By Pam MansellHerald Writer
By Pam Mansell
Herald Writer
I N OUR HOUSE, the advent of June is greeted with much excitement and many memories. Our son Jeff's birthday is at the beginning of the month, followed five days later by mine, so there are always lots of parties going on. Then there's the end of the school year, which, when you have children panting for freedom from classes and homework, is cause for another party.
Many of the really memorable June moments, however, have involved weddings. I doubt that a year has gone by that we haven't gone to a June wedding, and I remember almost all of them _ how lovely the bride was, how nervous the groom, how gorgeous the flowers, how elegant the reception _ for one reason or another. But one always stands out in particular.
It's the one known in our family as ``the wedding where they got their teeth cleaned'' _ or, as my children subtitled it, ``the wedding where Mom made a complete fool of herself.''
I think our daughter Cate was about 12 and Jeff 10 when we got the invitation to Wendy's wedding in Canton, Ohio. Wendy had been a youth group leader at our church, and the kids loved her, so I said I'd take them. For a big portion of the drive into Ohio, I reviewed wedding etiquette _ especially for Jeff, who had a tendency to squirm a lot when forced to sit for long periods of time. Jeff, it turned out, did fine. I was the only problem in our trio.
It was warm and sunny, a great day for a wedding, and the ceremony started beautifully. The bridesmaids swayed down the aisle, followed by a lovely Wendy, who was met at the front of the sanctuary by her groom. So far, so good. Then the minister started speaking, and the first glitch appeared. The sound system wasn't working well, so all we heard were some guttural sounds, accompanied by a steady machine-type hum.
After a minute or two of this, Jeff leaned toward me and whispered, ``It sounds like he's cleaning their teeth.''
To this day, I don't know why that struck me so funny, but it did. In fact, the humor hit so hard so fast that I laughed out loud _ one of those snorty kind of laughs _ before I could stop myself. That earned me a sharp look from Cate. Unfortunately, her glare was not enough to bring me under control.
I laughed through the whole wedding. Every once in a while I'd think I was all right, but then either the bride or groom would say something and I'd get a mental picture of them standing up there with their mouths dutifully open, paper bibs around their necks, and the minister saying, ``OK, open wide.'' Then I'd lose it all over again. My ribs hurt from laughing. Tears streamed down my cheeks. I laughed so hard I shook the pew.
``Mom! Stop it!'' Cate hissed from two seats away. Heaven knows I wanted to. But my fit didn't subside until Wendy walked back up the aisle.
After the wedding, a lady in the row behind us tapped me on the shoulder and said, ``I'm curious. What was so funny?'' So I told her. She looked at me blankly when I finished and said, ``Ah,'' which I took to mean, ``I think you're a little nuts.'' I would have been really happy if the floor had opened at that moment and swallowed me. I'm pretty sure the kids were hoping for that. They eventually spoke to me again, but weddings were never the same afterwards. For that matter, neither were trips to the dentist.
Pam Mansell covers New Wilmington for The Herald.