Rocking my Inner Roll

Okay, I am going to come completely clean with you all. I, Beans, am a Liar. Huge. Big. Monstrous Liar. On Saturday, 7-21-18, in response to OldAFSarge talking about going to see the Foo Fighters, I stated in my comments, “My first and only rock concert was a Monkees reunion tour.”

Though at the time I commented that was the only ‘Rock Concert’ I remembered going to, I realized later, while fixing lunch, Bacon Lettuce and Tomato (with a smear of good mayonnaise) sandwiches if you must know (and down-right tasty, though I actually like LT sandwiches with the Bacon on the side,) that I lied to you all. I am a Liar. Because, well, I have been to ½ of one Rock Concert (or to a Half-Rock Concert,) and to another Rock Concert. There. I admit it. Liar I am. Shame upon my house, or memory, or whatever.

Now, to be truthful, I don’t like going to concerts at all. I like my music… pure. And I mean PURE. No farts, no coughs, no one singing along badly next to me (not Mrs. Andrew, she has a great voice) or people screaming and whooooing so loud one can’t hear the drug-addled band that only sounds great on records because they can overdub and take multiple tracts and all that studio stuff.

And I don’t like my fellow ‘man.’ I tend not to like being around large groups of them (unless I am in armor and hitting them.) I especially do not like being around people when they are ‘whooooing’ and screaming (except when I am the one hitting them and causing the screaming) or when they are politicking, which would explain why I finally gave up on my city's 3rd of July Celebration concerts (yes, 3rd of July. This town is full of socialists and communists, all who flock to the concert to try to get one who is there for music and bad food to vote for their socialist or communist disguised as a democrat, sort-of.)

So. There. I like my fellow man, at a distance (distance being the range of whatever weapon I have in my hand at the time, which means when I go out without a weapon in my hand I am somewhat paranoid around unknown people, a trait that I learned by being the walking, talking punching bag throughout my public school career (and, yes, I thought all the time about shooting, stabbing, poisoning, setting aflame, nuking, blowing up my schools with all those jerks in them, but I never actually did all of that. I guess I was following one of the precepts of St. Mattis of the Leathernecks as I always had a plan to kill everyone. Somewhat farfetched, fanciful, but, oh, I planned and planned, in my head…)) People, I hates them, nasty peoples…

Now, I have been to concerts, from Josh Groban (where some stupid twits were trying to sing along with Josh) and some Regimental Pipe and Drum band from Jolly Olde Scotland, to pipe organ performances and those Japanese Drum people. I’ve gone to a live performance of “Madame Butterfly” (Opera rocks, baby!) and I’ve gone to a Mannheim Steamroller Christmas concert. And the aforementioned "Monkees Reunion Tour" (so sue me, I like their music. It's happy and fun and isn't too weird, well, except when they morphed into "Head" but that's weird music so I don't listen to it.)

Woooooo. Living on THE EDGE I am… On the Friggin EDGE!!!

So.

The ½ of a Rock Concert, or Half Rock Concert I went to? The Beans Family Safari went to see Sting (without the Police) down near Tampa, FL one year. Lead act was Amy Lennox. Okay, so we get there to an open air venue, in Florida, in the Fall, and the venue people won’t let me take an umbrella into a performance in an open air venue in Florida in the Fall. Yes. It rained. Beans does not like getting rained on. Nasty rain, it hurtsss… and Beans mildews when wet (no, seriously, ever since a little sprout (get it? sprout?) Beans has mildewed when not properly dried, and Beans does not like being mildewey.) Sting (without the Police) was awesome as Sting could be. Amy Lennox? Well, she apparently had just embarked upon being a full-fledged barking moonbat so got to listen less to her singing and more to her idiot political dis-beliefs. (I pays the dancing monkey to perform, not to listen to the poop flinging out of her mouth.) So there were some rock songs but it was more of a concert with rock songs than a rock concert.

The other Rock Concert I went to? Totally Awesome. So totally awesome I forgot that it was a rock concert. Left totally blown away, totally.

So what, totally, was this totally rocking Rock Concert I totally went to? The Beans Family attended one of the “How to be a Megastar” rock concerts of… Blue Man Group. Whoooooooooooo!!!! And… I lied again, my memory must be going as we also went to a “How to be a Megastar 2.0” concert. Does BMG count as a rock group? That right there might have been why I might have forgotten I rocked at their concert. For those of you not in the know, Blue Man Group is a performance artist group of 3 guys who wear latex hoodies, black baggy clothing and cover their exposed portions in blue paint. And they do percussion music on a variety of instruments, from conventional drums to various PVC concoctions to abusing a baby grand piano with a sledge-mallet. Their music is some seriously good percussive trippy stuff, really good for introspection or just grooving (I used to listen to it at work a lot until the fun police stopped me.)

Any group that combines percussion instruments with an empire-waisted light-up A-line dress is...
Rock and Roll, Baby
Yes, I am weird, as I know what an empire-waist dress and an A-line skirt are, having made both of them for other people at one time.
(I haz madz skilllzzz.)
Oh, the big drum that one of the Blue Man beats, you feel that anywhere you are at in the concert hall. You feel it as much as you hear it.
And aren't women who smile with their whole soul awful pretty?

This is BMG performing with the Kodo Drummers doing BMG's "Mandelbrot 7"
Shows one of the interesting percussion instruments made of PVC

The Forge
see, this music is awesome

Here is one of their most heartfelt pieces, called "Exhibit 13." This was done as a tribute to 9-11, as it was based on papers found at their New York City venue after they returned.
Listen carefully to the whispering in the background of this piece.
That's someone reading what is on the pages.

This piece just pulls my heartstrings. Makes me cry, silently, as I stare off into the distance and remember a lost world and fallen giants.

Okay, enough of the maudlin stuff, here's some more (since I now know how to embed videos, what seemed so hard is so easy, or at least I say that now and may change my mind depending on how Blogger actually acts after I post the post.)

A series of shorts

Rods and Cones - one of their classic pieces

Now, if you haven't seen them yet, do so. Go see them at some location like Universal Studios, Orlando or Vegas, baby, or some other place. Or catch them when they tour again. It's worth it. Really. (If you can't make it, just search "Blue Man Group The Complex Rock Tour Live" for a 75 minute video that I couldn't link to this page for whatever reason, mayhaps I am using too much bandy width or other such technical stuff.)

Okay, just for all y'all's edification, empire-waisted gowns come from the Empire period, which is one of OldAFSarge's favorite periods to blog about. Yep, good old Napoleonic Empire fashion. The skirt of the dress starts flaring out below the protu.. the boo... the.. the... the breasts. Very fashionable during Napoleon's Empire, on both sides of the Channel. 

artist: Merry Joseph Blondel - Felicite-Louise-Julie-Constance de Durfort - 1807

See?  Dress starts to flare under the, um, er, well, you get the picture...

(As to the artiste, who knew hobbits painted pictures in France?)

And an A-line skirt is a skirt that flares like an 'A,' instead of being a tube, sheath, mermaid or other variety. Christian Dior named the A-line the A-line. He didn't originate it, but he named it. Think 50's classic female dress, kinda like...

Yes, it's an A-line Dior dress, if you must know.

So, because I had to, like twist my arm had to, listen to some more of that beautiful singer in the first BMG video, Venus Hum (irl - Annette Strean,) well, so do you, so there.

Venus Hum - Emergency

Venus Hum - Soul Sloshing

Catchy tune, isn't it?

Cute happy ladies singing are just beautiful.
And nice... Lungs, very powerful... voice.

Ah, hell, just because this song is so good and Venus Hum is so cute, BMG and her in the music video version of "I feel Love."

I like the Blue Man guys, but...
There's something about a woman with a great voice and who glows while smiling.

See you next time for another adventure through Bean's head...

Been a Long Time...

The Foo Fighters
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Since I rock and rolled...

Fifteen years in fact, when my kid brother (The Musician) and I saw Jethro Tull out at Tanglewood.

Tonight it's the Foo Fighters at Fenway, this time it's The WSO and I making the trip. We have what appear to be pretty good seats -

We're in the row in front of this one. The stage will be just to the right, out of the picture.

After that I might take a few days off from the blogging thing. The WSO and her tribe head back west on Wednesday, time is short.

Until next time...

Time to rock and roll.

Heart of Oak*

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Young Tom stood by the gun he was assigned to, this would be his first sea fight. He had no idea what to expect. They had sailed all the way to the Caribbean and back, chasing the French and their Spanish allies.

Now, off the Spanish coast, they could see the long straggling line of the Combined Fleet, heading back to Cadiz and safety. But they were beating into the wind, which wasn't much to speak of, still and all, we have the weather gauge of them, or so old Jack Jones told him. And old Jack had been a sailor for over thirty years!

On the 21st of October, in the year 1805, the army of Napoléon Bonaparte waited in their camps along the Channel, a massive army, waiting for the Combined Fleet of Admiral Pierre-Charles-Jean-Baptiste-Silvestre de Villeneuve to draw the Royal Navy away long enough for the Grande Armée to cross the Channel and conquer that "nation of shopkeepers."

Villeneuve had successfully drawn the fleet under the incomparable Admiral Horatio Nelson after him, but like a hound on a scent, Nelson and the Royal Navy had chased Villeneuve down. Now, in the light airs off Cape Trafalgar, the British were closing for the kill.

Though the British were slightly outnumbered in ships, their vastly superior gunnery and seamanship gave many a French and Spanish captain pause, there was not much experience to be gained blockaded in port, the British seemed to spend most of their time at sea, as a sailor should.

Tom felt that the day was moving in an almost dreamlike fashion. The enemy fleet seemed to be nearly standing still as the second column of the fleet, led by HMS Royal Sovereign bore down on them. Slowly, ever so slowly.

Tom was aboard the HMS Bellerophon, the "Billy Ruffian" as she was known to her crew, fifth in line, just aft of HMS Tonnant and forward of HMS Colossus. The ship which their line was aimed at was huge. Three decks and old Jack said she carried 112 guns, a three-decker while Billy Ruffian was a two-decker of "only" 74 guns. This Spaniard, the Santa Ana according to Jack, would no doubt tower over their own ship.

As Royal Sovereign approached the line, every enemy ship in range opened fire on her, Tom didn't see how she would survive to break the enemy line.

But survive she did.

The first ship of the fleet in action at Trafalgar on 21 October 1805, she led one column of warships; Nelson's Victory led the other. Due to the re-coppering of her hull prior to her arrival off Cádiz, Royal Sovereign was a considerably better sailer in the light winds present that day than other vessels, and pulled well ahead of the rest of the fleet. As she cut the enemy line alone and engaged the Spanish three decker Santa Ana, Nelson pointed to her and said, 'See how that noble fellow Collingwood carries his ship into action!' At approximately the same moment, Collingwood remarked to his captain, Edward Rotheram, 'What would Nelson give to be here?'

Royal Sovereign and Santa Ana duelled for much of the battle, with Santa Ana taking fire from fresh British ships passing through the line, including HMS Mars and HMS Tonnant, while nearby French and Spanish vessels fired on Royal Sovereign. Santa Ana struck at 14:15, having suffered casualties numbering 238 dead and wounded after battling Royal Sovereign and HMS Belleisle. Royal Sovereign lost her mizzen and mainmasts, her foremast was badly damaged and much of her rigging was shot away. At 2.20 pm Santa Ana finally struck to Royal Sovereign. Shortly afterwards a boat came from Victory carrying Lieutenant Hill, who reported that Nelson had been wounded. Realising that he might have to take command of the rest of the fleet and with his ship according to his report being "perfectly unmanageable", by 3 pm he signalled for the frigate Euryalus to take Royal Sovereign in tow. Euryalus towed her round to support the rest of the British ships with her port-side guns, and became engaged with combined fleet's van under Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley, as it came about to support the collapsing centre. Fire from the lead ships shot away the cable between Royal Sovereign and Euryalus, and the latter ship made off towards Victory. Royal Sovereign exchanged fire with the arriving ships, until Collingwood rallied several relatively undamaged British ships around Royal Sovereign, and Dumanoir gave up any attempt to recover some of the prizes, and made his escape at 4.30pm. (Source)

Tom was in Hell. The constant pounding of the cannon, the billowing smoke, he could scarcely think or see as he served his gun. He had seen old Jack fall, skewered by a splinter the size of a man's arm when a French ball had crashed through the side of the ship by the cannon next to theirs.

He cried out in agony as his feet slid in the blood and torn flesh which caked the deck around them, he and the other survivors of his gun crew managed to run out their gun, which bellowed and sprang back once again as Tom struggled to pull another shot from the nearby rack.

How could anyone survive in this Hell on Earth?

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At 12:30 pm, Bellerophon cut through the enemy line, slipping under the stern of the Spanish 74-gun Monarca and firing two broadsides into her. Moving past the Spanish ship, Bellerophon collided with the French 74-gun Aigle, hitting Aigle's port quarter with her starboard bow, and entangling the two ships' yards. Locked together, they exchanged broadsides at close range, with soldiers aboard Aigle sweeping Bellerophon's decks with musket fire and grenades. Cumby noticed that the officers were being targeted, and that Cooke's distinctive epaulettes marked him out. Cumby urged him to take them off, only for Cooke to reply "It is too late now to take them off. I see my situation but I will die like a man." Bellerophon was now sustaining fire from Aigle and three other ships, the Spanish San Juan Nepomuceno and Bahama, and the French Swiftsure. Bellerophon's main and mizzenmasts were shot away at 1 pm, and at 1:11 pm, Captain Cooke was hit and killed. An eyewitness recorded that

"He had discharged his pistols very frequently at the enemy, who as often attempted to board, and he had killed a French officer on his own quarterdeck. He was in the act of reloading his pistols ... when he received two musket-balls in the breast. He immediately fell, and upon the quartermaster going up and asking him if he should take him down below, his answer was "No, let me lie quietly one minute. Tell Lieutenant Cumby never to strike."

With Cooke dead, Cumby assumed command. Bellerophon's decks had largely been cleared by French fire, and boarding parties began to make their way onto the ship. Several French sailors climbed out onto Bellerophon's spritsail yard, but a Bellerophon crewman released the brace holding the yard, causing them to fall into the sea. French sailors holding onto Bellerophon's rails had their hands beaten until they were forced to let go. Bellerophon's ensign had been shot away three times, so infuriating her yeoman of signals, Christopher Beaty, that he took the largest Union Jack he could find and climbed up into the mizzen rigging and hoisted it across the shrouds. The French riflemen on Aigle reportedly held their fire as he did this, in admiration of his bravery. The two ships were so close together that gun crews on their lower decks were fighting hand to hand at the gunports, while grenades lobbed through the ports caused heavy casualties. One grenade thrown into Bellerophon exploded in the gunner's storeroom, blowing open the door but fortunately blowing closed the door of the magazine. The resulting fire was quickly extinguished, preventing a catastrophic explosion.

By 1:40 pm, having been under heavy fire for over an hour, Aigle's crew lowered her gunports and slowly moved away. When the smoke cleared, Cumby noticed that the Spanish Monarca, which Bellerophon had first engaged, had struck her colours. Cumby sent an officer in a boat to take possession of her. Bellerophon's crew now worked to make repairs and clear away wreckage. She briefly fired her guns again when the van of the combined fleet, led by Rear-Admiral Pierre Dumanoir le Pelley, made a belated attempt to come to the assistance of the centre and rear. The attack was beaten off, and at 5 pm, Bellerophon's guns ceased firing. At 5:30 pm Cumby sent a boat to take possession of the Bahama, which had also struck her colours. By the end of the battle Bellerophon had sustained casualties of 27 men killed and 123 wounded. Among the dead was her captain, the master, John Overton, and midshipman John Simmons. (Source)

(Source)

I am currently in the middle of Roy Adkins' book Nelson's Trafalgar:The Battle That Changed the World and I am once again amazed at the bravery of those old time sailors. Those iron men who went to sea in wooden ships. Mr. Adkins' descriptions of the battle itself are enough to make one shudder at the thought of fighting a battle at sea in those towering ships of wood and canvas.

A most excellent book.

And yes, young Tom did survive Trafalgar, we shall meet him again in our travels.

* Heart of Oak is the official march of the British Royal Navy.

Kid Stuff

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I don't like doing political posts, only when I get riled up do I do that. Yeah, I was pretty riled up yesterday. But enough of that for the time being. I need to stay away from television sets. Bad influence on me.

When I was a kid, I was a big dinosaur fan. Do little boys still like dinosaurs? I did know some girls when I was a kid who liked dinosaurs, but it was more of a boy thing. While looking back on it I think it's cool that some girls liked dinosaurs, even though I thought all girls were pretty yucky back then.

Yeah, I grew out of the "girls are yucky" phase. Still like dinosaurs though, and yes, I've seen all of the Jurassic Park movies save the latest. That one's on my list.

Are they realistic? Who cares, they have dinosaurs. And yes, the books (of which there were two) were much better than the movies.

I miss Michael Crichton, the man knew how to tell a good story.

Later in my youth, thanks to NASA, I was all about the space program and astronomy.

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Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon when I was 16, it was a pretty big deal and it still boggles my mind every time I look to the skies and see the moon. Americans have walked its surface and will again someday. Or we will perish on this planet, it might be millions of years in the future but it's a certainty. We travel to the stars or we perish. Unless someone comes up with an idea to refuel the sun. Possible? Who knows. Folks in the 19th Century thought flying was a pipe dream. Look at us now!

Which brings me to the other thing I loved as a kid...

Aircraft, specifically fighter aircraft, especially this one -

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At some point in my formative years I saw pictures of the World War I flying aces and their aircraft. Of course, Manfred von Richthofen and his red triplane stood out. In the first grade when all the other little boys wanted to be firemen, I wanted to be a fighter pilot.

Bad eyes, discovered in the sixth grade, put the kibosh on that dream.

Ah well, I could still read about them, and later I had the privilege of working on the mighty F-4 Phantom. So that was pretty cool and I cherish those memories.

And none of those other little boys in my class became firemen either.

Ah well.

I'm still a little kid at heart.

Though girls are most definitely not yucky anymore.

Sigh...

Heads were exploding around the United States after President Trump's meeting with President Putin. Liberal heads, even a few conservative heads.

An acquaintance of mine (who leans heavily to port) asked me if we were all ready, "to learn Russian, because we're going to need it." As he laps up everything CNN regurgitates, I took his comment with several grains of salt.

Another acquaintance of mine (this one leans to starboard) was aghast at Trump's performance at the post-meeting press conference. I watched about half of that, and unless the President gave basing rights to the Russian Navy in Puerto Rico, I didn't see much to be concerned about.

But from the howling I've heard across the land, you'd think we just surrendered our sovereignty. Not hardly.

Another acquaintance of mine bemoaned the idea that "the professional diplomats" were seemingly left out of the meeting between these two leaders. Well, I doubt it. Those folks should be behind the scenes working out the details, not front and center making statements.

Sigh...

If the President announced that he had personally found a cure for cancer, there are certain groups in this country who would wail that "he's costing people their jobs in the pharmaceutical industry."

So yes America, the sky is still falling and nothing will ever be right again until we surrender our freedoms to the leftists. After all, their programs are working so well in Cuba and Venezuela, aren't they?

Russia and the United States are not friends, nor are we enemies, we are, as the President put it, competitors. And let's not forget the 800 pound gorilla lurking just offstage...

Both the US and Russia need to keep a weather eye on those chaps. There's a common interest right there.

But no, Donald Trump is the "real" problem.

Sigh...

I Can Be a Little High Strung

So this meme came over the transom the other day with the caption -

Go home Air Force, you're drunk...

Truth be told, I got slightly irate when I saw that. Pissed off you might say. There is absolutely nothing funny about an aircraft mishap.

However, with that being said, it is kinda funny, no doubt I would've laughed my not insubstantial hindquarters off at this picture and its caption but for a couple of things. After all, the crew survived, "only" one crewmember was injured. I put "only" in quotes because if you're that crewmember, it doesn't seem so trivial. Broken back, permanent disability, having to wear a back brace for the rest of your life, and become a reliable predictor of low pressure moving into the area.

For you see, I knew the guy who was hurt, a senior NCO in the Royal Canadian Air Force, he was the flight engineer on that mission. The report on that mission is here.

The aircraft itself, tail number 457, was a NATO bird, one of 18 operated by the NATO E-3A Component out of Geilenkirchen AB, Germany, my old stomping grounds. The mishap occurred at our Forward Operating Base in Greece in 1996, while I was still in Germany. The flight engineer's wife and The Missus Herself were very good friends.

So yeah, that meme hit perhaps a little too close to home to be funny.

Here's footage of the aircraft post-mishap:

Rendering it even less humorous were the memories of the loss of ESSO 77 and her entire crew of four at Geilenkirchen back in January of 1999, my last year there.

I was coming into work, heading for the back gate as we called it. (I suppose to distinguish it from the far fancier "front gate." We only had two.) I always went that way to work as it was quicker. Living where I did it was easier to pass through a short stretch of the Netherlands and then back into Germany at Geilenkirchen's back gate. As I headed up the road into the forest near the back gate, I noticed that the police had the road closed off.

Of course, I handled that badly, until I got to work where I heard that a Washington Air National Guard KC-135 tanker had gone in on landing, the entire crew was presumed dead. Right in that short stretch of forest by the back gate. Yes, I was a bit chagrined to be bitching about changing my routine, given the circumstances and all.

While I don't often reproduce entire articles from other sources, this is a short one and I don't want you to have to chase a link. (Which is here.) I want you to help me remember these guys.

A memorial flagstone sits at the site of a 141st Air Refueling Wing, Fairchild Air Force Base KC-135E Stratotanker crash near Geilenkirchen Air Base, Germany, Jan. 9, 2014. The memorial was erected for "ESSO 77" crew members: Maj. David Fite, Maj. Mattew Laiho, Capt. Kenneth Thiele and Tech. Sgt. Richard Visintainer who perished in the crash Jan. 13, 1999.
(NATO E-3A component Photo By Mr. Andre Joosten/Released)

FAIRCHILD AIR FORCE BASE, Wash. -- Monday marked the 15th anniversary of the loss of a 141st Air Refueling Wing KC-135E Stratotanker that crashed in 1999 at Geilenkirchen NATO Air Base, Germany. According to news reports the investigation revealed the cause of the crash was the aircraft's pitch up to a near-vertical altitude and subsequent stall during a landing attempt. Four Air National Guard personnel all assigned to the 141st ARW here lost their lives in the incident. They are:

Maj. David W. Fite, 41, the KC-135 pilot from Long Beach, Calif.
Maj. Mattew F. Laiho, 40, the navigator from Copenhagen, Denmark.
Capt. Kenneth F. Thiele, 31, the co-pilot from Poughkeepsie, NY.
Tech. Sgt. Richard G. Visintainer, 48, The aircraft's boom operator from Riverside, Calif.

The day of the crash Fite, Laiho, Thiele, and Visintainer embarked on the last flight of their deployment to Germany before being scheduled to return back to Washington State the following day. They accomplished the mission of re-fueling an NE-3A Sentry aircraft and headed back to Geilenkirchen.

Upon arrival to Geilenkirchen, the weather was fair and the crew was approved for landing. Right before touchdown the crew informed the control tower they were going around again.

"The go around was initiated, but things went wrong," said Brig. Gen. Klaus-Peter Stieglitz the E-3A Component Commander at the time of the accident. "The aircraft went airborne, in an unusual steep angle, lost speed and crashed just outside the boundary of the airfield north of the runway,"

After 15 years, the men and women of the 141st ARW still grieve the loss of the call sign "ESSO 77" crew members.

A memorial stone sits on base at Geilenkirchen Air Base, Germany, Jan. 10, 2014 in remembrance of the crash of a 141st Air Refueling Wing, Fairchild Air Force Base KC-135E Stratotanker. The memorial was erected for "ESSO 77" crew members: Maj. David Fite, Maj. Mattew Laiho, Capt. Kenneth Thiele and Tech. Sgt. Richard Visintainer who perished in the crash Jan. 13, 1999.
(NATO E-3A component Photo By Mr. Andre Joosten/Released)

They were scheduled to fly home the next day.

Maybe I'm a bit high strung, but I just don't find aircraft mishaps funny at all, there are some guys up on the mast head who died operating aircraft. Friends, friends of friends. I'm sorry, some things are just not funny. To me at any rate.

Perhaps I'm overly sensitive.

But as I get older, these things bother me more than when I was young and thought myself invincible.

So while that opening meme is sort of funny, it isn't, not really. But I did want all y'all to know the story behind the meme, so to speak.

And yes, ESSO 77, never forget the folks who pay the ultimate price.

Mr and Mrs !

To all that were asking about this weekend, well...the critical 7 words were spoken. Those would be "I will", "I will" and "Man and Wife".  So, the F has been officially dropped from FSIL and it's now just SIL.  However, and here's the best part of marrying off your daughter, She's still MBD.


We'd arrived in time for the rehearsal on Friday during which, as expected, I fumbled the words for giving her away.  Oh well, plenty of time to repeat them over and over and over.  I mean how hard could it be to say "Her Mother and I do"?  I've dealt with Generals and Secretary's and Presidential Advisors.  But, I fumble I did.

But, in true Tim Allen fashion, I perservered.

The rehearsal dinner at Thurman's Mansion at the Salt Lick was fabulous.  Lot's of people present, and finally recovering my usually glib tongue, I wowed them with a story of losing and regaining my intellect.  So, the day ended on an uptick.

Saturday dawns early (sleeping in a new bed in a strange house, with a wee bit on my mind is not conducive to sleeping late), and I prepare to meet the day.

I slip off to the grocery store to buy provisions for the bevy of beauties who will be descending on our B and B to get beautiful.  Did I mention that MBD had 17 Bride's Maids?  Fortunately the B and B had a large loft where the 3 beauticians could work.  Realizing that nothing good could happen  being present under those circumstances, Little Juvat and I tried to make ourselves scarce.


Finally the limo arrives and takes MBD and her cohort up to the venue.  Were they are escorted to a secure area of the facility for final planning and preparation.

And, Oh, my Goodness, that phase when well! She went well off the scale in the beautiful category.  When they opened the door to the Bride's room so I could begin to escort her to the ceremony, I'm pretty sure (and I hope the photographers captured it) that my jaw hit the floor.  She looked drop-dead, stunningly, gorgeous.  So much so that I forgot to push the camera button on the phone.  

But...I know what you want to ask, so I'll answer the question that's on most of your folks mind.  

No.

I did not get misty eyed at that point.

Nor as I escorted her down the aisle.

Nor as I gave her away.  

(juvat, did you fumble the words? No, but somehow  it morphed into "Her Mother and I....and this cast of thousands behind me, do".  The crowd roared.)  But...no misty eyes.

None as they exchanged vows.

Nor as the pastor pronounced them Man and Wife.

Nor as they proceeded out.

Nor as they proceeded to the reception. 

Nor as they danced their first dance.

Nor as they cut the cake (and donuts, neither of them like cake so....donuts)

Nope... Not a drop.

However  at the Father-daughter portion?  Yeah, there might have been a tear or two shed.

Hey!  If Heartland needs a fill-in singer, I'm there for them

So, you're probably wondering how the dance lessons went.  Well, the instructor never returned my calls.  Mrs J stepped up and attempted to teach me to waltz.  

No, luck.  My rhythm sucks.  Just couldn't master it.  That having been said, whatever dance we did was wonderful. 

So....They're married.  We wish them the absolute best together.

But for now.....I'm going to go take a nap and then deal with the aftermath.

The aftermath