Saturday, January 28, 2017

Now, About Those Weddings...

Paul Tully, my friend and political mentor, always thought about “the greater scheme of things.”  While he was a brilliant political strategist, he had some difficulty with interpersonal relationships.  It didn’t make him less lovable.  He died during the Clinton Campaign in 1992-- alone in a hotel room with an ashtray full of the cigarettes he smoked nonstop.

Whenever Drump opens his mouth or signs a document, I think about how Tully would react. For example, when Rockefeller died in the arms of someone who wasn’t his wife and the Presidential candidate, for whom we worked asked Tully how he should comment, Tully suggested he just say “good riddance. It doesn’t matter Mo, his people are never going to vote for us ”.  Drump is the anithesis of Tully.  Drump cares more time concentrating on more and bigger -- crowds, voters, walls —  than he does on the big picture.  Talk about anal, this is far worse than Jimmy Carter keeping track of who was using the White House tennis courts. At least that didn’t have any impact on international relationships, healthcare, or human rights.

Admittedly, I did say that I wasn’t worried about the results of the election, and that was true until someone handed the “President” a pen. Have Pen, Will Sign. It doesn’t matter what.  So, there will be a pipeline and a ban on immigrants and a wall that Mexico won’t pay for.  The President of Mexico cancelled his trip to the US because Drump is a jerk. Then, and despite what had been said in an hour long cross cultural conversation between Presidents, ours repeated that he would build a wall for which the Mexicans would pay,  and theirs said, “no chance, pal.”  So, in another shining example of Drump’s delivering alternative facts, he just doesn’t have the ability to hear or listen to what anyone else has to say. Especially, if it is not in concert with what he has to say.  Woe is us. It all gives me the “willies.”

On a happier note, David and Iris are celebrating their 33 alternative wedding anniversary. You see, March 26 is the day we met. We consider that our real anniversary. January 29 is merely the day we signed the katuba.  David asked for my hand and the rest of me on New Years.  We were in our 30’s.  When you decide to marry at that age, you need to do it with haste or you will manage to talk yourselves out of it. Jan 29, was the first timely and free weekend — Super Bowl, etc. We decided not to have a big religious wedding because Milty (my dad) was ill and couldn’t get out of bed.  David’s parents had to come from the west by wagon train. 

Now, here’s the reason I am the person I am.  My mother and her sisters totally ignored what we said.  Her reasoning: you HAVE to have your whole family at a wedding. You HAVE to get married by a Rabbi, after all you did have a Get (a Jewish divorce from Husb. #1).  Like it or not, Daddy will get out of bed. Of course we can have it at our house, We’ll just put all the furniture on a truck in the driveway… No, it’s not going to snow. It will be very simple, your Aunts will make tuna salad and we will use plastic table cloths.  Aunt Sophie bought the tablecloths (plastic),  cut them to size (oh yes, they rented tables and chairs), hated the way they looked and returned them to K-Mart.  Are you starting to get the picture?  And as a final you HAVE to, they found the Rabbi with whom I grew up and flew him from Florida to New Jersey to conduct the ceremony. 

Anyway, it was terrific. All our friends came from DC. The aunts and cousins came  from wherever.  David’s brother had a party, in NYC for our hundreds of friends who couldn’t fit in my parent’s house.  Our car got towed because Matthew left it in a No Parking zone. And we spent the night in an enormous suite unencumbered by the friends with whom we wanted to continue to celebrate.  This was not as bad as my first wedding where my cousin Stevie got drunk and tossed in a swimming pool, lost the keys to his new Corvette, where I had stupidly left my clothes for the honeymoon, and my Uncle Lou decided we would have more fun if he came on our honeymoon— which we were spending in his Miami apt. He was right.

Ok, I just leaped from a scary Drump in charge of the country we love to my hilarious weddings long ago. What am I trying to say?  Trump will never win the popular vote. He managed to totally ignore the millions of women and men who wanted him know that they have a voice.  His lies will continue as “alternative facts.”  Yet, there is still humor, love and kindness in the greater scheme of things. Iris and David are living happily ever after with lovely memories of a their wedding in Boonton NJ.  We will all survive the stupidity of our elected officials. We have in the past and we will again.  And always take Uncle Lou on your honeymoons.  We’re just sayin’… Iris

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