Hill-Topics
How was your daughter's wedding, Grant?
It was, in a word, fantastic, awesome, emotional, wonderful, mystical, magical, matrimonial, inspirational, beautiful, and fun, even for the father of the bride.
While most of Hillsboro was at the state basketball tournament Saturday, we were in Omaha, Neb., where at 2 p.m. at St. Wenceslaus Catholic Church, our daughter, Bethany, married Joseph Dixon, to become Bethany Overstake-Dixon.
Has a nice ring to it. Even though they had a heck of a time trying to get the rings on each other's fingers.
I wish I could tell you how wonderful it was, like those sappy writers on the society pages: "The bride wore a lovely off-white dress, with
"The bridesmaids wore bright pink, strapless dresses, and carried freshly cut spring flowers. The bride carried a bouquet of yellow daffodils, with a single yellow rose embedded in the middle in honor of her great-grandfather.
"The best man wore a traditional black tuxedo with white vest and black tie; his groomsmen wore yellow vests, with matching yellow ties.
"The father of the bride and father of the groom wore pink vests with matching pink ties.
"The flower girl, five-year-old Theodora (Teddy) Brewer, Corvallis Ore., wore a light yellow dress and an even brighter smile. The mother of the bride wore a lovely dark green velvet dress; the mother of the groom wore a gold and black silk one."
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That's about all I can stand of that, but I'll be happy to share pictures when they arrive. The photographer took a zillion of them, or more. He got a picture of me walking Bethany down the aisle. How do I know this?
He was waiting for us, down on one knee, like the paparazzi, as the big, wooden doors swung open, and everyone stood for the radiant bride to come forth.
At the altar, I kissed Bethany on the cheek, shook Joe's hand, then turned and sat down next to my wife, Claire, who was already seated in the second row.
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It felt good to sit there. Things were going remarkably well. The priest, from Uganda, I think, was holding it together nicely, considering that it was his first American wedding, and how nervous he was at the rehearsal.
Some people said it was hard to understand his accent, but from the second row, I thought his homily was great, although I can't recall what it was about.
The priest sang part of the liturgy, which was different, and nice, except at the end of the long phrase, when he sang, "
That's how happy she was.
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The only person who could have been nearly as happy as the bride and groom on Saturday, was how happy our youngest daughter, Jillian, 20, was on Thursday night, on her way to the Justin Timberlake concert.
Bethany had given her sister a ticket to the concert in Omaha, as a bridesmaid's gift. Judging from the way Jillian was hopping around in the car as we drove to the Quest Center, and it was a very, very, big deal.
Jillian said Justin Timberlake was like, you know, really hot. And she added that she wouldn't mind being Jillian Timberlake.
After we dropped Jillian off at the concert, we went looking for a coffee shop with Internet access, so I could plug in my laptop and check my e-mail about the goings-on back home.
We drove around an older, bohemian part of downtown Omaha, near the campus of Creighton University, and found a place that was surprisingly bohemian, I thought, for Nebraska. I booted up the laptop, and Claire ordered tofu chocolate cheesecake.
There were lots of old hippies there, and a college student came in carrying a stack of "Barack Obama '08" posters, and since Jillian likes him so much, I bought one.
We went back to the arena to wait for the concert to end, and, since nobody said we couldn't, we parked our 1998 Buick right there in front, with the limos.
When the drivers stood on the sidewalk holding signs with passenger's names on them, I took the Obama sign and stood outside the Buick, until Jillian came along. She thought Dad was pretty cool, to do something like that, even though it was not a political endorsement.
About the concert, she exclaimed, "That was like a spiritual experience for me, I'm not gonna lie! It was awesome!"
I asked, "How close did you get? Were you close enough to touch him?"
Jillian said, "No, but I think if I'd have leaped really hard, I'm pretty sure I could have grabbed him by the leg."
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The waltz for which I'd been practicing wasn't all I'd hoped it would be, and more. As the two-man musical group, called "Dave Merkel and the Experience" began to play, my shiny, black, rented, shoes stuck just enough on the dance floor to make the 1-2-3 steps more difficult than they were on the carpet, where I'd learned them.
So instead of gracefully leading my daughter around the dance floor, as I'd hoped, I sort of hopped around in circles, polka-like, with everything I thought I'd learned forgotten.
There were white twinkling lights on the black ceiling, and Beth looked so happy, it was like being under the stars, except I got dizzy and we had to stop so the room would stop spinning. And we laughed, and laughed.
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The wedding cake was great. There were four flavors, lemon, strawberry, white, and chocolate. I had one of each, but couldn't decide which I liked best.
As the band played and Bethany and Joe shared the dance floor with their friends, Claire and I sat with Joe's parents, marveling at how good God had been to our children, that they should find each other.
Later, I ate another piece of the white cake, to break the tie.
