Perry-Thistle.net

A beautiful, warm, sunny day in San Francisco. Fall - the real summertime here - the fog gone along with the crush of tourists - a good day to get married.

Here is Mary, the beautiful bride-to-be and Joy, the beautiful mother-in-law to be ready to board Ben's boat, er uh, car for the trip downtown.

(We wish we could have shown you the picture of Ben, with his pants around his ankles, standing at an ironing board Improvised from a surf board propped between a chair and a stand covered with a towel which gradually became stiff with wax and doing Mary's hair. But nobody took it. )

Ben dropped Mary, Joy and Floyd at City Hall and went to find a parking place while we found the marriage commissioner's office. The instructions were followed: be there at 9:30 for check in at 10:00 AM.

So here is me, Floyd, bald spot shining through, waiting with Mary Ben and Joy. Others began arriving.

As the hour approached for check in, Ben remembered that he had not put enough money into the parking meter and talked his brother into going to the car, "...a couple of blocks away," to feed it some more. As we waited, the rest of the guests (limited to 12) arrived. Finally the marriage commissioner, or "judge" as Mary likes to say, called Mary and Ben into office where she checked their picture id's and paper work and had the witnesses complete their part, except for the signatures. Then she headed out to the rotunda at a good clip followed by Mary and Ben with the rest of us strung out behind. Joy, way behind - because somebody is missing. No Nate - and she is determined that he will not miss the proceedings. We explain to the judge and we wait...

And we wait and finally the judge left to marry the next couple promising to return soon.

Nate returned, more than a little chagrined. The car was not to be found in the vicinity where he had been sent: indeed, Ben had named parallel streets as the intersection. Ben thought for a moment and then recalled that it was about three blocks from were he had sent Nate. So we all had a good laugh about it and we waited some more. Nate was quite warm and a little soggy from his exercise so he took off his wool coat and offered it to Ben who was in his shirt sleeves.

Mary and Joy waited.

Mary waited...

Ben waited...

and Chuck, Spot, Cam, John, Pam, Bill, Nate, Mike, and Floyd waited, and waited . . .