Half The Story

I guess the most suprising thing about meeting seventy-five of your fiance’s closest friends and family in one three-hour period is that it was pretty darn fun.

Now, I won’t front: I was anxious.

Fortunately, they day started easy. Well, easy-ish. Abbi, her sister Pembry and I set out on our first of many marathon training long runs along the Brandywine River through Alapocas Woods (“Lemme guess,” I asked, “The Alapocas were the indiginous people’s ya’ll displaced here, right?” Right.).

We passed Abbi’s high school — and grade school, and junior high, all the same place — en route. (I, in contrast, attended three different grammar schools, plus junior high and high school, which may explain why a) I rarely feel like I belong b) I don’t really consider anywhere “home” and, consequently, c) I ended up with someone who’d reply affirmative to a and b).

Anyway, the run was beautiful — epic, even: sheer, gneiss cliffs, hazy blue skies, falling water. And trecherous. My back was strewn with bites, my ankles gnawed by brambles, and we spotted at least one spider the size of a gold ball.

Back home, Abbi had some bride stuff to do. So her dad and I did what a coupla’ of meathead husbands (well, husband and husband-to-be) should do while the ladies are getting their hair done: we went to “Live Free Or Die Hard.” Perfect, right? Brainless, distracting, masculine, kind of absurd? Yup, all of those things. And pretty entertaining. I’m gonna’ call it the second-best of the series. (Nothing can top the original, which is a classic, and is on my top ten movies of all time list.)

Still, nothing could distract me from the fact that in just a few short hours, I’d be facing down seventy-five of my fiance’s closest friends and family. And as well-intentioned as the whole thing would be, I had a grilling in store. Or, moreover, seventy-five grillings.

TO BE CONTINUED…