Loose Leaf Notes

1. My son Josh and Emily’s marriage over the weekend was the Woodstock of weddings.

2. There was a flag procession, readings that made people cry, love professed, poetry, music, storytelling and more.  A garland of marigolds from Emily’s flower farm was draped along the wedding platform that Josh built… Held at Josh’s woodfire pottery compound in Marshall NC, there was an elaborate flower archway, a flower portal and flower girls everywhere… Boots or barefoot, costumes or casual, some ate in the elegant dining tent, but most sat with food on the grass while Beatles music filled the air.  – More from “This is the Way Josh and Emily “I Do” It” HERE. 

3. After the ceremony, Josh and Emily took off on a tractor for a photo shoot. During the ceremony, Josh spoke about meeting Emily, saying, “…So then we bought a house. Things were moving fast. We bought a tractor together, which in most countries is the same as getting married…”

4. I read a nursery rhyme that I wrote for Josh and Emily that included the lines: Josh loves Emily / like sunflowers love sun / Glad as gladiolas / Gold as chrysanthemum … As dear as dahlias / in every color / Their forget-me-not love / is the rarest flower… You can read the poem in its entirety HERE.

5. The poem was a take-off new version of the one I wrote for Josh when he was a little boy: Joshua Johnny loved  his mommy / more than apricots and honey / He gave her a hug / He gave her a kiss / He loved her more than licorice.

6. We wore name tags that bore our names and something about ourselves. Mine read Josh’s Chrysan“the mum.”

7. Their first dance was Comes a Time by Neil Young, and it made me love the song all over again: Comes a time when you’re driftin’ / Comes a time when you settle down / Comes a light, feelin’s liftin’ / Lift that baby right up off the ground / You and I, we were captured / We took our souls and we flew away /  We were right, we were giving / That’s how we kept what we gave away.

8. Some didn’t come because of the threat of Hurricane Florence, but an estimated 300 did.  It was sunny and warm, and, because we barely got a sprinkle, I never opened my umbrella. Florence passed through our area with some flooding rain on Sunday afternoon, once we were all back home.

9. There was an on-stage wedding proposal during the Emmys Monday night, complete with the ‘will you marry me?’ kneeling and all.

10. You know you’re out of the mainstream loop when you don’t know most of the shows being nominated and awarded cause you only get network TV, which is a lot better than what we had when Josh was growing up. During Joe’s wedding speech, he read a poem he wrote in the format of George Ella Lyon’s “Where I’m From about Josh growing up years in Floyd.  One of the lines was “Josh is from the little black and white TV in the closet that only came down once a week for Seinfeld episodes.

11. One of my favorite lines of Emmy night was when Henry Winkler (the Fonz) won his first Emmy and said, “If you stay at the table long enough, the chips come to you.”

12. Another was when Samantha Bee told Taraji P. Henson that she’s watching a “shocking dystopian drama called ‘the news.’”

13. What Do You Get When You Mix a Wedding Weekend with Tacos, Kickball and a Dance Party at The Old Marshall Jail? See HERE.

___________Thirteen Thursday