Pomp and shirk-cumstance

This time of year the wedding invites have rolled my way (arriving late), or, in most cases, mere notices, given that at my advanced age most of my pals are at their second or third times at bat.

This, on the chronological heels of the June graduation season. Such a season, of course, follows what is supposed to be a hallowed American event, the prom.

We do, in fact, mark our lives by ceremonies. I’ve known a lot of folks who didn’t have two cents to rub together, but who have gone in hock to the tune of thousands to fund their weddings. I remember everyone all bubbling in high school, looking forward to the prom and the “memories” it would create; the guys felt James Bond suave in their rented tuxes, the gals were princesses for the evening (until they puked on their dresses).

The ceremony thing is something that’s puzzled me since day one. Many are supposed to be the “proudest day of my life.” I think one of the proudest days of my ant-like little existence was when college graduation rolled around and for the first time in my life I realized I was old enough to call a unilateral halt to ceremonies. And so I called the administration office, asked them to mail my diploma to Mom’s house (I was going off in the Navy and didn’t have an address yet), and, joy of all joys, I played hooky from my own graduation. The way I saw it, you haven’t earned any more of a degree if you stand around with thousands of people in rented gowns. Collective congratulations are pretty meaningless, if you ask me.

After graduation, of course, a bullet with your name on it comes whizzing at your forehead, sent from the planet Venus, and you wind up against the Mother of All Ceremonies: the wedding. Venus is zillions of miles away, and it takes this bullet years, or even decades, to traverse the universal ether and finally zap you with its lethal powers. Keep in mind it was sent by a woman, and has stopped at every occasion to ask for directions along the way. Hence the wild variability in transit time. But, rest assured, it will find its mark.

Fortunately for me, when I was zapped I lived in a small, rural mountain town, and nobody gave much of a damn for some high falutin’, make-me-wear-a-tie, cut the fancy cake, champaign-but- no-beer affairs. No, a wedding for those folks was a road trip to Vegas, with Elvis’ brother presiding over a five minute ceremony that rivals only the McDonald’s drive thru for sheer efficiency. There’s something soothingly symmetrical about an entire town that gets married, and divorced, wearing blue jeans. The sheer lack of self-centered pomposity is refreshing.

Not so with the in-laws. These folks had massive weddings, maybe five or 10 a day from the looks of things. Hundreds of people in plastic suits eating lousy food in stuffy hotel reception rooms. Oh, you know the drill, I won’t bother to describe it. But I did bother to avoid these affairs, which the in-laws thought was some kind of passively aggressive indictment of their side of the family. I was already in the dog house for refusing the arm fulls of bibles they heaped on me at every opportunity. Perhaps I should have explained that a man with running subscriptions to Hustler, Guns and Ammo, and the Economist magazines was simply overflowing with literary fare.

As economist John Maynard Keynes noted, “we’re all dead in the long run.” And, gasp, that means another ceremony. When my time comes, I’d rather that people ask why there wasn’t a ceremony instead of asking why there was one.
Just scatter my ashes on the lone prairie, boys, and make a kegger out of the occasion if you want. Then you can fight over the remainder of my magazine subscriptions–who gets the good stuff, and who gets stuck with the Economist.