Congrats Stephen Evans and Sara Hardy

Many months ago, earlier this Spring, Stephen Evans approached me and had a very serious tone about his countenance. I could tell he was vexed by some inner turmoil, and as I’m a man who helps other in such affairs, I gave him a fatherly hug and asked him what was on his mind. He started the entire conversation by saying, “No offense, but you are not known for being able to keep a secret.” Huh.

But he told me his secret anyway. The secret was that he intended to marry his true love. He wanted me to perform the wedding and maybe even have it at my place and he had questions and he expressed some anxieties, and I felt like I was there for him as a friend and as a Universal Life minister, despite the “secret” thing he said about me. And then of course, a couple of months later, just like many of you here tonight, I discovered they were married on Facebook.  And he’s right, I can’t keep secrets. Not capable. Except this one time! Half a year, and I’m dying to part with it, so even though you all know, “Oh My God Stephen is going to ask Sara to marry him!”

So I’m Reverend David DeChant.  I stand here tonight before you good people out of pity, and social obligation, and probably the first real compromise Sara had to allow in their newly married life.  I’m going to provide something between a toast and a roast.  It will not be sanctioned by God to bind them in holy matrimony. They already did their  “I dos” and the rings and that.  And the funny thing to me is, again, they were right. I would not have been the best guy to marry these two, since I still have some reservations about their compatibility. Whenever a guy who at best is a 7.25 on a 1 to 10 scale coerces an 11, it is suspect. During a ceremony of marriage of such disparity in coolness, I myself might have had trouble not “speaking now or forever holding my peace.” I am the opposite of the BestMan.

And yet they met at my house. My wife and I are the reason we are all here right now. The fourth of July party in Cabbagetown Ann-Marie and I threw was where cupid shot the arrows!Me.My fault. There were so many other possibilities…parallel universes where it DIDN’T happen. Did you Sara, for example meet my friend Bill Stencel that night? He’s a fine guy.

But I’m jumping ahead. Let me start with how I met Sara.

Sara Hardy

In 1984, a film came out called Children of the Corn. I was fourteen at the time and lived in Missouri, a state right on the edge of more corn than anywhere on earth. I was too young to see the movie in the theatre, but my friend Bill Ruoark’s sister did see it at the Brywood drive in and she told us all about it. Scene by scene she described its horrors and Bill and I were more scared of a movie we had never seen than I have been of a movie I DID see since. Including Children of the Corn, which was ruined by the telling.

And it was in the same fashion of being told that I first learned of a Sara Hardy in the world. And I was told of Sara Hardy in a way that contained that same magic, that same almost scriptural sermonizing that really spoke to something within me. And after I was told of Sara Hardy in this fashion, I painted a picture in my mind of a comic book perfect character. The guy who told me about her was a neighbor in her building who had the occasional honor of feeding her cats when she was out of town. He himself was nerdy and unspectacular in every way, so of course I took what he said with a grain of salt, especially when proselytizing about a hot woman in his complex. But although he described her in superlatives about her outrageous beauty and how “cool” she was, I was beginning to grok something that this man of lesser intelligence was not seeing. He was describing an alien. He was describing one of those Venus and Serena Williams creatures that will be beamed back to their mother planet any day now. Sara Hardy was other-worldly. She couldn’t be as cool as her closet-gay neighbor described. It was if he was describing a Mary from the Farrelly Brothers film, There’s Something About Mary. Remember, she liked to golf and fish and smoke weed and she was a doctor and she dated Brett Favre and the list went on and on, a list that made Mary every guy’s dream by making her a lot like a guy, just a hot female one. Or Elaine from Seinfeld, some of you guys feel me right there. Think about it. That is how sick we men really are: our ideal woman is more like a man than a woman. And our sweet Sara is one of them.

Here is just a partial list of things that make Sara Hardy “cool” in this way I’m describing. And I want it to be clear that I am painfully aware of her feminine qualities, but I am contractually not allowed to speak of them as per an agreement with Stephen before tonight. So these attributes are sort of masculine. She works at a cartoon factory or a cartoon bank, whichever way you look at that. There are only two things possibly cooler than cartoons and that would be if she designed video games or sex toys. She loves Star Wars. She doesn’t even want kids. She builds furniture. She shoots guns and is a good shot. She’s buddies with a great guy who insists on bringing cheese and sausage to parties, who is also her father. She has a wickedly attractive red-headed sister ( I realize this is not particularly masculine, but it does in my book “up the cool,” and also like Venus and Serena it is safe to say Rebecca and Sara are equally other-worldly).

Anyway, it came time to meet her, which I did through my non-descript, foreign and stupid acquaintance.  And right away, all my theories about Sara Hardy were confirmed. She was other-worldly. She was way out of the league of the likes of me or any of my friends. Here was a woman that was intimidatingly cool. Cool with a capital C; cool as a fan in theGeorgia summer. And it was that first meeting that I saw my ‘IN’, my way of convincing her that I too was cool enough for her friendship at least. I would win her good graces to better track her on our planet. She had a garden that she cared for, a patio there in front of her apartment, and I at the time had a garden statuary store. I shamelessly offered her some merchandise. I said, “This brick wall could use a finial, don’t you think? Have you thought of an acorn or a pineapple or perhaps a simple ball finial to formalize this corner?” Sara’s answer condemned her to a decade of me, hopefully a lifetime of me. She just barely said anything, it was more of a grunt. She said, “Meh?” I didn’t know what it meant, but it wasn’t a no.

I went back to the shop and picked out the most expensive and showy finial I had. It was also the biggest and heaviest. It took two of us to put it in the truck, but I didn’t think about that at the time. I set off towards her place and thought I would simply place it in the corner we had talked about, up on a six foot wall, and not even tell her. It was going to be an anonymous offering that simply appeared, I imagined. The plan involved her not being home. I was forever going to be “that nice guy who isn’t creepy at all that gave me that beautiful garden sculpture that time.” I want to interject that this was over ten years ago now, so please don’t judge me when I say that at that time I was experimenting with the cannabis, I know, I know. In fact, as soon as I arrived at her place I began to get absolutely bombed on a pot high, I’m ashamed to admit. The finial was artichoke shaped and I was able to roll it to the tailgate, but when I stood it up I discovered that no one man could lift this big chunk of concrete. I turned to study the thing, and there she was coming out her door! It was not going to be okay to just put it near the spot, not even with the promise that her neighbor, my plain and pedestrian, sub-par co-worker, would help me lift it the next time we were there together. I was so smacked out on the pot, that green devil. You know the stories of superhuman strength when people are on drugs?  I tapped into a reserve tank of manly, and I lifted that thing onto my shoulder to demonstrate to the alien woman how strong we can be here on our planet, and I got it up there. It took everything I had and I tore a few things inside me doing it, but I was sure it would not go unnoticed. In fact, I thought it would impress her so much that I accidentally breeched my own strict gentlemanly code and an old one-liner I used to bounce around the clubs ofKansas Cityfell out of my mouth..  I said, “You know, Sara, if you ever wanted to see me naked you probably could.”

There was really loud silence for a split second, like whatever the opposite of a gunshot is. There were volumes of information not being said but what she actually did say was, “I won’t. Ever,” and she mimed a wave of nausea that rippled through her. Some of that silence came back. I couldn’t have been a bigger jackass. I was busted trying to win favor with statuary. Sara didn’t skip a beat, and pointed at the finial, “You want me to help you get that down now?” I kind of whispered under my breath, “No. It’s a gift.” She said, “You want me to pay for it?” “No, no…no. It is from me to you.” What a douchebag. I failed you, fellow earthlings, to convince the alien we are equal. But I had lifted that damn artichoke and that was still pretty heroic. It lives in her front yard to this day and I challenge anyone here except Kristopher Laméy to bring that thing up on your shoulder. And Sara, it serves as a coupon with no expiration date. You are the story that was not ruined by the telling. Thank you for continuing to be friends with me even after my douchebaggery. It is an honor to be here tonight, congratulations.

Stephen Evans

Of course, I attributed Sara’s disinterest in me to further proof that she was alien. She might date a human, but it will be Val Kilmer or Lyle Lovett or Jesse James.  I guarded her from drip-dry dorky dudes for years, but apparently my ninja skills were waning when she met Stephen Evans on that party that will live in infamy. I don’t know what line he used, but it must have had powerful magic behind it. There was nothing I could do.

Where Sara is beautiful and intelligent and from another planet, Stephen is a real quotidian, down-to-earth, unremarkable guy of moderate proletariat skills. The only way I could make sense of her even dating him, was to assume she was eligible for some kind of tax write-off or charity credit for it. He is clearly no Val Kilmer. I was being nice earlier when I said he was a 7.25. We all know he is a 6.5, I’m just honest enough to say it.  I might also add he is a pre-flop raiser of repute. He will borrow your grinder for an indeterminate amount of time, even until you make him feel guilty about it, and then still he keeps it longer. And CHEAP. How cheap you ask? It is said, that if it cost a nickel to shit, Steve Evans would just  throw up instead. That cheap.

And don’t get me started about my Willie Nelson.  I once found a miracle of Natural Art in a stack of lumber. I bought this slice of wood which had a twisted burl which exactly resembled the great Willie Nelson. It was like Jesus in a grilled cheese, man.  It’s numerical value is incalculable, and now it’s a moot point because Evans took it home “to frame it,” and it never came back. It was going to bring me wealth and fame. It was going to make me a contender. I’m sure he sold it to someDubai prince. And for the record, it was a rare wood called redheart. That’s right, he took a piece right out of my redheart and was careless with it. Be warned, Sara.

But I would be remiss if I didn’t say something positive about Stephen, because he is like a brother to me and I haven’t yet made it clear why or if I have any respect for him at all. So let me get it out of the way. One night at a local refreshment vendor, we engaged in a friendly gentlemen’s game of Galaga. You see, I was somewhat of a prodigy of early video games and thought I would downplay my game a bit so I didn’t bruise his fragile ego. He was Player 1. He played for about forty-five minutes as Player 1. As Player 1, first life, first quarter, he scored twice more than I ever had and went to a level I had never witnessed. Jesus. He is a Galaga ninja, unequivocally. If we ever have to defeat an enemy on the battlefield of Galaga, our government will support his every whim for the rest of his days just as long as he keeps playing Galaga. I cannot overstate just how good a Galaga player Stephen Evans is. It is uncanny. It is superlative. Somehow Sara must have seen him play this video game one night in a bar, then was reminded of it when she met him at my party. Triggered some interest with Galaga Magic.

Vows

And that is all I got, other than a quick yes or no answer session with Sara. I mentioned when I began that there are no “I dos” or rings in this receptimony, but for me to support this marriage I need for Sara to make some vows to me. Sara Hardy, at any time during his proposal, did Stephen mention needing American citizenship? If he did, say, “he did.” Was there an agreement reached in which you marry him against your will because of a deal with the Devil? If so, say, “Yes, the Devil.” Did you marry Stephen out of pity just so he can have health coverage? Say, “Yes, out of pity.” And finally, did he ever have the audacity to mention a prenuptial agreement, knowing full well you have a house and he ain’t got nothing but a saw made in the twenties and my grinder?  Say, “Yes, he said it was for both of us to be protected.”

And with that I pronounce you husband and wife as far as I am concerned. Can I get an Amen from this audience? Kiss her. Kiss him. Kiss Army.

Notes From the Dogleg by Reverend David DeChant

So at one end of Cabbagetown, you have the tunnel. Please don’t call it the Krog Tunnel because Krog is not in our neighborhood. Call it the Cabbagetown Tunnel. This is a famous entrance to our village, or a back door, depending how you look at it. The Estoria vein that most travelers follow takes them by my house where the two turns in the middle of the road are. The old timers call it “the dogleg.” [Hey, just for fun you can call me the Hogleg in the Dogleg. No? Well, think about it.] I heard it was designed to keep tractor trailers out, but instead it just traps them and there is gridlock madness as the poor sucker has to back out of here and try to get to Pearl Street. It would be funny except they pluck our utility wires down sometimes. The dogleg has its perks and its faults. I have seen probably twenty accidents involving bikes, cars, and skateboards in the last eleven years, many frighteningly bloody. I wouldn’t trade it for the world. This article will focus only on Estoria Street this time. I love every inch of Cabbagetown, but I’m partial to Estoria because we are considering seceding from the neighborhood for tax purposes, and I want to run for HNIC (Happiest Neighbor In Cabbagetown). Might name the Estoria River something cabbagey, like Slawville. This corner, Slawdog.

Work is Prayer

Cummin Landscape Supply is on the other end of Estoria. I recently had a chance to  talk with the proprietor, Justin Andrews, about the business and his year and a half on Estoria and Memorial. He is a family man with four kids between the ages of (almost) three and ten. The landscape supply company has grown into a fully-stocked yard full of soil, sand, pine straw, stone of several varieties, gravel, and mulch of all types. They offer delivery and hauling and grading and the prices are phenomenally low for being in town. Justin is a nice guy and he will gladly give free advice to anyone who asks about landscaping and gardening.

When I asked him to tell me about the name of the business (cummin, like the spice) he told me about a parable in the book of Isaiah that inspired him. It says, “Will the plowman continually plow for the sowing, breaking his ground and harrowing it? Does he not, once he has leveled it, broadcast the dill and scatter the cummin? …This message comes from the Lord of Hosts, whose purposes are wonderful and his power great.” The point of the parable is that the farmer’s wisdom symbolizes the divine purposes. He decided he would become a landscaper so that he could teach the world in his humble way the divine purposes through planting with wisdom. After years of landscaping, he has been focusing now on the materials themselves. And he is here in Cabbagetown!  That sounds like a plug because it is and he deserves a warm welcome to the neighborhood. Go down and buy a ton of something from him.

Great White Bears of C-town

Hey Nature Lovers! Where can you go to see large indigenous predators? It is as easy as leaving Cabbagetown by way of Estoria to Memorial. On the left just past the houses on the hill you see a halted construction site of industrial fodder and failed progress. The land has taken a shag of growth which blocks oncoming traffic with its six foot tall briar patch. It is a mixture of weeds and wild blackberries. Shh! It is a secret, but they are edible berries. A secret because apparently they have the same appeal to old white people as they would have on bears inYellowstone. So sometimes, if you are real quiet when you drive—don’t scare them or look them directly in the eyes—you might spot a pair feeding and frolicking in and out of  the bushes with buckets and purple smears on their cheeks. Adorable! Occasionally they slap at each other’s buckets, but there is love in their eyes. I have not witnessed any breeding yet, but it is theorized the berries kind of make them drunk, so I would guess it is part of the ritual.

It would be nice, despite the berries and all the Nature, if that property wasn’t so conducive to bears. At the tunnel end you have graffiti and it is super urban. Down at this end, you got a forest with rusty rebar sticking out of it. Even unfinished, it needs a sidewalk. It needs a lot. It needs things that legally we are not capable of doing ourselves. Anyone could cut down the bushes, but not without a Right of Way permit. This is a Cabbagetown conundrum these days. It is impossible to get permission to do things that need done. For fun, go down to the Urban Design Committee and tell them you want to replace your rotten wooden siding for that new concrete board Hardiplank stuff you see all over. What a blast you will have! While you are there, tell them you are going to replace your old drafty window with a newly manufactured thermal insulated window. Ah, the good times you will remember forever! Need a shed to put your lawn mower in? Ask them at the UDC how easy it is to do that!

And if you are like me and you try to do a thing without permission, you might have the good luck of being turned in by someone you don’t even know, who just wants to make your life miserable because their experience downtown was that bad. One email to the right desk cost me a $1400. fine a couple years back for building a trellis for a plant in my yard. Thanks angry neighbor. You got me good.

Even without breaking an ordinance, your fellow tribesman can buffalo your life by just making a phone call.  Funny story.  My dog and close buddy of thirteen years, Devo, died last month. I really had a long and horrible (and expensive) experience watching my dog die. Here comes the funny part.  In one of his final cancerous days of living, someone called Fulton County Animal Control and reported me for neglect because my dog was skinny. Instead of saying over my fence, “Hey, what’s up with your skinny dog?” someone instead went straight to Fulton County with a phone call. They had to come out and confirm he was dying and that we had sought a veterinarian’s care and that his shots were current. They would have taken him from my family had something as trivial as his rabies shot not been current. Thanks angry neighbor. You got me good. I have been laughing so hard ever since at your funnyness. I hope I don’t find out who you are so that we don’t have a laugh together about your joke. One of us might die! Of laughter.

George Berry’s Second Favorite Triangle

Cummin Landscape Supply also recently donated a stone to theThreePointsParkwhich has a plaque mounted to it thanking the families that donated the land for that park to the neighborhood. What Three Points Park, you say? The scrap of land left dangling between Estoria Street and Fulton Terrace is supposed to be a park, complete with sidewalks, benches, maybe a street lamp, historic markers mentioning the Fulton Cotton Mill and the Battle of Atlanta. It has been a long process that has been very frustrating to George Berry, the Cabbagetown resident who lives and works right on the property across the street, and the spearhead for the Park to exist. There is a long story behind every aspect of that land. George would love to tell you all about it, but I will give my own watered-down version. It boils down to the Cabbagetown conundrum I mentioned earlier. We can not get a permit to do anything on that property. We could donate it to the city and adopt it back, but it is not eligible for donating to the city unless it is bigger than an acre. To do any work on it, a contractor needs a right of way permit which means they can block traffic and work in the street if necessary since the work is all within twenty feet of the center of the streets that border it. (Incidentally, if you want to replace your mailbox post and it is within twenty feet of the center of the street, then you need to have 3 million dollars worth of insurance to get a right of way permit. Good luck). No machinery can work that land. No elevation changes can affect that land. Meanwhile, the widow of one of the guys mentioned on the plaque is 95 years old and she gave the triangle to the neighborhood. We have promised we would commemorate her late husband by having a ceremony of sorts to thank her for her donation. The plaque is there now, but nothing else. We can do nothing else.

George Berry’s dream for his end of Estoria is that we can switch the front door to Cabbagetown from the tunnel to the triangle. He imagines historic markers that welcome the traffic. He envisions benches where dog walkers could rest and chat, perhaps even drink from a fountain or shade oneself from the sun. Opposition which suggests people will sleep there seems far-fetched and distracting (after all, people aren’t sleeping in the main park and there are plenty of places where you could get away with that). Like all things, The Three Points Park would cost money to make, but funds seem to appear when the right people show the drawings and enthusiasm to investors. George points out that $1000. was donated already by the property owner on Gaskill on the opposite side.

In the meantime, George is spending a lot of energy and emotion on that triangle. As a student of his teachings (both philosophical and proletariat), I wish he would return full force to his mastery of woodworking. I think it not good for the soul to get so disappointed with the neighborhood, the people and its policies. Perhaps we can come together to ease these burdens. I can imagine a night when 100 of us show up with shovels and wheel barrows and we shave down that triangle in the dark of night in an hour. Everyone takes away a little dirt and we spread it around the hood. We spread grass seed and straw and we let it grow. No harm done. In this same clandestine way, sidewalks could be laid and benches could get erected. Like the “Welcome to Cabbagetown” sign that is there, it would not be clearly sanctioned by the city, but the city probably wouldn’t care. While we are there we could scare away the bears and chop back Bre’r Rabbit’s place down there at the end.

The Hogleg from the Dogleg can be reached for further guidance at 404) 822-4290.

Michael Legleiter and Jess Bronk

Thank you all for coming all the way out here where they keep Portland for the wedding celebration of Jess and Michael. They want me to start by telling you all how appreciative they are for sharing this special day with them. We will forever remember this wedding as having occurred in the Spring, or towards the end of May even, but from here on out they will think of this day as the milestone of all milestones. Today, May 28, 2011. The day they officially plant their garden. The day the saplings go from the greenhouse to the earth. This day carries with it the expectation of the shade of that tree in the future.  Both of you are in big trouble with the other if you forget it from this day forward, so I will repeat it ( Mike): May 28, 2011.

I do ceremonies all the time and I have an exhaustive list of questions about exactly what a couple wants.  People idealize the day all their lives and often go crazy with details when it finally arrives. These two defied tradition and gave almost no input. They agreed on simple parameters. They want it short and sweet because they don’t want to put anyone out. They say they want to celebrate the union, not to tax the guests. And Mike knows I’m not capable of brevity, so he says, “I mean it, Dave. Short. Ten, twelve minutes.” I want to add at this point that nine days ago I emailed Mike and said, “I’m just glad I’m coming to a wedding as a guest for a change instead of performing the ceremony.  I’m gonna get my swerve on and crunk it the hell up.” He says back, “Yeah, you should. You deserve it. We just want someone to kind of announce that we are married, ya know?” I said, “Who is that going to be?” He became somewhat Bob Newhart-like and stammered, “Well, I uh, I was hoping you might.”

So ladies and gentlemen, friends and family, guests of the matrimonial nuptials  of Jess and Michael, please look at all times like you are having a blast so they don’t worry. They want this to sort of be an un-wedding. Try not to look hungry or bored or they will think you’d rather be somewhere else. In fact, I have a better idea. Let’s do something to prove we actually want to be here. I call this the group “I do.” Guests of this wedding, this bride and groom wish to be married today. They desire to become legally and spiritually bound. Let’s show our support by answering some simple questions. Do we, the friends and families of this couple wish to do more than merely attend this event? Say “I do.”  Do we wish to bless and encourage the union between Michael and Jess? Say “I do.”  Do we pray for them to have health and happiness until death do they part? Say “I do.” Excellent. Just for kicks, can I get an “AMEN.”

Okay, we got that out of the way, but I am a professional and I plan to keep it short and sweet. If twelve minutes is my ceiling, I want to selfishly use a few minutes now to say why I’m here, why I would allow someone at the final hour to treat me like a balloon-tying clown at a kindergartener’s party. My name is Reverend David DeChant. I have had the honor and the excitement of knowing Michael Legleiter since kindergarten, where we attended Robinson Elementary School together (now known as The Original Old School). Michael and I both remember that we built a box castle together on the first day of school, even. Later, near Christmas of that same year in 1975, we were in the play at school, him as Frosty the Snowman, me as Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer. We have known each other for so long that I can tell you how small we were when we met. We were not tall enough to reach the floor when we sat in the seats in the cafeteria! I know this because I have a memory of us sitting next to each other at lunch. Our feet are locked together as we eat and our feet swing back and forth without touching the ground. That is how long we have known each other, and that is a good example of how closely we have known each other—since a miraculous period of childhood called naivete!  This is a person I consider something more than a brother. I am here today for the same reason I would be here if he called me and said he was living under a bridge and needed a couch to sleep on. I am here today as a humbled and honored servant in any way I may be of help. I am so happy that my oldest and dearest friend has found an other half. I have been like a Jewish mother fretting over my boy for these last four decades, hoping an appropriate match completes him. Today I am ecstatic that my dream for my little Michael comes true.

Our relationship had its first pecking order incident in first grade. I remember it well.  We were given an assignment—flippantly given the assignment, really—of copying a cartoon on the back of our weekly reader magazine. It was your familiar three-panel cartoon and all of us did our best. I knew mine was really good. Our teacher, Mrs. Young, gently placed her hand on my shoulder from behind me as she passed and said, “David’s is great!” I blushed with pride. But the next row up was Michael’s where she stopped dead in her tracks behind him and audibly gasped. “Boys and girls…look!” She held up Michael’s. It was a Xerox quality copy. The teacher was visibly confused at the level of art her first grader had achieved. She immediately walked out the door and to the principal, Mr. Larrison’s, office to show him. The teachers all looked at him like an alien from that day on, a freakishly talented alien.

But instead of despising him for it, I stuck to a strategy of simply sabotaging him with humor.  We rode the bus together every year, in fact were in each class together all the way to fifth grade. By the end we could communicate like wolves, at least in the sense that I could make him laugh by just looking at him. In fact, he had to survive many punishments just because he was with me. I got him in trouble. We became quite familiar with Mr. Larrison’s office.  Maureen, I should have said something years ago, but your son is a nice boy and was not the one who lit the bottle rocket on the bus that day, even if he may have been the one holding it. And it was me who threw the wet toilet paper balls all over the bathroom, not Mike, who was merely guilty of not being in class and also swinging on the bathroom stall.  I’m sorry Mrs. Legleiter.  He could have ruled the world and I ruined him.

Meanwhile, while Michael did his thing in Kansas City, Jess Bronk was growing up in a solar-paneled natural wood house that her parents designed and built nestled in a hollow in rural Wisconsin. She has the type of parents that do that sort of thing. She is the daughter of two highly talented artisans–one a maker of wonderful, lovingly crafted leather goods, the other an award winning woodworker of stunningly beautiful wood furniture and sculpture.  Jess grew up going to all the midwest craft fairs her parents based their livelihood on.  It is certainly no wonder Jess was highly creative.  At home she had endless art materials and supplies inside, and the beauty of the woods surrounding her parents home outside. The whole world was a potential project. Jess never really had to question what she would be when she grew up, she was an artist right out of the gate. Jess remembers walking around the first grade classroom, helping the other children draw animals for their projects, until the teacher said “Okay, class, Jessy has to work on her own project now”.  Yes, she is another freakish artistic talent, as a matter of fact. I see crosshatching and shadowing in this couple’s future. I’m just channeling now, looking with my inner eye in and out of years to come and I clearly see a lot of pens and pencils in cups on desks, and smell a faint whiff of mineral spirits.

Although I’ve known Michael these past two score, I just met Jess on this trip. I had a phone interview with Mike about her ahead of time. I didn’t want to sully my good name as a Universal Life Church Minister by allowing him to get married to some regular person, some commoner, or worse, a Canadian. I had important questions for him. First question, of course, “Is she a Midwesterner?” He confirmed she was from Wisconsin. Thank God. I can support him marrying a Cheesehead. I myself married a Hoosier. As long as she is from the Motherland. Good. Second question, “Is she an only child?” This one is important because Mike grew up an only child and hung around me in my home where I was the youngest of eight. He didn’t understand siblings. Whenever my brothers picked on me he cocked his head funny like a dog hearing a curious sound. He thrived in the environment of no brothers and sisters, and I long ago sensed he would probably have to partner with someone who spoke that same language. And Jess does! She is one.

Third question, “Was there some kind of magic to how you two met?” He then relayed a story involving a group show of Polaroids at Powell’s books, called 16X20, 20 artists, 320 Polaroids. Jess had a set of 16 shots in the show and Michael happened to be in a few shots from another photographer. He mentioned Art, cubes of cheese, sparkling cider, “a better than mediocre evening.” After the opening they joined mutual friends for drinks and Michael found himself “quite intrigued by Jess’s hearty laugh, her beautiful smile and easy-going air.” I said, “That’s, um, sweet. No magic though? Did you Heimlich one of those cheese cubes out of her or anything?” He said “Magic indeed, for I learned many months later that her first impression of me was deciding she probably would not be dating me! Not knowing any better, I went forward as if she was just as interested in me as I was in her. Eventually she was.”  I think they call this The Castanza Method.

So despite a strained magnetism that first night, Michael and Jess were pulled to one another and began dating. I imagine they wound up together in the much the same way they planned this wedding.  Since the magic was building at the nebulous rate that it was, (and, I understand, after the added sin of a night of unadulterated BINGO), Michael rushed to propose just shy of nine years later. How many? No hurry.  And here we are today, the fairy tale a reality. (Back to my tree metaphor) this tree of Michael and Jess has been in the greenhouse for quite some time. Though their opinions may differ on where the plants will go, it was never in doubt whether they would build a garden together. They have been building a life with each other for nearly a decade, but today we help them put the root ball in the ground. If those of you gathered here today are willing to participate in their garden, if you good people wish to one day delight in the shade of this tree, and perhaps one day enjoy it’s fruit, say “I do.”  Now here comes the ceremony.

The rings of a marriage symbolize with a circle the unity of two souls into one, and do more than seal the importance of their vows.  Imagine the rings as the adjustable top of a compass and Jess and Mike as the points.  As they get further away from each other, they lean and hearken towards the other, but become straight when together.  The ring is the symbol of the distance traveled in that circle, and keeps the other foot from going anywhere that will not lead it back home.  As they are parted for their workday or traveling apart for whatever reason, this band suffers not a breach, but an expansion, as the gold is stretched to airy thinness.  These bands of the most malleable and precious of metals are now forever acting the top of that compass, ensuring a return.

Michael Sean Legleiter, do you take Jessica Lynn Bronk to be your faithful wife from this time onward, to join with you and to share all that is to come, to give and to receive, to speak and to listen, to inspire and to respond, a commitment made in love, and eternally made new?  [say I Do] Then take your ring and place it on her finger and say as you are doing so, “with this ring I thee wed.”

And Jessica Lynn Bronk, do you take Michael Sean Legleiter to be your faithful husband from this time onward, to join with you and to share all that is to come, to give and to receive, to speak and to listen, to inspire and to respond, a commitment made in love, and eternally made new? [say I Do] Then take your ring and place it on his finger and say as you are doing so, “with this ring I thee wed.”

So by the power vested in me I pronounce you husband and wife, Michael Legleiter and Jessica Bronk. Please kiss her, kiss him!  Ladies and Gentlemen, can I get another Amen?

Jim Dechant, 76, died Tuesday, January 4, 2011, at home, in the arms of his beloved wife Judy. A visitation will begin at 12 noon, followed by a service celebrating Jim’s life at 1:00 p.m. on Friday, January 7, 2011, at the Yellow Rock Barn, 8307 Westridge Road, Raytown, MO 64138. Burial will follow the service in Memorial Park Cemetery. Friends and family are then invited to return to the Yellow Rock Barn for a “party” as Jim requested. Jim was a social worker and counselor in private practice for over 40 years, during which he provided assistance to more than 3500 families. To meet growing social problems of the 1970s and ’80s, he co-founded Sexual Abuse Treatment Network, which then merged with the Metropolitan Organization to Counter Sexual Assault (MOSCA) in 1983, creating the Sexual Abuse Treatment Program. Following a long time counseling partnership with MOSCA, he performed volunteer services there. For some 30 years he led the Counseling and Personal Growth Center in Kansas City. Later, when living at Sunrise Beach in the Ozarks, he provided extensive volunteer counseling services to the Cedar Ridge Drug and Alcohol Center. Jim was born June 25, 1934, in Lisle, Illinois, to Wendelin and Dorothy Dechant. After high school, he attended the Pontifical College Josephinum in Worthington, Ohio, obtaining a B.A. in Philosophy. Turning to social work, he obtained his Masters of Social Work (MSW) from the University of Kansas. He was a Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW) and a Board Certified Diplomat. In recognition of his work, he was named “Outstanding Social Worker of the Year” by the MO-KAN chapter of the National Association of Social Workers. Most of all, he was a loving husband and father. His life was about love, family and service. He will be remembered dearly as a “good and loving man” and “someone who always gave more than he received.” He is survived by his wife of 35 years, Judy. He was preceded in death by a brother Kenneth Dechant and is survived by sisters Joan Engel (Larry), Arlene Spaw (Don), and Fran Scantling. Jim and Judy had a blended family of eight children. He was preceded in death by daughter Kelley Todd. He is survived by Sean O’Sullivan (Tammy), Beth Bernier, Meredith Ashby (Dave), Shannon Hasenack (Brian), Brian Dechant (Arlene), Conor O’Sullivan and David Dechant (Ann-Marie). He also leaves 16 grandchildren. For the last ten years of his life, Jim and his wife Judy struggled with his slow developing brain condition that escaped precise medical diagnosis. Symptoms included slow loss of memory, accompanied by some physical debilitation. He was keenly aware of this. His spirit of continuing service, value and love of life was presaged in this message sent to family and friends some seven years ago. After describing the slowly developing symptoms and the many alternatives being explored, he wrote: “In the meantime, I continue to volunteer … and try to live life at the fullest at all times. I hope you will share this time with me, but only on condition that there is laughter, joy and a good time.” The family requests no flowers. Contributions in honor of Jim’s life of service may be made to MOSCA. Donations may be left at the service to send to MOCSA at 3100 Broadway, Suite 400, Kansas City, MO 64111. You may send a message to the family or sign an online guest book via www.parklawnfunerals.com. Arrangements: Park Lawn Funeral Home, (816) 523-1234.

Goodbye Dad

I’m not embarrassed or ashamed to cry up here today. My father cried all the time. I remember a friend once asking me if I’d ever seen my dad cry, and me answering with, “Yeah, just about every episode of Little House on the Prairie makes him cry.” I’m a sensitive guy like my dad. He gave me the middle name Alexander, he told me once, because of Alexander the Great, a historical character I don’t really identify with. I will accept “above average” or “remarkable”, maybe, but Greatness has alluded me so far. But I am able to stand up here. I have that strength because I saw him do the same several times. He spoke for my family’s departed with softness and emotion and humor. He helped us all at these times, he eased our pain. I will try to do the same.

But Greatness is a trait easily attached to my father. Extraordinary deeds and occurrences surrounded him his whole life. He was driven by his most profound thirst for answers regarding the soul and happiness and spirituality. What could those discussion possibly have been like, when at the age of twelve my father told his parents he wanted to join a seminary? And he does enter a seminary, and stays until he is twenty-seven, studying Latin, Greek, Hebrew, Spanish, and without exaggeration each and every word of English. He emerges as a Catholic Priest. He graduates a man who takes confession. That was already unquestionably Great. He served God. The Church had educated him and explained the Afterlife as a reward that awaited him.

Then at twenty-seven another calling called that allowed him to help his fellow Man even more directly. He became a Social Worker. And I used the word “help” on purpose. All my life people have approached me and said, “Are you Jim’s son? Oh, he helped me so much.” They didn’t mean he loaned them a truck to move, they meant he had counseled them. He had made their spiritual broken parts whole again. He helped them by patiently and slowly rewinding the unraveled. He benefitted thousands of clients over his years through therapy. He helped with mere kindness, and sympathy, and compassion, and patience. He was not judgmental and gave you the courage to tell him anything. He had the most honed ability to listen with such skill that you were compelled to admit things you would admit to no other human, not even yourself.

As his son, this presented problems. I envied kids that were spanked. Kids who got spanked got to go back and play as soon as they quit crying. If I got in trouble and got cornered by Dad and Judy about it, there might be a four hour session in my future. “Why did you light a fire Dave?” “We were playing with matches.” “But why did you really light a fire, Dave?” Before you knew it, you were crying and telling about the time you stole change from the dish for candy or something seemingly unrelated to the original charge.

But in all other regards it was easy to be his child. His parenting rules were very easy to abide by. He taught us all to follow our hearts. We were encouraged to dream and to chase dreams. He continued to search for spiritual answers and he expected us to form our own questions and do the same. We were to seek the Truth and speak the Truth. We were to not harm or fight with others. We were to be home for dinner by 5:30. We took turns with certain chores. We had to clean our rooms on Thursdays. That was about it. It was very hippie skippy. And still we constantly abused the freedoms we were given. Some smoked. He just allowed it. He let us be whatever we wanted to be. “Follow your hearts.” We heard these words all our lives. I can assure you we will all continue to follow our hearts, Father. If in only this one way you instructed us, you succeeded.

I want to tell a quick story about a message he once left on my answering machine when I was in college. I remember it word for word because it was so funny and so typical of my dad. First thing he said was what he always started a phone call to me with, “Dave, this is your father.” As if I didn’t recognize the voice. It continued, “Judy and I just saw a movie we think you would love. It is about fishing and Nature. It was based on a book written by a guy.  It is called A River Runs Right Through It.” Remember, this is before his memory problems, which is why a friend standing next to me when I played this message said, “Does your dad get high?” My answer to that question says volumes about Jim Dechant. I said, “Drugs were never allowed in our home. My dad was adamantly opposed to them in every form. I’ve never seen him drunk. He has a single cold beer after mowing the lawn. He has wine with dinner sometimes. He is the most free-spirited liberal I know, but he does not do drugs of any kind.  But yeah, he has been high since I was born. That is just my dad.”

My dad’s pursuit of answers to his spiritual questions took him down many winding roads. He was into crystals and pyramids and strange diets. He had a working comprehension of his past lives. We didn’t pray before a meal, we meditated and said “ohm.” He had shirts with wizard sleeves. He consulted with psychics. He took vision quests in the desert where he held conversation with the moon (which, by the way, the moon is a polar bear, he discovered. That is why wolves on earth howl to it). He had the books of Carlos Casteneda and Shirley McClain. He participated in ceremonies and rituals of shamanism, the oldest of earth’s religions. He added to his Catholic knowledge about the Afterlife and now he had information about the Beforelife. He knew his spiritual past, present, and future. How many humans can say that? I find extreme comfort today in the bittersweet understanding that he now finally has all those questions answered. One must die to know what he wanted to know. It was the last stone to upturn. It pains me. It deeply affects everyone here. But it completes him.

Although drug free, he could not escape addiction. His vice was salt. His preferred method of administration was popcorn, but in a pinch he would eat a bag of chips in a sitting. I saw him tip up a thousand empty bags of chips to get the bits in the corner, followed by a Homer Simpson-like pleasure groan as he dabbed at the crumbs on his chest and belly. I have laughed aloud at myself when I too perform this habit, sounding exactly like him.

But salt was not even what he liked most on this planet. His single greatest pleasure without question was Judy. She was the reason he got out of bed in the morning. She was his reason for living, more than anything else. He adored her. He wrote poetry to her. He practiced his profession with her. He took his life quest with her. Judy, you were his other half. The two of you were absolutely woven rope twisted together. You carried him along during his dementia beyond what most people could have handled. Thank you. I have not known two people more in love than you two.

When his disease had progressed to the point of him hardly knowing or not knowing who I was, I still had very important conversations with him. In one I said, “Dad, you have a history with the Church, deeper than most. And yet, I’ve never heard you mention Jesus Christ.” He said, “If I didn’t, then I should have. He was my greatest teacher.” I asked, “Was he the son of God?” My father said, “That is unimportant to his teachings. The lessons were valid independently. Plus we are all the sons of God.” These words while his mind betrayed him, while his history and memories abandoned him, during a time when he didn’t possess the capacity to say something not genuine to his son, the skeptic. This also gives us some insight into how powerful those discussions must have been for my grandparents when as a boy of twelve he said he was leaving their home for a higher purpose. Jim Dechant managed to keep his faith as did Job when covered with sores, scratching himself with those shards of broken pottery. If this does not constitute Greatness, I don’t know what does.

And another conversation we had recently is even more telling of his place in the universe. He asked me what I did for a living. I said, “Well, I’m a writer and a sculptor. I am a stone mason. I make things. I do a lot of things, but I’m not working right now. I stay at home with my children. I’m a homemaker.” He kind of sighed. He thought for a moment, then said, “But Society frowns on that.” I laughed uncontrollably. He asked why. I said, “Dad, you wear turquoise sweats in public. Trust me, you don’t care what Society thinks. You defied societal norms your whole life.” He was surprised. He said, “Give me an example of how I did that.” I couldn’t wait to. “That’s easy,” I began, “Your greatest accomplishment was a slap in the face to Society. It was 1968. You adopted my brother Brian. When it was illegal to even eat in a restaurant with someone of a different race except at the bus station, you adopted an African American child. You were prepared to fight Society and the Law for your family. You were a rebel against ignorance and racism and a champion of civil rights.” My dad said, “Oh yeah. I did that kind of thing a lot.”

I spoke of his parents. I never met my father’s father. But oddly enough, as the family knows, his mother Dorothy remarried at an outrageously late year in life (76 years old I think) to a character named Charlie Papich. My dad had a step-dad! Everybody loved Charlie and ultimately he passed too, but my dad said of Charlie in his final days, “Old Charlie was crackin’ jokes all the way to the end. I saw him the day he died and he still had me laughing.” I mention it now because it demonstrates my father’s priorities. He loved to laugh and to make jokes. He called me and his other kids his “goombah” every now and again and I thought it was hilarious. I could make him laugh until his stomach hurt. He was a horribly “white” dancer and it was extremely entertaining to watch. He danced when the mood struck him, usually alone, often at the Lake of the Ozarks listening to Jim Croce or John Denver or James Taylor. Although a lover of folk music, he only ever knew the chorus of a song and garbled through the bridge in ways that were legendarily wrong. His fashion sense was always extraordinarily dorky. He was a classic goofball, a hipster doofus. He was loved by everybody and he cracked jokes until the very end, just as he admired in others. He was a Great man.

Goodbye Dad. You told me in 1991 you would die when you were 77, so I believed you all this time, but it doesn’t make it easier to let you go. I know you went a few months early just to catch me off guard. I hope I’m everything you wanted from me. I brought the food to my mouth as you told me to do, not my mouth to the food. And I followed my heart, I swear.

This is the part where I invite others to speak. Take as long as you want to get your courage. Take as long as you want to speak. I’ll be up here the whole time if you need my help.

At the Graveside

A decade ago our family suffered the loss of Kelley Todd. We stood arm-in-arm around her casket as an act of solidarity and love, as if sheltering and hugging her one last time before we gave her to the earth.  My father thought the gesture reminded him of a sculpture he’d seen called Circle of Friends, an idol depicting a ritual of Mexican culture where a family surrounds a single member arm-in-arm. He later bought one for each of us to commemorate how we came together at our weakest moment to show that our family as a whole intended to survive.

Let us stand in a circle around Jim Dechant as we did for Kelley a decade ago. We do this on purpose and with reverence. We hope with this circle we symbolize eternity so that the world knows our family still stands. We are brothers and sisters still, sons and daughters still. We are still ten strong right now. Our father and husband Jim, and our sister and daughter Kelley are the center where a compass point would stand. We are the mark made round the center. When we leave this place today, we understand that like a compass, no matter how far apart we are, we are still connected in the middle, connected by our hearts and our love, strong and equidistant to you. Our family has suffered losses, but still exists. This is our everlasting circle of friends. Amen.

Goodbye Harvey

You know that house on the corner of Estoria and Mollie with the beautiful plants?  Sometimes you would see a guy in a wheelchair watering them?  That was my friend Harvey and he died this month at the age of 52. He is survived by his partner Gary who has owned the house for 19 years and shared it with Harvey for the last ten. We mourn his loss with shock and trying sadness. Cabbagetown has lost another of its statesmen, another of its original beautiful characters.

Harvey was a colorful neighbor who everybody over here loved because he was outside daily working on his plants and would talk to passersby if it moved him to be social. I was always on his good side so I never had to face his bitchy side, although it was rumored that he had one. He cut hair for thirty years until sickness left him wheelchair bound a few years ago. Even then he often sent Gary over to my house with gifts for my children and told Gary to squeeze my girls for him.

For reasons I never knew, Harvey called me Mr. Green Jeans after the Captain Kangaroo character. I don’t know if he called me that because Mr. Green Jeans was a handyman, or because he was tall, or because I wore green. The day I met him he stopped me and said, “Gary and I refer to you as Mr. Green Jeans when we talk amongst ourselves. Should we keep calling you that or are you going to tell us your real name?” I said, “Well, my wife and I call you two the guys without shirts because we don’t claim to have ever seen either of you in one. I’m David.”  He said he has a last name but I should only ever call him Harvey.  That was how we met.

It has been a great honor to be Harvey’s friend and I will miss him dearly. I used to sneak him cigarettes behind Gary’s back and Harvey and I had many afternoons on his musical porch smoking and laughing to the calming symphony of wind chimes and water features. I continued to buy him cigarettes even six months after I quit, and to prove even further how much I loved him, I had to face the curious looks of every cashier I asked to give me four packs of the notoriously gay brand Salem Gold 100s.

When I used to have a retail store, Harvey would drag Gary down to Buckhead and buy stuff from me. He said I had great taste and a great store and this made him an instant friend. Their house is full of interesting details and the porch demonstrates how diverse and dynamic it all is inside too. I see items from my store all over the house and yard and it reminds me of the decade we have known each other. I thought we’d sit on that porch together a little longer and cuss and laugh and smoke. I can’t imagine things any other way. Damn Harvey, you really caught me off guard.  Just like you to surprise us all like that, you drama queen. You will be missed by your family, by Gary, by me, by Cabbagetown.  Thanks again for the gifts that you gave the world. Thanks for loving my daughters more than necessary for a neighbor even while you felt like a mess. Goodbye friend.

I’m going to save that voice message of you I still have as long as possible. Even your last words to me were funny, “Love you Mr. Green Jeans…and squeeze your little Green Beans for me.”

–Reverend David DeChant

Welcome

Thank you all for coming to celebrate the marriage of Skyler and Josh today, April 9, 2010.  This is forever a special date for these two. We may remember that it was Spring that they got married, or even that it was  April, but these two will revere this day with anniversary dinners and celebrations for the rest of their lives. They are also in big trouble with the other if they cannot remember this date.  Josh, I’ll just repeat it: April 9, 2010.

They want me to thank everyone for coming out for this because they want your support and blessings for this event. Today is their special day, but they wanted to share it with their friends and family, and neighbors.  Everyone that made it here today is a part of this marriage.  It is their history as a couple, and we are now a part of it.  This is a powerful concept.  So much so that I want to ask everyone to participate.  I like to do something called the “group I do.”  If you, the friends and family of Skyler and Josh, believe these two should be married, if you support the union and wish them all the happiness and fortune they can possibly have, say “I do.” And while everyone is paying attention, can I get an Amen as well?

Josh and Skyler wanted today to be intimate and casual.  I had lots of questions about the type of ceremony they both imagined and there was a unanimous outcry from both of them.  They asked that it be short and sweet, simple.  I mention this because sometimes when I ask these questions people go crazy with details.  They have imagined their wedding all their lives and they want it to be like they painted it in their minds.  Not so with this bride and groom.  They both told me the only things they wanted were about how the guests should feel.  Short and sweet so they don’t have to stand for very long or wrestle their kids. Simple so no one has to interpret the ceremony beyond a matrimony between husband and wife. I think it is very altruistic of them to selflessly ask that all they want from their ceremony is for everyone to be cool with it. I think that is sweet.  Plus, all of you said “I do.”

Introduction

I want to introduce myself now.  I am Reverend David DeChant and I am a friend and neighbor of Josh and Skyler. I am honored they asked me to be here today officiating because they are both celebrities of sorts around here. It turns out they have the best friends in the whole world.  I know this because I am one of them and most of their friends are my friends too. This inside information has given me insight into how their relationship is perceived by their peers. I am proud to say that everyone of our mutual friends thinks they are a loving couple and thinks they complement each other perfectly.  I have never heard a negative word about the two, which is unusual.  All you hear is how playful and in love they are, how they complete each other, how they deserve each other.

In fact, the relationship seemed suspiciously like one of them needed their green card, you know?  It seemed like the pieces fit together in a contrived way or in a way that was supposed to fool an immigration officer or a probation officer. I investigated their backgrounds and discovered why this seemed too good to be true.  First, they got the marriage license from the city which rules out only the legal stuff: they are citizens, they are sixteen or older, and they are not cousins.  Good.  But what of the squeaky clean appearances and this devoted love look they both have for each other? Well, I’m happy to say I got to the bottom of that in my research.

You see, I have done probably forty-five or fifty weddings, and I’m happy to announce that all of my marriages after twelve years are still together, still married. Considering the normal rates and statistics, this record is improbable and extremely unlikely, to say the least.  I wasn’t going to ruin my record over some Cabbagetown rebels with their artsy attitudes. I traced their lineages, I scoured their ancestries, I studied their family crests.   It didn’t take long to discover their key to compatibility. The answer was simply in the meaning of their names.  See, I had  to consider the repercussions of combining a Joshua Bryan Minter and a Skyler Leigh Waldrop?  I found out that Josh means “God is salvation” and Skyler means “scholar.” So far, quite interesting, but not a deal killer. I imagine a monk and a professor discussing Man and God and our place in the Universe.  Bryan means “strength” [in Cabbagetown some say strenf], but came from an even earlier usage of “bri” which means “hill.” This is perfectly analogous to Leigh which means “clearing in the woods” or “meadow.” Now we have a picture emerging of the monk and the professor on a mountain top above the treeline discussing Sartre or Foucault or something—still very believable and romantically matched. It was only going to be their last names which might have ruined the whole deal. I was nervous for them.  Once I refused my services to Mr. Bernier to Ms. Shinn because Bernier means “Bear Army” and Shinn means “a skinner of hides.” It was utterly against my nature to wed in holy matrimony the skinner of hides to the entire bear Army. That is just not right. I couldn’t endorse that.

A Minter, it turns out, is “a moneyer, a skilled worker who coins or stamps money.” Waldrops throughout history were so-named because they were of the guild of “keepers of the King’s wardrobe.” So Josh Bryan Minter is a “religious strong guy on a hill making money.” Skyler Leigh Waldrop is a “smart woman in the woods protecting shirts.”

That was it.  That was all it took.  And I hope it is obvious why I endorse and support this union, why I will stake my reputation on their success, and why I know they were destined to be married.  The entire romantic scene paints itself: A zealot on a hill hammering out quarters pauses in his work and notices a beautiful scientist studying dragonflies and carrying some laundry.  It isn’t hard to envision the rest, right?  Their first names are qualities, their second names are locations, and their last names are both occupations.  These are two people who historically know what they are, know where they are, and know what they do.  What more can we want? They have my blessing. One more time ladies and gentlemen, friends and family, on the count of three, if they have yours too, say “I do.” 1,2,3.  I do feel obligated to say, though, that this methodology does not mean a thing for your cats.  I can’t promise they’ll get along, no matter their names. It doesn’t work for cats. Good luck with that.

Tom Robbins

Skyler the Scholar did want me to stick to a theme for the ceremony.  She wanted me to read some writings by Tom Robbins, the quirky and complex, abstract and esoteric American author.  I am happy to do so. Through this interaction from two characters in Still Life With Woodpecker, we get a glimpse of how Josh and Skyler understand their friendship and their love:

Leigh-Cheri says,

“The bottom line is that (a) people are never perfect but love can be, (b) that is the way

that the mediocre and the vile can be transformed, and (c) doing that makes it that.

Loving makes love.  Loving makes itself. We waste time looking for the perfect lover

instead of creating the perfect love.  Wouldn’t that be the way to make love stay?”

And Bernard replies,

“Love is the ultimate outlaw.  It just won’t adhere to any rules.  The most any of us can

do is to sign on as its accomplice.  Instead of vowing to honor and obey, maybe we

should swear to aid and abet.  That would mean that security is out of the question. The

words ‘make’ and ‘stay’ become inappropriate. My love for you has no strings attach-                            ed. I love you for free.”

Bird of Paradise

In the bird world as in the human world, mates are attracted by an entire host of things.  If you have ever seen a documentary about just how choreographed and orchestrated the dance of some birds, or how orderly and colorful the plumage, as a basis for pairing and reproducing, then you know how funny the planet can be.  We are all peacocks of a sort, or magpies arranging a highly-ornamental nest to attract another, are we not?  Well, one of those primeval dance moves or just the right color feather in Josh and Skyler’s ritual of attraction centered around humor. The language they speak back and forth is one they made up of inside jokes.  They spend a lot of time cracking each other up. I feel there is no method  more profound or more beautiful to attract your mate for life. Congratulations. That is how you make love stay.

Rings

Let’s begin then.  The rings of a marriage symbolize with a circle the unity of two souls into one, and do more than seal the importance of their vows.  Imagine the rings as the adjustable top of a compass and Josh and Skyler as the points.  As they get further away from each other, they lean and hearken towards the other, but become straight when together.  The ring is the symbol of the distance traveled in that circle, and keeps the other foot from going anywhere that will not lead it back home.  As they are parted for their workday or traveling apart for whatever reason, this band suffers not a breach, but an expansion, as the gold is stretched to airy thinness.  These bands of the most malleable and precious of metals are now forever acting the top of that compass, ensuring a return.

I Do

Josh, do you take Skyler to be your faithful wife from this time onward, to join with you and to share all that is to come, to give and receive, to speak and to listen, to inspire and to respond, a commitment made in love, kept in faith, and eternally made new?  [say I Do] Then take your ring and place it on her finger and say as you are doing so, “with this ring I thee wed.”

And Skyler, do you take Josh to be your faithful husband from this time onward, to join with you and to share all that is to come, to give and to receive, to speak and to listen, to inspire and to respond, a commitment made in love, kept in faith, and eternally made new? [say I Do] Then take your ring and place it on his finger and say as you are doing so, “with this ring I thee wed.”

Pronouncement

So by the power vested in me I pronounce you husband and wife, Josh and Skyler Minter. Please kiss her, kiss him!  Ladies and Gentlemen, can I get another Amen?

I suppose the role of the guy who stands up here on a day like today is to comfort the audience. I do want to comfort you, but I have to start by telling you good people that comfort and strength are almost impossible to muster right now, so I mean no disrespect to anyone if I fail at that this evening.  Also, after several rewrites and different versions I find I can’t hide my anger or my pain either.  One technique that has helped me through this ceremony was to praise Chuck a little, then make fun of him a little.  Both are very easy.  There are so many positive things to say about Chuck Peters, but then I couldn’t help notice all the notes I’d scratched into the margins right along some happy memory like “stubborn”, or “vain frosted hair phase”.  So instead of just telling you how great he is, I’ve sprinkled in some of those negative things as well.

Chuck Peters viewed the world in many ways with the same wonderment of a teenager.  We should all be so lucky to find the childlike amazement that Chuck had for life.  He loved video games and fast cars.  In fact if you asked him “how have computers most benefited mankind?” He would have said “driving games”.  His favorite movies are all full of explosions and car chases.  He was materialistic like a kid too.  If you asked him what he would buy if he had an extra thousand bucks, he had a list already committed to memory. We saw this childlike attitude with whatever toy he was into at the time, in the form of a remote control car, a 4-wheeler, or his actual car.  And if you asked him what kind of car he was getting next time, he would tell you his next three cars.

He craved excitement and it forced the rest of the world to be exciting at the same time.  It wasn’t enough for him to merely climb Mt. Everest, he wanted to build a ramp next to it and jump it with a motorcycle.  Chuck Peters was a legendary character that left wild stories in his path. He was a Tour de Force of which there was no equal.  Every moment with him was an adventure.  He envisioned himself in a youthful and maybe even immature way as a rock star. Those of us who had the honor of his company know that he was indeed a rock star in many ways—just not the kind where he was famous or in a musical group.  And it was comical when his rock star status wouldn’t work because he was just too sweet, too kind.  He might act tough sometimes, but his true gentle giant nature would take over and the rock start persona would crumble.  His poker tells fit right into this—if he was acting tough, he had nothing; if he was giddy, look out. One aspect where he was inflexible was eating vegetables.  Chuck was most childish about eating–he was pickier than a 5 year old. He acted like vegetables were kryptonite to him.  I told him to eat them, everyone told him to eat them, but again, like a child he was stubborn and ornery. His diet consisted of about 12 total things all mostly different meats and candies.

Chuck was my first friend in Georgia when I moved here in 1993.  We worked together—and we worked hard at labor-intensive tasks–but we made each other laugh all day, and that is all I remember ever doing. He lived in my building too. We were 23 years old and we acted like it.  Many of my deepest secrets are in that box now.  The most reckless and crazy things I ever did, I did with Chuck Peters. Those are the days of my most treasured memories and I wouldn’t trade them for diamonds.  Just spending time with Chuck meant laughing all day. Even when he was mad he would resort to snotty little kid tactics, like saying, “I’m not talking to you anymore,” or “I heard what you said about me.”  This attention-seeking behavior made us laugh too because it forced you to play along.  Seventeen years of my life overlap Charles Alton Peters and I’m grateful for the gift of that. Again and again Chuck taught me how to love life, and I thank him for it.

I cannot overstate with too superlative a compliment how kind was Chuck Peters, how funny was Chuck Peters, how physically strong, how noble his work ethic, how joyful.  Children and animals adored him.  This list goes on, but maybe the best examples of his character were his love for his family.  Charlotte, he talked about you all the time and told me every time I saw him how you were doing. A 40 year-old man that loves his mama is a sign of many wonderful and healthy virtues.  You and Charles produced a real gentleman, and I know you all were proud of him.

And Lisa, without exaggeration the happiest, most contented years he spent on earth were because of you.  He was devoted to you since he met you and you completed him in every way.  When he sprayed “I love Lisa” into the driveway with the pressure washer, it was him bragging to the world about you.  Your wedding was the greatest day of his life. Thank you for sharing it with me.  It was the happiest I’d ever seen Chuck.

But none of that makes it okay to wear as much cologne as he did sometimes.  My wife would come home from work and pick up our first baby and immediately say, “Oh, how long was Chuck here?”  He was also the most gullible person I’ve ever known. Every time he watched a documentary about vampires or how we didn’t really land on the moon, he would argue the merits of the show’s claims and not listen to reason. The more X-File ridiculous, the more he believed it.

So in this fashion, I’m going to start a rumor about him, a conspiracy theory.  You see, NASA needs all kinds of landing strips and parking lots built on Mars for future space travel plans. They had to fake Chuck’s death so they could send him there in the only flying concrete pump ever made. They gave him the biggest contract ever and he will be the wealthiest man in history after he stacks up all those hours on his pump. He’ll be there waiting when the technology they pretend to have “just developed” starts taking people to “explore” Mars.

What I like most about this rumor is that it suggests that he was needed somewhere else.  As a concept of the afterlife, I like to believe the otherworld needs him.  An old aphorism of the ancient Greeks says “whom the gods love die young.”  At least that explains it a little.  I imagine sharing Chuck with Heaven.  After all, he gave me so much joy, it is the least I can do.  And it is okay that it still hurts because we didn’t give him up voluntarily.

One final characteristic of his rock star persona was that he talked about this day often.  He imagined his funeral as his big rock show.  If we were to play all the songs he said we should play at his funeral, we would be here until Easter listening to them all. Music was his constant companion, and I can’t stress enough how important it was to him.  The way these songs made him feel is what he wanted us to feel.  The way they touched his heart, he wanted to touch ours today.  I interpret this gesture as a desire for us all to think of Chuck from here on out with the same love you have for your favorite songs—that same familiarity, that same consistency.  An old song is an old friend, rock star Chuck might have said.  These songs are a collection of his best, most comforting, feelings.  There were many.  Maybe he thought these songs would rain down onto our sadness and cover us with his greatest musical experiences to ease our pain.  Thanks Chuck.

Goodbye my friend.  Goodbye brother, son, uncle, husband.  You were awesome.  We love you.

Now I’ll open up the mic to everyone else.  Please share something, no matter how trivial or incidental you may think it is.

How To Be A Cabbagehead And Also How To Get Into Heaven

By Reverend David DeChant

My neighbor Bruce says Millworkers leaving a shift would be covered in cotton fuzz and were called “lintheads.”  “Cabbagetowner” sounds too chunky.  “Cabbagehead” has a certain pizzazz as a moniker, but I hope it never gets coupled with “Parrothead.”  My favorite name for a group, Branch Davidians, got ruined in Texas.  I think all the “lintheads” deserve to call themselves Cabbageheads (although they didn’t).  They worked here.  They raised kids here.  They lived here when it was less than trendy to do so.  If you get this newsletter you could be a Cabbagehead–for sure if you are over fifty and own a home here.  But there is an undetermined, yet real, number of years you must live here before you are tenured as a true Cabbagehead.  The reason the exact number is undetermined is because someone else has been here longer than you and they still consider you the new kid.  And although it is 2010, if you have only been here in the current millennium, some would scoff.

How can you determine your individual Cabbagehead status?  Are you a member of the elite?  I’ve been here 11 years and people still ask me if I ever heard why they call it Cabbagetown.  Even though my version of the origin involves Sasquatch and his love for leafy vegetation, I never refuse someone “telling” me how our neighborhood got its name.  They always say it with such belief, such unflinching faith.  Even though there may never surface a document which definitively answers this query, people preach with confidence their version as if no one else ever heard it.  I collect them like a folklorist and apply them to my mythology and hope that one day I’ll be pleasantly surprised to find the one truth.  This is also how I store the files for all the religions of the world—I pick and choose which ones sound interesting to me and how I may fit within them, then I trust Science in the mean time and await the day that I find out for myself.  I pray for miracles in the hopes that I can exclaim to all, “But I was there.  I saw it.  It changed my life, and I don’t care what you say because my senses and faculties did not deceive me.”  Until then you should assume that what I have to say on the subject is just as valid as everyone else, and just as foolish.

And of Cabbagehead status the same can be said.  No one would ever agree on the Cabbagehead parameters, nor who the card-carrying members actually are.  I was once accused of not being one because I had never been in a band from here.  Well played (since I’m not a musician), except how many people have been?  A thousand, maybe?  That seems a touch elite to me.  That guy in Bolster’s photograph with “Cabbagetown” tattooed across his neck, well, he’s one despite his musical career, right?  Does merely owning a home here or renting a place here qualify one as a Cabbagehead?  Some would say no.  Maybe, if you bought it from a Splinter or a Weeks or a Staples—but this list goes on, doesn’t it?  I bought mine from a “flipper” and it doesn’t get more Cabbagetown than that.  Does buying a bumper sticker designed by John Dirga and pasting it to a Land Rover make you a Cabbagehead?  Some would say no.  How many Chomp t-shirts does it take?  Do you have to enter chili to be a Cabbagehead or actually win one year?  I sense an opportunity for schtick in the fashion of local humorist Jeff Foxworthy:  “If you made out with Santa clause at the Crawl and broke out with Esther Peachy Lefevre-blisters on your lips, you might be a Cabbagehead!”

Perhaps everyone’s own Cabbagehead standing is like the story of how Cabbagetown got its name.  We should continue to believe on faith that we belong to the club and be pleasantly surprised when or if we ever find it to be true.  Conversely, we should allow others to defrock or counter-argue our status, and we must be made to verify our membership from time to time if called out to do so.  What is your claim to alliance and membership?  Does your history involve just the tornado, or the fire, the hurricane, the earthquake, the volcano, and the comet too?  Did you buy groceries from Sarah or little burgers from Little’s?  Did you smoke with Benjamin Smoke?

So here is my claim to the tribe of Cabbagehead.  About three years ago, I got a call from Celine Bufkin.  She said there was a break-in recently and there was an odd detail she wanted to ask me about.  Wow! Such a compliment on my intellect, perhaps because of my pulse on The People, my networking and popularity?  Almost blushing with pride, I said, “Well, I haven’t heard anything but I will help in any way.”    She says, “It was really strange.  The robber took a crap in the house before he left. You don’t know anything about it?”  Suddenly I was not so complimented.  As terse as I get, “Celine, do you actually think I know someone who would drop a deuce in someone’s house?”  Without pause, she says, “Or that it might have been you.”

I could see the process as she worked it out.  She heard a bizarre story involving this “calling card” and she thinks to herself, “Who do I know that is sick and twisted enough to commit that act?”  Celine is both sober and learn’d and she came to the logical conclusion that possibly the Good Reverend David DeChant might break into a house, steal some things, and defecate in it. She didn’t think I might have heard from who did it, she casually asked me if I had done it.  That is when I knew I had arrived; I was a true Cabbagehead.  My reputation, my legend, had matured to a point where I became a short lister for one of the most atrocious acts imaginable. I knew my place in the tribe was secure, as evidenced by a neighbor asking me if I crapped on someone’s floor in the same tone as if she might ask, “Have you ever seen the musical Cats?”  A magical thing had happened and I’m proud of it.  And for the record, I wouldn’t shit on a floor in Cabbagetown.  That one time was technically a “shart,” therefore–by definition–an accident, and doesn’t count.

I believe Heaven is a place you spend your entire life creating.  If yours involves a harp and a cherub, I think you should collect more ingredients.  I think the reason people see white light and a robed man during a near-death experience is because they were headed to the place they created all their life and it is made up of garden-variety Christian ingredients.  In my Heaven, I’ll be wearing even softer, saggier sweat pants than are available here on earth, and all my long underwear will feel fresh from the dryer.  That, and all the weird sexual stuff that awaits me there.

Fact:  There is no sex in Hell because sex is a pleasure.  Some might say, “No, the sex is rape and you are constantly a victim of demons and imps.”  But I’m willing to bet that is the average day of some people’s Heaven.  I’m just saying.  There is a Hell because some people paint eternity loaded with suffering and despair and that is the ending they anticipate.  I think these people should collect more ingredients as well.

That place that you paint?  You see it as your body dies.  Do you “go” there and “live” in some different form?  I hope so.  But do I actually believe that? Sadly, no.  Does the process repeat?  I hope so.  You can’t know what happens when you die until you die, and unfortunately no human being can send the answer back, so why do we believe what other human have to say about it?  We don’t—we pick and choose bits here and sins there and we try to make it nice and neat so we still get the fancy sweatsuits in the afterlife.  My God forgives me under certain conditions and I’m guessing everybody goes through life justifying their actions with their God, and I’m guessing everybody thinks they are entitled to a better place when they die.  Well, I think they do.  I think we all make it to Heaven.  Congratulations.

We are more than a neighborhood.  We are a family of sorts, a cult of sorts, a subculture at least.  One of our cathedrals is smack dab in the middle at Thayer’s place! We deserve to be here (but someone else may not think we do).  A Cabbagehead knows if he or she is a Cabbagehead!  They have their reason, and I don’t think someone would lie about it.  If they claim it, it must be so.  People don’t claim to be, say, Methodists, if they are not Methodists.  Do they have to prove it?  They tell their story and everyone who hears it can apply it to their mythology—their zeitgeist—and judge for themselves.  It is too pretentious to ask if someone is more a Cabbagehead than another, just if.  Plus our tribe has no official ranking either, only elder statesmen and stateswomen are granted universal reverence.

I say enjoy your tenuous and nebulous membership, no matter how inclusive or exclusive, no matter how surreal tenure is to obtain.  We are a tribe in whatever dysfunction that may entail and whatever strengths.  We all made it here like we will all make it to Heaven, however metaphysical that notion is.  Oh, and one more thing, my Heaven is not too dissimilar from Cabbagetown.  Most of you are there not turning me in for building without a permit.  It is full of all the artists and gays and doctors and craftsmen and alcoholics and posers and wannabes and I don’t change what you are to place you in my Heaven, (other than you are mostly all naked and serving me Krispy Kremes), just as I don’t ask you to change what you are to live in my neighborhood.  Tribesmen, I love you all.

Reverend Dave Can Help You 24/7 at 404) 822-4290.

[Duwan, you can consider the title Cabbageheads in Heaven, maybe? Feel free to edit in any way or call me to shorten if I need to]