Wedding Speech

My daughter Leslie got married exactly one month ago on New Years Eve, and as father of the bride, it was my responsibility to give the first speech of the evening.

As I had written in an earlier draft, Those of you who know me know that I am an introvert and not a practiced public speaker. My family complains that I mumble and speak too softly and they can never understand me, so part of me has been dreading this part of the evening. I also have a bit of OCD, so I've been obsessing about it, too. It’s not a pretty combination.

As daughter Ali suggested, I had practiced aloud many many times, and by the day of the wedding, I was feeling pretty OK, but all during that day, and especially during the dinner, I fretted. I was wearing a tuxedo, though, and it must have given me strength because when I was handed the microphone, all my insecurities fled.

Here's the speech as written.

Hello everyone and welcome.  Thank you all for coming here to share in this celebration.

First of all, a big "Thank You" to Kathy and Tom for throwing such a wonderful party last night. 

When Eileen and I got married, the wedding party – all 4 of them: Dee, Ita, Ira and friend Bill - and immediate family went out for pizza at Mama Brava's in New Paltz. Times certainly have changed....but that's not what I want to talk about. 

Rob suggested talking about how amazing it is that Leslie is our daughter.  We’re quiet, modest, some would say, frugal people. And Leslie is LESLIE!!! Quiet? Modest? Frugal!?!?!? But I'm not going to talk about that, either. 

I am the father of 4 wonderful daughters, and I love being the father of daughters, but now my eldest daughter has brought me a son. So I remembered back to when another eldest daughter brought home her guy. It was Thanksgiving, 1977, and I took my first trip to Tillson to meet "The Parents". As a Horowitz going to meet the Mullarkeys, I was worried that my “ethnicity” might be a bit of a shock to Kate and Mike, grandma and poppy, but they welcomed me with open arms, and warmth and grace, and have been nothing but kind and good to me for now over 35 years. I am so thankful to them for that, and I hope that Eileen and I can be as warm, and as loving, and as accepting, and as generous, and as helpful to Rob, as Kate and Mike were to me. (Hey, Rob, can I get you a beer?) 

Like Rob and Leslie, Eileen and I lived together for a few years before we got married, and so the co-habitation part of marriage was less a shock to the system. But I remember how life was somehow different, deeper. We had just made a lifelong commitment to each other. This was something important - this means something! And it just felt right. I hope Leslie and Rob feel that, too….but that’s not what I want to talk about.

Eileen and I have always viewed each other as equals in our marriage, and I thought I might talk about that - how marriage should be a partnership of equals - that while you need to take care of yourself, you also need to take care of your partner. To make a marriage work, you need to do things that are important to your spouse even if they wouldn't be a choice you would make. And vice-versa. And you can’t keep score. And that's really important...but there’s more.

We had heard about Rob before we met him. There had been a bit of buzz. When we did meet him, in our kitchen, he did seem like one heckuva guy, but the one thing that was immediately obvious to me had nothing really to do with Rob, but everything to do with Leslie. She was just so comfortable with him. Leslie was Leslie. She was feisty and bawdy and opinionated and loud, and she was happy, too. She was in love. And that's what I wanted to talk about. Love. 

Love is everything. Let it guide all your decisions. May you count your blessings every day that you have found each other. Here's to Leslie and Rob. I love you both, and I wish you a wonderful life together. 


Here's a recording.   Friend Ross caught most of the action on his new iPhone.

Wedding Speech

Guest Post - Ross from St. Paul MN

Ross from St. Paul, friend of almost 30 years and the the object of my baseball posts, sent me this email hours after the Patriots lost in Super Bowl XLVI. Enjoy!

* * *

Hey,
We've been cleaning out my parents' house and coming across dee dads and gee gaws they have saved over all these years and found -- wait, Mike, don't interrupt me here please -- an envelope with pictures of Eileen and my graduation from PA school and then, if I recall right, a party in your back yard.

--dammit, Mike, I'm trying to talk to you here and you keep trying to tell me about some stupid football game?! -- So, anyways there's a pic of you and Eileen on the cement bench in your back yard, and you two look....so, um....young. You're looking over, I think, at a card she is holding and you just have this archetypical Mike look of happiness and love on your face. Maybe I'll send it to you. Or scan it! (I learned how!).

No snow to speak of here and temps 10-15 deg. above normal for us--- Mike, you're weeping. Jeeze, it's just a stoopeed football game. Buck up, man.

Oh, who am I kidding? I worked til 5:30 yesterday, then sped home and tuned in. Both QB's looked sharp. Amazing how they zoom these passes into tight spots so precisely. Close knit play. Ahead of time I wasn't too psyched by Madonna, and then she put on a crazy spectacle. I was likening it to Busby Berkeley (sp) Hollywood extravaganzas from the 1930's. The commentators are saying at half the the game will go down to the last possession.

Third quarter starts. WTF?! I am not being allowed to watch the game in "MY HOUSE!" because Downton Abbey is on for Anne and Nick. Off I go 1.5 blocks south and .5 blocks west to Plums bar. I'm thinking the place will be packed and rocking. (A year ago Karl and Pete and I had a gas in a Sconnie bar watching the Pack win with a bunch of Packer backers). As I walk by the window it looks like it is closed. I see two guys by the window with Vikings jerseys on and that's it. I walk in and I am the 7th person in this fairly huge bar. This is good for a social introvert as I get one whole side of the bar to myself and my own TV and a row of keg pulls in front of me.

On the other side is a Pats fan. A woman next to him doing the smart phone thing. At the far end of the bar is a specter with a baseball cap on and a hoodie pulled up over the cap, looking straight down the bar, locked in, mesmerized, not looking at the TV's at all. Spooky. I could finally make out long blond hair coming out of one side of the cap. The barkeep fairly often would go talk to her, but she kept staring straight ahead. My scenario is that they were breaking up. The keep said he was pulling for the Giants and he looked like he could be a football fan, but he didn't really look at the game at all and he wasn't busy filling drinks up. He was too busy ?consoling this girl.

Another guy comes in and sits on the other side of the bar. He has a wedding band like me and he looks like his wife could have been watching Downton Abby too. Then another guy with the same M.O.

Then a guy with greasy hair comes in with his son who is about 9 (who is wearing a pork pie hat). He asked the barkeep something and hands over a greasy hand of dirty change that the keep promptly drops into the ice cube well and then starts picking the coins out (gross). The kid goes over and looks at the "Bag A Buck," video game. ?Homeless? Not likely in our hood. Very odd. Not there to watch the game. Why isn't this kid at home getting ready for bed on a school night?

Later a 30 something, dweeby guy with a guitar case (!) walks in and goes over to the small stage they have in there with mics and amps all set up.
What the? The Super Bowl is on and we're going to be treated to the Sunday night gig? All nine of us? Thankfully this did not materialize.

And then the fourth quarter. This must have been agonizing for you. Esp. that last drive for the Pats with two dropped passes in a row. But an entertaining match for those of us without any stake in it.

As you know I am tired of the success of these two teams. I think that is natural if, again, they are not your teams. The Yankees, again? I guess I liked that a team that lost 7 games (I believe) could win the big game. Interesting from a sports psychological point of a team peaking at the right time. Gives other cities hope that their team that lost 7 games could make it to the big game too. (The paper said today that the St. Louis Cardinals this year were 10 games back in Sept. and went on to the Series (I forgot).

But... I am guessing the Packer fans are distraught that their 15-1 team was sitting at home watching. Pats-Packers at their peaks would have been great.
(though each need stouter defenses). Reminds me of a certain other 15-1 team that should have gone to the big game all those years ago.

Hope you're doing okay today. Remember, it's just a stoopeed game. There are much more "real" things in life as you know.

r.

Birthday Crossword Puzzle!

Dickler, Hughes, Frye, Miller, Dix, Rosengarden, and Glassman

No, not the name of a law firm, these are my elementary school teachers from K-6. You can prefix a "Mrs." to all those names, too, as there were no men teaching in the elementary schools back in the 60's. It took me less than a minute to remember all their names. I just had to think back to moments in those classrooms at Fallstaff Elementary (PS 241) in Baltimore, MD.

I won't bore you with those memories - mostly all good :) - but I do suggest that you take a few minutes to remember your elementary school days. I was amazed how many memories I could conjure up, and the longer I spent in the activity, the richer the experience became. It was as if I had pried open an old trunk in an attic, and I was slowly examining its contents.

I tried this with Pimlico Junior High, and was surprised at how little there was to mine. I remembered just a few teachers, and a few moments. Apropos to that, though the school building is still there, it is now a training facility for the BPD.

High school - Baltimore Polytechnic Institute - was a lot better in terms of the number of memories, but they didn't have those warm sepia tones that came with those elementary school memories.

So is my experience a universal one? Do we all keep a bigger store of those first school memories? Is it because those days are filled with a single teacher for an entire year, as opposed to a teacher per subject per semester in junior/middle and high school? Are your elementary memories wrapped in velvet and lit with candles, too?

Blue and gold are our colors
And Fallstaff is our name.
We rate above all others
And will always sing your praise.

We have the finest teachers,
As fine as fine can be.
(There's more, but that's all I remember....)

Target Field hits the the Spot

I've gone to a few baseball games at the Hubert Humphrey Metrodome in Minneapolis, MN with good friend Ross over the years, and was always amazed at how artificial the experience seemed. We (Ross more than me since he lives in St. Paul) were psyched when we heard the news that the Twins were building a new open-air baseball park (not a stadium, just ask George Carlin). And when we learned Opening Day in the new ballpark was going to be Twin vs Red Sox, we made a pact to be there. Of course, we didn't anticipate the difficulty in getting tickets to that opening series. It was an apparent sellout minutes after the opening bell. But Ross persevered, and when he found out a week later that a block of tickets was made available, he shot online and scored two for the second game of the series - Section 2, row 10, Seats 17 & 18. And I bought a roundtrip ticket to Minneapolis.

I wore my gray Boston away jersey, and Ross was in his replica Tony Oliva home jersey.

We took public transportation to the stadium, and just like Boston, the light rail cars were filled with other fans on their way to the game. I love the familiarity - chatting up strangers: another guy in a Boston jersey, working in Minny, but originally from Hull; a rotisserie player who was bemoaning the fact that his fantasy team had players on both sides including the Sox starter, John Lackey; checking out the myriad of different Twins gear - lots of throwback jerseys, Oliva, Killebrew, Puckett, Hrbek, Carew, and scads of guys and girls in Joe Mauer jerseys. Joe, a hometown lad from St. Paul is the reigning AL MVP and had just signed a long-term contract. He owns this town.

It was a great game to watch. The Sox took an early 2-0 lead, but the Twins came back to knot the game at 2-2. Pedroia hits a solo blast for 3-2 Sox lead. The Twins load the bases in the 7th, but Okajima gets Morneau, the 2008 AL MVP, to pop-up to get out of the inning. The Sox load the bases in the 8th with 2 outs and Hermida empties them with gap double for 6-2 lead. Bard get rocked in the 8th but only gives up 1 run on a Cuddyer home run. Papelbon puts two on in the 9th, and with the tying run at the plate gets Cuddyer on a deep fly to right for the last out and a 6-3 Red Sox win. Box Score

Notes from the game:

• Insecurities run deep. When Morneau was up with 2 down and the bases juiced, I was sure that he's come through with a base knock and a Twins lead. Ross was convinced Okajima would get him out. Shouldn't it have been the other way around? Do other fans assume that their teams will succeed in these situations? The only time that happened with me was back in 2004 vs KC - here
  
• There were two 20-somethings in front of us - good, knowledgeable baseball guys - and when I was cheering after Hermida cleared the bases for a 6-2 Sox lead in the 8th, they cautioned my enthusiasm with a very serious, "It's still early"
  
• Dustin Pedroia is a little guy the media guide has him at 5'9", but that's stretching the truth. Up at bat, standing next to 6'5" Mauer, he looks tiny. He's also leading the Sox with 5 home runs and 13 RBI. On one close call, a guy in front of us moaned, ""If he was normal height that would have been a strike!"
  
• Lots of food choices in the new ballpark - Ross had fried cheese curds in a little cardboard canoe, Asian noodles, and a Summit Ale. I bought a soda in souvenir cup and an unsalted pretzel - warm and chewy, but served with some disgusting cheese sauce. I passed on the Walleye on a Stick, and was bummed that I passed a Kettle Corn guy, but didn't buy a bag. He was nowhere to be seen after that. After the game, I grabbed 3 more souvenir cups to make a set of 4 as lots of fans left them in their seatbacks. Another guy near me had a stack of at least 10.
  
• It rained during the middle innings. As Rusty (aka Ross) was quoted in the St. Paul Pioneer Press, "My favorite part? When it started to rain, the home-team fans — albeit briefly — cheered! Outdoor baseball! Rain and all!" - link
  
• Ross also noted that it would take a while for the Twins to have a real home field advantage as they'd never played there before. Later, he wondered aloud, "What the heck are those guys chatting about?" when Youk, on first after a single, and Morneau were deep in conversation.
  
• There was lots of excitement in the park - everybody was happy before, during, and after the game. The park itself is great, though it felt a little vanilla - the curse of being compared to Fenway? The bullpens are a little funky - stacked one behind the other in right center field. The scoreboard is amazing - rich rich colors and super high resolution. And check out Minnie and Paul shaking hands in center field - link.
  
• After the game, everyone in Boston Red Sox garb was my buddy. High fives, tips of the cap, knowing nods - it was fun to be in the minority, but with a shared identity. And, of course, the midwestern Twins fans were totally gracious to their guests.

Finally, there is this. Baseball really is the national pastime. I connected via Chicago going out and St. Louis coming in, and in all four cities - adding Boston and Minneapolis/St. Paul - as the plane descended nearing the airport, the single most obvious and most numerous landmarks were baseball fields. They are everywhere, and that fills me with a little bit of joy.

The Dejas Wear Prada?

I was watching The Devil Wears Prada on the tube a few nights ago. (I'm not proud of this, but now that I have an HD set, I pretty much only watch HD channels and nothing much was on and the movie is pretty easy on the eyes...but I digress). So I'm sort of watching the movie while surfing or doing a crossword or something, and I hear what I am sure is Callie Lipton singing. Callie went to high school with my ridiculous eldest daughter, Leslie. They were both charter members of the "naughty nineteen", and Leslie loved going to her house because it was full of guitars and drums, and because her parents were more, er, ah, permissive than Eileen and I were. I'm listening and I'm thinking, "Gee, I think Leslie would have told me that Callie had a song on The Devil Wears Prada soundtrack."

So I back up the movie a minute or two and listen real hard, and it still sounds like Callie, so I launch iTunes and check out the movie soundtrack and discover, alas, it's not Callie or her band The Dejas, but Sleep, by Azure Ray. You can check that song by selecting Sleep from their MySpace page - Azure Ray . But, please, then check out The Dejas at their site - The Dejas. I love their music - no artifice - they sing and play from the heart.

Now I think Sleep is a heckuva song - I even sprung the $.99 to get a copy - but I think The Dejas also create some great great music. So if anyone out there is making a movie and needs some original music with a nice drive and some haunting vocals...

Just give me that old time religion!

This is an email I sent to my buddy, Ross, in St. Paul, MN in the spring of 2004 before the Sox made it to the promised land.
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Friday, May 7, 2004 - Sox vs Royals - Eileen's brother Matt (big time Sox fan living in Brooklyn, NY) is up for the weekend for nephew Kevin's first communion on Saturday. I snagged 4 tickets and we're sitting just to the left of the screen behind home plate - halfway under the overhang. It's freaking balmy - 70's. It's May 7 and the place is absolutely packed - the 80 somethingth sellout in a row. Also along is Erica (heart partially broken from last September, but still believing) and Matt's wife Maureen (Moe) - she's from a family of mostly Yankee fans though one of her brothers hates them - "I don't care who wins, so long as it's not the Yankees!"

Moe doesn't understand Matt's passion for baseball - he's a rotisserie guy, too - watches Baseball Tonight on ESPN religiously - but she loves him and so puts up with it. Sox go down early 2-0, but catch up and tie it up at 2-2. Wakefield, the knuckleballer (actually the premiere knuckleballer of the past 5-10 years) is on the hill. It's a lovely night and we're chatting away - I bemoan the fact that the scoreboard puts up the scorebook notation after every play. Ground out to third and "5-3" flashes on the Jumbotron. "If you're gonna keep score, then you already know how to score the game. And if you don't know, then you're supposed to be taught by someone who does - it's like passing down tribal lore.", says I.

Wake and the Sox falter in the 5th and the Royals score 4 times (they "put up a crooked number" as my radio guys Joe & Jerry like to say). Some shoddy fielding aids the Royals cause - a throwing error by 3rd baseman Bill Mueller (throwing the ball into right trying to start a DP) being the big blow.

After the 7th, a bunch of fans started toward the exits. I was going for a "squirt" and heard the taunting of the "true" fans toward the fair-weather fans who were leaving. "Hey, I'm just going for a piss!", wanted to say.

Bottom of the eight, still down by 4, the fans started getting into it. Manny singles, Kapler (in for the ailing Trot Nixon) hits a pop-up that ex-Sox farmhand Matt Stairs can't handle - the wind was swirling and though the ball started toward left, it ended up closer to center. Centerfielder Beltran didn't even attempt to make a play. 1st and 2nd - the crowd cheering and clapping - we're all on our feet now - and Doug Mirabelli (he always catches Wakefield) singles sharply down the left-field line. Stairs misses the cutoff and Kapler scores all the way from first - 6-4 Royals.

Southpaw Embree comes on the pitch the ninth for the Sox - Wakefield, though he gave up 6 runs, still manages to pitch eight innings - he's that kind of pitcher - one of my favorites - always putting team before personal stats. He also has the longest tenure with the Sox (I think) - over 10 years. Embree mows 'en down.

Bottom of the ninth - have I mentioned that we haven't sat down since the 8th inning started? Did I mention that we've been screaming and clapping the whole time? "Let's go, Red Sox; clap-clap, clap-clap-clap" Top of the order - Damon works the count to 3-2 and draws a walk. Mark Bellhorn, he of .220 batting average, but having an OBP over .400 as he leads the league in walks, launches (and I mean launches) a blast deep into the right field seats. Game tied 6-6. The joint goes crazy - we're high-fiving, and screaming, and people are dancing. The game, for all intents and purposes, is over. At that point I knew how Yankee fans felt after they tied up Game 7 in September. It was now just a matter of time before the Sox got that final run to win the game.

Unlike the Yankees, who tortured Sox fans though 3 innings of overtime, the Sox were merciful and ended it right away. Manny singled, and Varitek (the true MVP of this team) pinch-hitting for Mirabelli, ropes a shot down the right field line. Juan Gonzales, never know as a slick fielding outfielder, digs the ball out of the corner, but Manny, chugging all the way from first, beats the throw, and the sound-system starts belting out, "Dirty Water" signaling the Sox victory.

Moe turns to me and says, "Wow - it's as if we willed them to win!" She gots the religion now, baby. What a beautiful night - what a beautiful game. We hung around for a long while, just savoring the moment. On our way out, one of the Fenway workers says, "Hey I need some high fives." and gets a bunch of takers. I high fived a bunch of kids in a yellow school bus. "Most definitely" (a baseball movie reference - know where from?) one if the finest times I've had in Fenway.

An important sidelight - Matt never sees the Sox win. Everytime he goes to a game, they lose, usually badly. We noted this as we went down 6-2. It's the "Curse of Matt." Once, when the girls were little, we went to a night game. Sox were down - it was late - girls were cranky, so we left early (maybe the only time I've ever done so). As soon as Matt leaves the park, the Sox start to rally, and eventually win the game. It's as if they were waiting for Matt to leave. So the "Matt Curse" is broken. Can the Bambino's be far behind?