So here we are, finally, in Worcester, Massachusetts where my son's wedding takes place in about an hour. Here he is last night looking quite happy at the prospect.
The deed will take place in around an hour's time in this very hotel from which I am writing. Its very much at the posh end of what I have been used to in the past 3 weeks; mind given what I am paying for it it bloody well should be. Its nearly three times the amount I have become accustomed to. Thanks to whoever I'm not having to pay for the nuptials, I dread to think what they are costing. As is tradition they are being paid largely by Julie's parents Kevin and Barbara. A lovely couple at whose house the 'Rehearsal Dinner' was held last night; where I photographed Patrick.
American tradition, it seems is to have a rehearsal the day before the wedding and then a dinner the Groom pays for (Groom's mother actually I'm afraid I'd draw the line at that).
And here is where that question to which there is only one answer will be asked:
Did you pack your own suitcase sir?
Looking at those flags I realise I should have got them to fly the Union Flag in honour of us Brits. My sister arrived an hour ago with her husband, son, daughter, and daughter's boyfriend. The clans are gathering. Its a ritual; one of those staging posts in life that most people go through. Personally I've never seen the attraction and have managed to go nearly 60 years without once getting married. I did, I must confess, on one occasion ask someone to marry me; about seven or eight years ago. Not very romantically, granted, but it was genuinely meant. I thought it might help allay her irrational fears that I would run off with someone else. She turned me down, probably didn't think I was serious; a common failing people have with me. A few years later she finally got her revenge in first and dumped me over someone wasn't having a relationship with, and still didn't afterwards. Over the phone and while I was in hospital too.
I know what you're thinking; probably best off without her, but as I said in an earlier post (18/9) I am, from time to time, still full of unproductive blame.
So lets hope for a happier outcome for Patrick.
For reasons I don't fully understand the wedding is not happening until 6 p.m. so Patrick's sister and I wandered around Worcester from mid morning until mid afternoon. Its a stunningly hot day again, almost as hot as in was way down south in Louisiana. We saw a lake on the local map the Hotel supplied so set off in that direction. After walking by it for 200 yards its shores were then fenced off. Typically American. On the beach at Cape Cod I had to studiously ignore the Private Beach signs on my morning walks on the beach; or else they would have been about 2 minutes long.
So after an unproductive tramp for a mile or so we finally reached the riverside park, but it only extended for about half a mile of shoreline, if that. Then more fences. Sarah, who is prone to these things, got very stroppy and blamed it all on me for some reason; even though it was her who had seen the lake on the map and suggested we went there. Women! What are they like.
Then we got a taxi to downtown Worcester. Downtown is usually the code for any interesting bit of an American town. Some don't even have an interesting downtown. Worcester's isn't brilliant but guess what we ran into? Yep its spreading like wildfire over here although the media, I understand, are not reporting it.
I know what you're thinking; probably best off without her, but as I said in an earlier post (18/9) I am, from time to time, still full of unproductive blame.
So lets hope for a happier outcome for Patrick.
For reasons I don't fully understand the wedding is not happening until 6 p.m. so Patrick's sister and I wandered around Worcester from mid morning until mid afternoon. Its a stunningly hot day again, almost as hot as in was way down south in Louisiana. We saw a lake on the local map the Hotel supplied so set off in that direction. After walking by it for 200 yards its shores were then fenced off. Typically American. On the beach at Cape Cod I had to studiously ignore the Private Beach signs on my morning walks on the beach; or else they would have been about 2 minutes long.
So after an unproductive tramp for a mile or so we finally reached the riverside park, but it only extended for about half a mile of shoreline, if that. Then more fences. Sarah, who is prone to these things, got very stroppy and blamed it all on me for some reason; even though it was her who had seen the lake on the map and suggested we went there. Women! What are they like.
Then we got a taxi to downtown Worcester. Downtown is usually the code for any interesting bit of an American town. Some don't even have an interesting downtown. Worcester's isn't brilliant but guess what we ran into? Yep its spreading like wildfire over here although the media, I understand, are not reporting it.
Its that 1% finally getting named and targeted all over. Worcester is not a big city, you've probably never heard of it, I certainly hadn't until Julie came along, but here they are. The good citizens of Worcester, saying, as I recall from a film called Network, or some such, 20 odd years ago, "We're mad as hell and we're not going to take it" The corporates are in the people's sights.
This may look thin, it was, only a dozen people, but it was not the main event. That happens tomorrow. This was just a few activists having a try out of the venue. Bit like a wedding rehearsal I suppose.
On which point if I don't get changed and go my son will never speak to me again.
More from the main event, tomorrow.
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