedding in Ridgewood, NJ… .)

After 50 years of having lost touch we reconnected on Facebook.  Then in 2012 tragedy struck and he lost his wife and almost lost his life in a small plane crash.  (Erik with his sister-in-law Gerta, who took care of him for months after the accident while he recovered, and brother Mark before the ceremony.)

This past weekend he got married to a wonderful woman he met while recovering from his injuries.  I attended and could observe that they are obviously very happy with each other, and I wish him and Nina all the success in the world.  (Erik dancing with his 91 year old mom at the reception.)

Getting Pea Married

My niece got married in Portland over the Fourth of July weekend.  It was nice to be able to spend time in the city, I only made the acquaintance of the great Northwest recently when I spent a week in the summer of 2012 touring Oregon, Washington and Idaho.  (The happy moment at the West End Ballroom, as taken through a mirror in the corner.)

I remember thinking then that this would be a great area to retire to.  Fit, liberal people, beautiful landscape, lots of interesting history and great cities in Portland and Seattle.  (Mount Hood in 2012.)

I was taken aback by the beauty of Crater Lake.  A must see for anyone.  (A stunning vista at Crater Lake.)

But aside from seeing a baseball game in Seattle and ascending the space needle, I didn't spend any time in any of the cities that week, which was pretty much one long car trip.  But last month I got to see Portland the best way possible, by running through it on two early morning runs.  (From the Burnside Bridge.)

  

Portlandia

My friends tell me there's a cable offering that mocks the over-the-top green attitudes of Portlanders (the Left Coast variety) that's screamingly funny.  Undoubtedly.  (Abe is there.)

I traveled to Portland over the Fourth of July weekend to attend the wedding of my twenty-something niece, who lives around there with her significant other.  Now that they're married, are they still Significant Others, or are they husband and wife?  (The mother of the bride and one of my other four sisters conversing before the ceremony.)

Everything good is "sustainable" out there, whatever that means.  The wedding photographer summed it up on his website by saying that he appreciated being asked to shoot the wedding of the couple because their union is "sustainable" (I suppose so if they don't get divorced like half the couples who get married do) and the three of them started out the happy day by going to a state park to get some shots of the two there because the park offered "cool locations" and it was "sustainable" (was it suspected of going somewhere?).  (In Portland, you can run over the many bridges spanning the river, which is cool.  Here is a sign on the Steel Bridge which establishes the pecking order in terms of right-of-way on the bridge, being pedestrians before bicyclists, and in fine print Prohibits you from hurling yourself from the bridge.)

I was only there for two nights and one day (two mornings) but I got two runs through the city in.  It's a great city.  (In Portland, the water faucets are always On, spouting water needlessly and endlessly.)

Uh, whatever

I got in a little family hot water last fall when I received an email from one of my sisters saying that my nephew had become engaged to some woman he'd met on some trip he'd taken. I didn't know the woman but that sounded nice. When they set a wedding date, I supposed I'd focus on it and see if I could go.

My sister was outraged. None of her siblings sent her son a congratulatory email. She definitely had a check list going. I asked when the wedding was taking place so that I could circle the date on my calendar.

She said that it was going to be sometime during the summer. Of 2009. In Canada.

Ahh! I don't have a 2009 calendar yet, but I sure do have plenty of time to get a passport.

More recently I received a call from my sister inquiring whether I was likely to attend. For a week. In Canada. On some indeterminate date in the summer of 2009. And would I be bringing a S.O?

I'm not even dating currently. But at least my sister didn't ask if any of my three estranged sons, who haven't spoken to anybody on my side of the family for five years, would be coming.

It sounded like some list was being created. Some talk was evidently underfoot about renting a family compound so that all of the future in-laws from the states could gather together to bond or commune on the celebrated union or something. For a week. In Canada. On some indeterminate date in the summer of 2009.

Without hesitation I said to put me down as a yes on all counts.

What would you have done?