I’ve been putting away some of my holiday baubles this afternoon. The famed Muppets character, Beaker—seen here on his very own Christmas tree ornament—wears today’s Tie o’ the Day for us. When I press the ornament’s button, Beaker unintelligibly beep-sings his version of “Jesu, Joy Of Man’s Desiring.” I wish you could hear his unique rendition of the triumphant song. Bach would be proud. Bach would also snort-laugh.
You’ve probably seen my “Old Man” and “Ralphie” bobble heads in previous years’ TIE O’ THE DAY posts. They never cease to amuse, and I’m not sure I’ll even box them up for storage this year. Heavens, we already keep the 2 leg lamps, 3 Chuck Brown trees, and our Day of the Dead nativity scene on display all year long anyway: I see no harm in showing off the bobble heads 24/7, 365.
Y’all may not have noticed my precious snow globe previously. It’s been part of my yuletide decor for decades. I honestly can’t believe it’s still with my stuff after all this time. It is one of my treasured-est treasures. I bought it at a 1987 Salt Lake Acting Company performance of SATURDAY’S VOYEUR, back when the production was an annual holiday offering in SLC. After 34 years, not only does the snow still fall on the globe’s scene when it is shaken, but the globe’s blue sky literally falls with it. Elthora, the undisputed star of the long-running stage production, remains sturdy in her rightful position. Elthora is still front-and-center in the globe’s scene, sporting the beehivest beehive hairdo, which itself is topped off with her Temple-Square-at-Christmas crown—complete with Santa and his sleigh, continuously circling the model temple’s spires. I’m still speechless to see it!
You know, when I take a detailed look around our house at the miscellany I’ve accumulated over the course of my life, it is plain to see: I live in what amounts to a museum of books, my ties and bow ties, Suzanne’s fabric, and sundry oddities for all occasions—which we’ve joyously curated and pack-ratted. Our inventory is priceless in our personal economy. On the free market, the whole of our lives’ material haul is probably not worth much. We don’t care. We are not just rich: we are filthy wealthy with what matters most.
Yes, I am aware this is one of the selfies I already posted in Part 1, which was about our quest for a marriage license in December of 2013. I tried the last couple of days to find our photos from the hasty ceremony that day, but I couldn’t locate them. I’m sure the pictures are safe on a memory card in a phone about 4 phones ago—in a storage bin somewhere in the garage. It’s tangled in a ball of useless old phones and old phone chargers we don’t dare get rid of. It’s where obsolete phones and their accessories go to die. I wouldn’t be surprised to find a few elephants have wandered off to die there, as well. Seriously, we have a little bit of everything in our garage—except my new truck. No room at the truck inn.
Part 1 of this tale took us all the way from Millard County, through Juab County, and eventually to the office of the county clerk in Utah county—where we were given paperwork to fill out to get a marriage license, and after we had filled out the application, we were then told the Utah County Clerk would not be issuing licenses to same-sex couples, despite the law demanding he do so. Maybe it’s just me, but I think we should have been told the county wouldn’t issue us a marriage license BEFORE we were given the paperwork to complete. In addition to the simple illegality and rudeness of the office, we were also in a hurry to get married before a hearing that morning could possibly end in a stay of the marriages. Time was of the essence.
We headed off again on I-15, to try to obtain a license in another county ASAP. Suzanne drove, and I regularly posted updates on Facebook for friends and family—about where we were on our journey and what was going on. If I didn’t update our status in a timely manner, I got texts asking me to. We had a little posse of support behind us, cheering us on. It was pleasantly unexpected. We had no idea how many folks were hoping for us to succeed in our mission. We strategically decided to not even try our luck in Salt Lake City, because we knew the lines of people doing the same thing we were doing were long, long, long. Ain’t nobody got time for that! I mean—we were racing the clock.
We decided to keep going north, into Davis County—which happened to be our home county anyway. We were not particularly hopeful this would end well for us. We showed up at the Davis County Clerk’s office in Farmington with fingers and toes crossed. My friends, I still cannot believe how we were welcomed with open arms by everyone in the office. There were a lot of couples there, and the county staff knew we were all trying to beat the possible stay which could be the outcome of the hearing—in effect, shutting down the issuance of marriage licenses to same-sex couples. I’m sure there were extra workers there, anticipating the crowd. Watching the office workers’ well organized assembly line of various legal forms was like watching one of those Rube Goldberg chain reactions where you push one marble which rolls through tubes, across tiny bridges, under a toy train car, down a miniature water tower, and so on, you finally end up with a contraption-made slice of bread on a plate. The office workers happily helped expedite us through the entire bureaucratic process. They weren’t stuffy or standoffish. They shared in the excitement around them. At the end of the paperwork, out of nowhere, a minister approached us and asked if we wanted her to perform our ceremony. After decades of no-you-can’t-marry-the-person-you-love, a perfect stranger asked if we wanted to get married. Two other strangers near us asked if we needed witnesses to the ceremony, which we did. They were our witnesses and we, in turn, were theirs. Yes, we had made it in time. We were triumphant. Plus, the hearing ended up with a decision in our favor anyway. There was no stay that day.
Y’all are, of course, welcome to your personal beliefs about gay marriage, which might differ from mine. So be it. I certainly would never presume I have the right to tell you what adult you can/cannot marry. But I will say that the support we had from good ol’, church-going Utah folks was incalculable—before and after we got hitched. It is still. Almost to a person, our friends and family members—and the strangers we met that day—were joyous about our ability to finally legally marry. They want our marriage to succeed. I can also report to you that in my nearly 60 years on the planet, the near-palpable glimpses of eternity I have experienced have shown themselves only at rare moments when I have been in Suzanne’s presence. I have never experienced such transcendence without her by my side. If there is a forever, I do not doubt we will be together in it. 💍🎩💝
I regret only one kindness we missed-out on the day we got married. It’s something we read about in the newspaper the next day. Apparently, after we were married and well on our way back to Delta for the holidays, an older Mormon married couple showed up at Farmington where the marriage ceremonies were still going on. The straight couple showed up with hundreds of cupcakes to give to the newlyweds. They said they felt compelled to do it, because everybody should have a piece of cake on their wedding day. I cannot argue with that sentiment. Kindness wins again. ,😉
My tie collection never lets me down. When I walk through the door of the Tie Room upstairs, I can find a bow tie or necktie to suit any and all occasions. Yesterday, I chose my bigger-than-life bandage Tie o’ the Day to wear for my trip down I-15 to Utah Valley Hospital, for the sole purpose of visiting my grandnephew, Cael, who had somehow found himself in a car-totaling, hair-raising, scalp-lifting mishap in Delta the night before. Cael even managed to snag a ride from Delta to Provo on a Life Flight helicopter. Yup.
Although Cael’s bloody wound was gruesome, you can see he’s already doing well and is as charming as ever. The doctors gave him the gift of stitches and staples, and some bald spots on his head to display them. He seems to have figured out how to hide most of the closed gash with the remaining locks of his handsome head hairs. I tried to nudge him toward shaving his head completely. Picture it: Cael’s dreamy eyes AND his winding, rebel scar atop his bald noggin. Dreamy eyes + mysterious head scar = chick magnet. Just sayin’, Cael! 😎
On our way out of Log Haven, after a glorious meal of celebration and gratitude for each other.We took a selfie by the coats. Nobody else does that.Isn’t Suzanne dreamy?Suzanne opted for the salmon.I chose the tenderloin with asparagus and mashed potatoes.A little bit o’ blur doesn’t matter when you are having a splendid time.Even through the blur, you can see our happiness seeping through.
Log Haven is quickly becoming our go-to restaurant for our anniversary dinner. I sense it’s a tradition in the making. Because we got married so close to Christmas, we think of our Log Haven dinner as sort of a combination Anniversary/Christmas evening in the snowy mountains.
We never intended to get hitched so near Christmas. We never knew when, or if it, would be legal for us to marry at all in our lifetime. And then suddenly, it was legal in Utah. Maybe. On Friday, December 20, 2013, the state of Utah began issuing marriage licenses to same-sex couples, based on a U. S. District court’s ruling that day which found barring same-sex couples from legally marrying violates the U. S. Constitution. However, there was to be another court hearing on Monday, December 23rd that could possibly stay or even throw out the ruling. We had to get a marriage license ASAP, just in case the whole possibility to marry went kaput.
The problem was that we were already decking the halls in Delta for the holidays, and it was late on Friday afternoon when we got the news. All the County Clerk’s offices in Utah were closed for the weekend. We knew we had to get a license and get married as early as possible on Monday morning—before the hearing that might possibly shatter our nuptial dreams. But where would we be able to get married? We stayed stuck to the news on tv and on our phones all throughout the weekend. Some County Clerks around Utah had been wishy-washy about issuing marriage licenses to people like us, even if they had been told they had to follow the law.
By Sunday night, we had decided we had a better chance of being able to get a marriage license if we just skipped over the iffy rural counties around us and drove north. That night, we told Mom we wouldn’t be around the next day because we were running off to get married. She was happy for us and would have come with us, but she wasn’t feeling all that well. I told her not to worry about missing out on the momentous event. I told her we thought it be fun to elope anyway. Early Monday morning, we drove out of Millard County, through Juab County, and into Utah County—where we stopped in Provo at the County Clerk’s office. We walked in and told the woman behind the desk why were there. She handed Suzanne and I papers for us to fill out. We thought: so far, so good. As we filled out our documents, other couples came in and hurriedly got to work on their own license paperwork. We had completed our paperwork, when the woman behind the desk was talking to another person and said, “The County Clerk has decided he’s not going to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples.” Hold on! Back the truck up! I said, “When we first walked into this office, we told you why we came here. You gave us the proper paperwork to fill out. Why didn’t you tell us we couldn’t get a marriage license when we first walked in?” Duh. Crickets.
This was wrong in a million ways. By this time, the legal hearing that could stay or reverse our shot at getting married was underway. We were running out of time. Fortunately, reporters from The Salt Lake Tribune were there when Suzanne and I walked out, and one asked if we wouldn’t mind talking to them. He listened, took my name, and one of my quotes showed up in The Trib the next morning. I’m sure nobody in Delta thought for a minute that the quote from “Helen Wright from Delta” came from Mom, although when she read it, she said she agreed with me completely. Anyhoo…we had to decide where to drive next to secure a marriage license. Stay tuned.
This brightly colored Tie o’ the Day made the newest member of Suzanne’s family oh-so happy on his first Christmas. This is Bracken, and he and Tie bonded mightily at Suzanne’s parents’ annual Christmas afternoon family get-together. I plan on leaving Bracken’s slobber crusted on the tie, then gifting the tie to him some Christmas when he’s a teenager—so he can be properly and simultaneously embarrassed and amused.
According to one Xmas present Suzanne gave me, my behavior last year got me onto Santa’s “naughty” list. I tried so hard to be good, but I won’t argue about the results. I trust Suzanne’s judgment. I didn’t just get a regular lump o’ coal for Christmas, I received a “Big Ass” lump o’ coal—in the form of an oversized bar o’ soap. I know the lump o’ coal soap is a sign I was bad, but the soap smells so heavenly I might want to earn a spot on the naughty list again this year, so I can be gifted another mellifluous “big ass” bar o’ charcoal soap for the sole purpose of washing all of my bad away.
It might surprise y’all to know that Mom has surpassed me in being naughty every year, for decades. She’s better than me, even at being bad. Every Christmas, she got an entire mountain of coal as a present from Dad. Visions of toasty fires, 24/7, in our living room fireplace danced in her head. I kid you not: Mom started a fire in the fireplace upon the occasion of late September’s first chill, and that fire kept going until at least April. She took great pleasure in feeding the fireplace one lump o’ her naughty coal after another, through winter and far into spring if the temperatures were still wintry. Yup, around the holiday season, Dutson’s would deliver at least a half-ton of coal chunks behind our house. The taller the coal pile, the happier Mom was with it. Mom thought it was the best gift every year. She tended to the fire in the fireplace as if it were one of her grandkids learning to swim. She kept her eye on the fire’s progress, and fulfilled its every need. Mom’s fire always gave off perfect warmth and was maximum gorgeous. She loved her lumps of coal, and she loved telling people that a pile o’ coal was the Christmas gift Dad thought she deserved. 🔥
I wasn’t available to post yesterday. We made an early Xmas visit to Mom’s kingdom, for my true Christmas morning. I knew I would wear the leg lamp Tie o’ the Day for our visit, because Mom loves it so. But she also likes the tie on which Richie wears—and abhors—the bunny pajamas. I decided a two-fer festive Tie o’ the Day was necessary for our get-together. (She made a bigly deal about how much she liked my “ugly sweater”-ish green holiday jacket.) Skitter was a constant at Mom’s side, in all her elf-collar glory. When I pulled the phone out for pix, Mom playfully showed off one of the soft peppermints we brought her. I showed Mom a couple of Christmas “stockings” she had made me over my kidhood, and she remembered them, mostly. As you can see in the first photo, Suzanne and I found Mom the perfect Santa hat for her gift: it matches her purple housecoat AND it sports a tiara—befitting Mom’s eternal Queen Bee status. As Mom drank from a convenience store Coke with lots of ice—which she said her friend, Dot, had brought her earlier that morning—she said to me and Suzanne, “I’ll drink FOR you, and TO you, and WITH you kids—for ANY reason, ANY time.” She was having such a good time. She sounded like she had been drinking eggnog with extra whisky in it. I’ll have to quiz Dot about what she really put in that drink she brought Mom.
I still have much to do before X-mas. I’ve got to remember where I hid the gifts I got for Suzanne so she wouldn’t find them. I secreted them away so brilliantly I can’t find ’em yet. I have to wrap our gifts for Mom, including the many candies she likes. We try to stick with sugar-free goodies for Big Helen, but we seem to “accidentally on purpose” make a habit of not being able to find sugar-free versions of what Mom likes. She’s my mother, so she will always get what she wants from me—which is real sugar. The list o’ my remaining Christmas tasks is long, so breaks are necessary to my sanity. So on this break, I’m just sittin’ around the house in my Bah Humbug Santa hat—while wearing soft antlers decorated with a ribbon Bow Tie o’ the Day on top. And I’m also showing off one of my CHRISTMAS VACATION Tie’s o’ the Day. Even as I rest, I am multi-tasking. No, wait—I’m multi-tieing!
Tie o’ the Day is a brand new acquisition to my holiday tie collection this year. It offers up, not gingerbread cookies, but NINJAbread cookies. A clever twist, I must say. Please note that Face Mask o’ the Day is covered with bow-tied deer. And my pants are Christmas-lighted. I’m a happy girl in my attire today.
Instead of regaling you with some anecdote or another, I have a question for my fellow Delta Rabbits. I woke up this morning thinking I should wash my truck later this afternoon, and that made me think of the old car wash in Delta. It was sort of on the north side of Main Street, across from where Quality is now located. I say it was sort of on Main Street because it was behind a house that was on that corner. I believe the older couple who lived in the house owned the car wash. They also owned and ran the little trailer park on Main Street beside the house. I can’t remember exactly what the little set-up was called. To the best of my recollection the sign said something like “The B Kitten Klean Car Wash and Trailer Park.” Somebody help me fill in the blanks of my memory. I can see the old couple as clear as day in my mind, but I can’t think of their names. Was it Larsen? Also, did I make up that there was a little RV-type trailer park there? I look forward to any answers y’all can provide.
Candy cane Bow Tie o’ the Day reminds me that I refer to all things peppermint as being “Christmas breath.” My pal, Kathleen Hansen, and I came up with that term when we were students at DHS and happened to be eating a bag of hard peppermint candies. I have no idea if she remembers we did that. I haven’t seen Kathleen in person—or even talked to her—since her first child was born in the early 80’s. It blows me away to write that sentence, because Kathleen was the closest I came to having a best friend in high school. To this day, peppermint candy of any sort reminds me of her and our various exploits—including the night we broke into DHS and left anonymous notes on the desks of the teachers and administrators. (I’ll have to write about that naughty and hilarious night—and the ensuing fall-out—in a future post.)
I have been going through some of my early writing this past week, and today I ran onto a story of mine in a copy of the SIGNPOST, the Weber State newspaper. It’s from Dec. 4, 1984—my last quarter in college. My story won 1st Place in that year’s Weber State Christmas story contest. It is the first published story for which I was “paid.” I won a $100 gift certificate to any store of my choosing in the Ogden City Mall. I still remember going to Nordstrom and buying my first pair of leather penny loafers. (I was ever so briefly a Preppie. Excuse me for that.) After re-reading the story today, I decided to do y’all a favor and not inflict it on you. After writing it 38 years ago, and not reading it since then, I find that I’m positive I can live without it. It is so bad, especially when compared to stories I wrote just a year later when I was in graduate school at the University of Utah. You’re lucky you didn’t get the opportunity to read it. I think it’s time to safely shred it and put it in the recycling.
But I want to point out some points of cosmic coincidence. First, there’s the candy cane bow tie which reminded me of “Christmas breath,” and then the term shows up in my story I haven’t read since the day it was published. I didn’t plan for that to happen. And then there’s the Dad stuff. Trust me when I tell you that the story reflected a lot about me and Dad, at a time when we were having problems communicating in our relationship. Note the date of the story’s publication: December 4, 1984. My dad passed away on December 4, 2007—23 years later. And don’t even get me started on the number 23’s significance throughout my life.
