I have been quite fortunate in having the pleasure of attending a number of weddings of fellow employees. The first "company" wedding was my billing Assistant Teri Anders, which was a fun celebration. As you can see Ben Fischer was in attendance along with wife Carrie and a few other co-workers.
Another wedding that I and my trusty Asst. Doreen Myrfield attended and spoke at was David Bitango's wedding in Pincher Creek, on the way home we made a rig visit to E1502 visiting Ted Tschetter and his crew, which was drilling on a location near our route.
The winter wedding that Doreen and I attended was Les and Lisa Brown's wedding in Carrot River Sask. This time I was asked to M.C........ how brave were they!! Doreen again was my guest and navigator, and because we were a bit leery of the weather we went into Saskatoon a day early, invited to spend the night with the Scott and Chris Engel. This is Saskatchewan in winter, and I'm not familiar with the road so when we left for Carrot River I was following closely behind the Engle's. As bad luck would have it the snow and strong Saskatchewan winds had started!. This highway is very straight, surrounded by open field and the saying goes that on a clear day in Saskatchewan you can see a dog run away for 3 days!!
BUT not on this day, today we could barely see Scott's truck and as we traveled it became quite obvious that Scott wanted to test my skills as a driver on Saskatchewan icy roads with minimum visibility, he kept picking up speed, I told Doreen to tighten her seat belt and hang on!!. By the time we had arrived, my heart was racing at top speed and Doreen nearly had to pry my finger off of the steering wheel, while Scott climbs out of his truck with a big smile - said he didn't think I'd be able to keep up.
These pictures are the "then and now" Lisa and Les Brown story. How time flies.
Shivaree - a noisy mock serenade to a newly married couple
The last "company" wedding that I was invited to attend before retirement, was Dennis and Jay Klone's wedding in San Antonio Texas. This time Bev Phillips was my guest - that in itself is an adventure of sorts. On the first class flight down, which was compliments of Bev's brother Rod who worked for Continental Airlines, we had a "couple" of glasses of wine and talked and laughed all the way. We had been invited to arrive a couple of days ahead. At the airport we were picked up by Dennis and Gordon and accommodated and entertained by Dennis and Jay in their lovely home in San Antonio along with their other house guests Dennis's sister Mickey and her husband Gordon as well as Dave Gillespie.
The ceremony was held on thanksgiving weekend in a beautiful park complete with a harpist. Following their the vows we made a few speeches. I'm always amazed that people trust me with that freedom!
The celebrations began with a wonderful dinner at Ruth Chris', then dessert and open bar on a private river boat cruise along the Riverwalk followed by a private cable car tour of San Antonio's Christmas lights, it was spectacular. The bride and groom then left us for their honeymoon. This is similar to leaving the kids alone with an unlocked bar. We all settled in at the Klone house and after a few drinks I asked if anyone knew what a shivaree was, once it was explained the majority (3) decided to have a shivaree except we'd have to do it without the bride and groom, ( When I was a kid, shivarees only happened in rural areas, held at the home of the bride and groom and started late into the night after the bridal couple were asleep. Everyone would get together outside the home and would shoot into the air with their shotguns, then rush the house and dump the bed over with bride and groom it it,. Now the party would begin with music, someone always played a fiddle and guitar and lots of food.) Well we were in San Antonio and our bride and groom were gone so no dumping them out of bed, and no shotgun - we had to improvise. Mickey and Gordon were having nothing to do with this and went to bed, but Dave was up for it and kept toasting and foolishly suggesting that at my age I probably couldn't keep up with the pace or the cocktails. In place of turning the bed upside down we changed the furniture a bit, hung Dennis shorts on the ceiling fan, scattered a few other things around, then Bev came up with the brilliant idea of putting a small O'Henry chocolate bar in their master bedroom toilet. By this time we had lost our co-conspirator Dave Gillespie - all 6'6" of him was sprawled out, but not before apologizing for his harsh words to me about my energy level!! Our flight home was going to be leaving in a few hours and we didn't dare miss it and face the consequences so we finished packing our bags and took a cab to the airport. The adrenalin had now ebbed and during the drive I asked Bev to tell the cab driver we didn't care about his Elvis Presley collection so please stop talking, later we both just sat at the airport without speaking a word. The flight home was amazingly quiet, there was no jocularity, the only time any words were spoken was if one of us happened to fall asleep and our head would hit the others shoulder - "I'm sorry" were those two words and our breakfast mimosa was milk mixed with bad headaches. Such a great time was had by all (I hope)!!
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