Only Hors D'oeuvres
Luckily, Helen was a cooperative bride. However, since Helen and Bradley weren’t practicing Catholics or even worshipers at any church, Helen’s Mom and Dad suddenly found themselves driving all the way from Tarrytown to attend Saturday evening mass in Brooklyn a few weeks before the ceremony. It seems they wanted to at least pretend they were intent upon “renewing” their faith just so Helen could get married in the very same church (St. Anthony’s) where they were married. Dad even called the Monsignor one afternoon to ask him if he could marry their daughter. After much discussion back and forth, it was decided that he could not, but there were a couple of deacons in his church that might be able to. He said he would reach out to them on their behalf. If, of course, they committed to being part of the congregation.
Mom remembers nodding and saying “yes” when she heard this request. But Dad apparently just shook his head “no” and didn’t say anything. I gathered the Monsignor was happy with at least one member potentially returning to the church which he probably thought was better than none. Mom said she convinced Dad they’d only have to go to church a couple of times before Helen’s wedding. Plus, she suggested, why not drive into Manhattan to have dinner afterwards and at least try to salvage the evening?
One Saturday night they went for Thai food where Mom said the shrimp and noodle dish they ordered was so spicy that she was still tasting it the next day! (Apparently, Dad didn’t have a similar reaction and thought the noodles were just fine.) Then, on another Saturday, they found a cute little French bistro on the Upper East Side. Mom said the escargot were a little too chewy, but the skate entrée in a butter and caper lemon sauce was lip-smacking good. (Really, I didn’t make that up, she said it just like that!) There were other Saturday night dining excursions as well, but these two in particular stuck in her head.
So, on the big day, the deacon who would marry them, turned out to have a day job as a high school social studies teacher. Apparently, he also liked to embellish wedding ceremonies he was asked to officiate at with some local history. His opening line that day started with “Helen Mary, not only do you have a beautiful name, but it’s lovely that you want to take this man, Adam Bradley, to be your husband!” Now, up until that very moment, I didn’t know that Bradley was Adam’s middle name and not his legal first name.
Then the deacon asked them, “You’re both sure you want to do this right?”
Which was kind of odd. I mean, did he think either of them would suddenly say “Hell, no!” and run out of the church?
The deacon then launched into a story about how Pope Paul VI had planned to visit this very same church back in 1965. The local residents had been standing in front of the church for hours waiting to catch a glimpse of him. Unfortunately, no one told these people that the Pope wasn’t going to make it to the church because the minute he got off the plane at JFK, he went into New York City. And stayed there for the next 14 hours. Finally, a police officer approached the crowd and told them to “go home.” But they didn’t want to go home, especially since one of the priests standing outside with the crowd kept saying, “but they’re supposed to see the Pope!”
“Meanwhile,” the deacon continued, “It started to get really windy, like God himself was annoyed that these very devout parishioners were missing a ‘Pope sighting’ when the weather…”
I suddenly heard Helen interrupt him and actually raise her hand as if she were in one of his classes and say, “Excuse me, this is a great story, but we need to be out of here in like five minutes.”
I quickly put my hand over my mouth because I started laughing somewhat inappropriately. My laughter morphed into a cough and then a sudden inability to breathe. I felt Marc, who was sitting to the right of me, put his hand on my arm. Richard, who was sitting on my left, actually bent his head so far down on his chest that his hair was practically touching his belly button. Not that I had ever seen Richard’s belly button, but I figured it was down there somewhere.