The Story of My Parents' Wedding

Story Time with Old Man Sharrett!

This week we have a guest writer, one of my best friends, Old Man Sharrett. This is the story of his parents' wedding.

To this day none of them will admit which of them did it. It's as though they all four took a solemn vow in the back of that station wagon as they drank copious amounts of booze, to never, EVER reveal which of them did it.

What is "it" you ask? Either my Uncle Larry (my dad's older brother), Uncle Jim (dad's brother in law), or Brian (his college roommate) wrote the word Why on my father's left shoe and Me? on his right shoe. We are fairly certain that it was not Brian because he is a math teacher in Shelton and we don't think he can spell that high. Anyway, when my parents knelt towards the end of the wedding ceremony one half of the congregation chuckled in hushed amusement and the other gasped in horror.

Now, my grandmother would likely have murdered her new son-in-law and all his kinfolk if it had not been for the SIX CASES of champagne that had been purchased for the reception. Uncle Larry made certain that no one's glass was ever empty. Everyone was drunk. It wasTHE party of 1985. Even my elderly great-grandparents. My Great Uncle Glen, who has never been heard to utter more than five words at a time, was found passed out in a hallway with a lampshade on his head.

The only sober person was my mother, mainly because she was under 21 and would be driving them to their honeymoon in Oregon. Thus, when the time came, they helped my father into the car where he promptly fell asleep in the passenger seat. Now, my mother has this issue with deciding which direction of the freeway she should be getting on. To this day she will have to ask my dad or whoever is navigating, "Do I want to go North or South?" Only for this trip her navigator was sleeping off a God's Own Drunk. Dad woke up from his little nap just south of Seattle where he promptly informed my mother that she was driving them the wrong way. They arrived safe and sound, though somewhat later than anticipated, at the hotel in Oregon that night.