Heaven Help Us

Hello World, Greetings again from farther along in August, or as we like to think of it (you might want to be sitting down for this part) only 125 shopping days until Christmas, ho ho ho! Speaking of the holliest and jolliest of holly jolly holidays, you know it's not too early -- and 95 degrees and stultifying humidity notwithstanding -- for the welter of Christmas music catalogues to show up at church, as they did last week, thanks not. Mind you, at the time it was probably about 120 degrees in the office where I was compiling the weekly offering worksheet, even with the fans on and the windows open, and I was within mere microns of just taking my dress off and working in my underwear, and Devil take the hindmost -- except for the fact that we have another congregation that uses our building on Sunday afternoons, and I didn't want them to walk in on me accidentally in my undressed state, and no doubt be scarred for life, the poor dears. Honestly, if the heat hadn't completely scrambled my brains by now, it probably would have occurred to me sooner that I should just go ahead and buy a portable air conditioner for the place and be done with it already, rather than taking the moral high ground and suffering to build character like a good Calvinist. I would consider this along the lines of a public service to the community, to protect unwary passersby from the unwelcome sight of me in my underwear, which is not for the faint-hearted, and I ought to know. And speaking of church and clothing, I was at my temporary job in Yonkers when I saw the most amazing sight coming out of the bank, which was a nun in full traditional habit, including wimple and everything else. Now, this was no doddering centenarian in her ancient garb from yesteryear - no, this was a sprightly middle-aged sister with a twinkle in her eye and bounce in her step, navigating the parking lot with ease in spite of her somewhat voluminous outfit. In fact, if it had been any later in the year, I'm sure I would have convinced myself that this was just any old anybody dressed up in a costume for some seasonal party, and not a real nun at all. But I couldn't bring myself to believe something like that in the middle of August during a heat wave, when someone would simply have to be clinically insane to be dressed up as a nun for no good reason. (Under the extreme circumstances, I would consider actually being a nun to be the only valid reason, to be honest.) Just when we thought that the idea of old-fashioned nuns in old-fashioned habits was nothing more than a relic from a bygone era, something like this comes along, big as life and without a hint of irony, casting our minds back to those halcyon days of yore, which the passage of time has dimmed but not erased, by heaven. And while we're on the subject of time, Bill and I had an interesting time last week when we were very unexpectedly invited to a wedding for one of Bill's coworkers. It seems like when you get out of high school, all you do for years and years is go to one wedding after another - until you've done the Macarena and Electric Slide so many times that you can't see straight. But after that, you realize that you don't know anyone else getting married, and decades can go by before you're invited again for any nuptials, usually the children of people whose wedding you went to in the first place, back in the day. The last wedding we went to, instead of the Hokey Pokey, they were doing the Cro-Magnon Shuffle, so that tells you something right there. So we dolled ourselves up, picked up another colleague from work, and hurried over to Mount Vernon at the appointed time (actually a half-hour early, since we misread the invitation) only to find the church locked up tight with all the lights out. This seemed an inauspicious sign to us, that the church would not have been a hotbed of activity where a wedding was about to take place, but we waited patiently and hoped for the best. It turned out to be a long wait, as the bridal party didn't appear until 5:00 for a 3:30 ceremony - although in fairness to them, at 3:30 the only people actually there were the three of us and the minister, so they would have gotten married in an empty building if they had started on time. Once things got underway, it turned out to be a rollicking affair, because these folks came to party, and no mistake. The wedding ceremony was blissfully compact, without all of the superfluous trifles that are tossed in nowadays, and tack on so much extra time to the proceedings, and once again, thanks ever so much not. In no time, we were at the reception, and the small crowd really let their collective hair down and cut loose. We had never been to a Jamaican wedding (which explains how we fell victim to the error of J.I.T. - Jamaican Island Time - and showed up on time, when nobody else did) and didn't know what to expect, so this was all new to us. (I thought the buffet would be all jerk goat and fried plantains, but actually they had a very nice spread including salad, lasagna, fish, fried chicken, ziti, rice, and bunches of fruit.) The DJ was very entertaining, and played all the reggae that anyone could possibly stand, and with the ponderous weight of rhinestones that the ladies were wearing, it's a wonder that the dance floor didn't just collapse under them. They were still going strong at 11:00 PM, which is past our bedtime, so we packed it in and headed for home while we could still keep our eyes open. It's true that we may be old fogies and time has passed us by, but I can tell you that when it comes to Jamaican weddings, we be jammin'! And speaking of jamming, alert readers may recall that we enjoyed a delightfully retro time with our friends at The Midtown Men concert in June at what they are now calling the NYCB Theater at Westbury, instead of the old Westbury Music Fair. The show was a cheery and boisterous affair from beginning to end, and all of us boomers, geezers, oldsters and dinosaurs were really in our element to party like it was 1960. But providing old music for old folks is not all that they do at the NYCB Theater, not by a long shot - they also have comedy, movie matinees for children, poetry and book readings with author Q+A among their other offerings. However, it can't be denied that a cursory look at their schedule of upcoming events does indeed reveal a predominance of "moldy oldies" in the wings - such as The Turtles, The Association, Mark Lindsay, Dion, The Cowsills, Deep Purple, The Grass Roots, Neil Sedaka, The Buckinghams, Eric Burdon & The Animals, Paul Anka, The Monkees, Chubby Checker, Engelbert Humperdinck, and not to mention, Hippiefest and the Doo-Wop Extravaganza. Be still my heart! So for anyone who can't get enough of Gladys Knight, Frankie Valli, Tony Bennett, Smokey Robinson, Rick Springfield, and the Psychedelic Furs, Westbury is obviously the place to be. At least when it comes to being 50 years behind the times, that is. Heck, that's a case of Jamaican Island Time taken to a whole new level, don'cha know! Elle