A Brethren Wedding or Shooting the Moon
I went home to Lancaster, PA, a place many people have been to on field trips or vacations for reasons befuddling to the locals. However, I went home for a wedding. And not just any wedding, but a conservative Brethren wedding.
One of my good friends, Andrew Hess, actually held out until marriage at age 23. An impressive feat. He comes from strong stock. His dad is a hog farmer and a minister. He grew up working with the death machines. When we were young, we would crawl up above their steers so we could piss on them to make them run around their pen. We stirred up trouble at youth group and our families had acorn wars in the woods (we did not fare well, the Hess men are all pitchers).
The wedding was dry which is understandable even though the temperance movement has no basis in the bible. It was a ploy by the church to increase membership during the Third Great Awakening, a strategy that ruined out to be very effective at filling the pews and emptying the bars. However, this wedding took it further. There was not allowed to be any songs about alcohol or relationships outside the bounds of matrimony. These are tough requirements to put on a DJ when he doesn’t even have a drunk audience to work with.
In any case, we still had quite a good time because the wedding was in a beautiful park . I learned the game of Frisbee Cup where you put bottles on sticks in the in the ground. If the other teams knocks your bottle to the ground, they get a point. If you catch you the bottle before it touches the ground, you get a point. My fake brother-in-law and I lost by two points. I fared better in fencing where I gave my Dad a bruise on his side. This prompted him to challenge me in his speciality: wrestling. We went to the back corner, took off our shirts and started grappling. It took him about 90 seconds to throw me directly to my back into a puddle for a perfect show stopper. On our way home, the fake brother-in-law passes us on the PA Turnpike. Dad barks, “Moon ‘em.” I rush into action while the girlfriend does something devious with a french fry.
Given Up: Safe Conduct - Pasternak's autobiography
Taken Up: Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza
One of my good friends, Andrew Hess, actually held out until marriage at age 23. An impressive feat. He comes from strong stock. His dad is a hog farmer and a minister. He grew up working with the death machines. When we were young, we would crawl up above their steers so we could piss on them to make them run around their pen. We stirred up trouble at youth group and our families had acorn wars in the woods (we did not fare well, the Hess men are all pitchers).
The wedding was dry which is understandable even though the temperance movement has no basis in the bible. It was a ploy by the church to increase membership during the Third Great Awakening, a strategy that ruined out to be very effective at filling the pews and emptying the bars. However, this wedding took it further. There was not allowed to be any songs about alcohol or relationships outside the bounds of matrimony. These are tough requirements to put on a DJ when he doesn’t even have a drunk audience to work with.
In any case, we still had quite a good time because the wedding was in a beautiful park . I learned the game of Frisbee Cup where you put bottles on sticks in the in the ground. If the other teams knocks your bottle to the ground, they get a point. If you catch you the bottle before it touches the ground, you get a point. My fake brother-in-law and I lost by two points. I fared better in fencing where I gave my Dad a bruise on his side. This prompted him to challenge me in his speciality: wrestling. We went to the back corner, took off our shirts and started grappling. It took him about 90 seconds to throw me directly to my back into a puddle for a perfect show stopper. On our way home, the fake brother-in-law passes us on the PA Turnpike. Dad barks, “Moon ‘em.” I rush into action while the girlfriend does something devious with a french fry.
Given Up: Safe Conduct - Pasternak's autobiography
Taken Up: Huxley's Eyeless in Gaza
posted by lex at 4:40 PM
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