Day 28 (I think) – Tuckertown, Rhode Island

Hi, Don again.  DeeBee has graciously allowed me to take over the blog again tonight in order for me to give some details of yesterday’s happenings, while he was still here in Rhode Island on holiday.  He’ll take charge again tomorrow to recount his experiences while in the care of Joanne and Gracie.  I will say that he put on a good show of being happy to see us when we arrived at Joanne’s tonight, and we were certainly more than pleased to get together with him again!

So, back to yesterday.  After another late rising from an extremely pleasant sleep experience, we dressed leisurely and went out to do some shopping for needed items.  I had started to get some goutish symptoms in my left foot, so we had to find some black cherry juice, which is the sure fire cure for gout; don’t laugh, it works for me every time!  It took a couple of supermarket visits to find it, and Geri tried to substitute some real cherries when she couldn’t find the juice at the first store we tried.  They were really good, and they may have helped somewhat.  Geri found a small handbag that was apparently essential to her wardrobe for the wedding, and was very pleased with her success.  After a brief search for a street sign that I wanted a photo of, we returned to the hotel and started getting ready to hit the road. 

Properly attired, we proceeded to Atlantic Beach, which is down near the southwestern end of Long Island.  The festivities were being held at a Beach Club facility, and we arrived there just as the cocktail party was starting prior to the nuptials.  The setting was quite grand, with a huge bar area and marvelous feeding stations set up all around the room, with goodies like pastas, pannini, fresh fruits, hamburgers, and (my favorite) a sushi bar.  Everyone was chowing down happily, washing it down with drinks from the bar, and meeting and greeting friends and relatives.  I was joyously indulging myself in some very fine sushi for the second night in a row, and roving the room seeking out Geri’s cousins, of which she has a bunch, to let them know that we had arrived.  It’s always a great pleasure to visit her relatives here in New York (though quite a few come from Jersey), as they are all really fun people and very welcoming to those of us who have married into the family.  Geri was doing the same kind of scouting trip, and we would run into each other occasionally to exchange information on who we had encountered. 

After an hour or so of gustatory revelry, we were all escorted into another large room, where the ceremony was to be enacted.  This was the first Orthodox Jewish wedding that either Geri or I had attended, and it was a wonderful thing to behold.  A Cantor with a fine tenor voice sang a traditional piece, which we assume related the virtues and wonders of the martial relationship.  The ritual was very beautiful and impressive, with alternating expressions of solemn dedication and joyful pleasure.  At one point, the Groom is required to lift the veil of the Bride to ensure that the lady in question is indeed the one he originally intended to marry; this was accomplished to everyone’s satisfaction. 

When the marriage ritual was completed, the wedding party and the rest of the happy participants were moved to yet another room, where dinner tables and a dance floor were set up for the post-nuptial party.  The men of the wedding party immediately took control of the dance floor and performed a rousing, swirling circular dance, with everyone shouting and clapping at their performance.  The Bride and Groom were placed in chairs, then lifted over the heads of the dancers and pumped up and down to the delight of the onlookers; this process was repeated with all of the Wedding Party members, including Geri’s sister Carol and Mikey, father of the Bride.  Carol’s shrieks were particularly earth-shaking. 

As a personal aside, I’ve known Meredith, the Bride, for over twenty years, and I’ve always enjoyed being in her company.  She’s a warm, caring and very genuine lady with a combination of worldly acknowledgement of how things happen and a sweetness of desire to make the world a better place.  I couldn’t have been more pleased to see her basking in the acknowledgement of her discovery of the man she was destined to spend the rest of her life with; she glowed with the happiness of the moment.  I think the entire group assembled there felt her joy and reveled in it.

Lots of food, lots of dancing, photos taken, catching up on family goings-on.  Gary was everywhere with the video camera, capturing every embarrassing moment that anyone experienced (except some of ours!) and every graceful moment of the Bride and Groom.  I’m sure that he’ll produce a well-edited document of the entire evening, without concentrating on anyone’s particular blunders.  There was so much going on, and so many personal relationships renewed, that I can’t really go into particulars on any portion of the proceedings.  I can only say that the Wedding was a huge success, on every aspect of it, and I’m so glad that we could be a part of it!