Move Over, Harold Hill

I consider that the hours I spent
With a cue in my hand were golden.

In my misspent youth, I was introduced to the game of pool in the basement of the Newman Center at Berkeley. I actually got fairly decent at the game. I learned how to put a backspin on a ball, how to angle shots, how to get the ball to go where I wanted it to at least a good percentage of the time.

But I hadn't picked up a pool cue in years.

The house Phil's mother has rented has a pool room. With a pool table. And balls. And cues. And even chalk.

Tonight we had a rehearsal of sorts on the beach followed by a huge pizza party at the house. Some 30-40 people roaming around munching pizza. And in the pool room I spied Nancy's "god-sister," Kathy racking up pool balls. I grabbed a cue.

We discovered that we both had played in college and that neither of us had touched a cue since then. So we were about at the same level. It took us an hour to get through a game of stripes and solids, but by God we did it. And I wasn't horrible. I wasn't good by any stretch of the imagination, but there were times when I hit a ball and it actually went where I wanted it to--or reasonably close. We both did stupid things, we both had shots that went nowhere, but we were evenly matched and I had such an incredibly good time.

We had such a good time that we hope to get in another game before we go back to Davis and she returns home to Idaho.

* * *

The day went well. I got most of the cake decorated, but decided to finish it with the top layer after we get to the beach, it being easier to transport a 2-tiered cake than a 3-tiered one. I suspect it would easily qualify for the cake wrecks web site but it "teems with hidden meaning" and is just exactly what I wanted. More or less.

I took pictures, of course, but I can't show you yet.

We realized, standing on the beach for the rehearsal, that if I put the cake out, like you normally do at a wedding, it will very quickly become a seagull buffet, so now we are looking for a box or something to put over the cake to protect it from the birds.

In the middle of putting the cake together, Jeri stopped by with her two friends, for a "dress fitting." They were all very cute, but of course I can't show you those pictures either!

I can, however, show you this photo from the rehearsal dinner:

This is Phil's sister, Vicki, who was there with her two kids, Carson and Connor. We realized that if it were not for Vicki deciding to audition for a fledgling children's theatre company back in the late 1970s, we would not today be having this wedding.

It is because of Vicki that Phil got involved with the theatre and his friendship with Jeri began. I looked at all the people at the party who had been involved in one way or another with the Veterans Memorial Theatre in Davis and realized that Ned's best friend's kids were teaching Vicki's kids, age 6 and 3, how to play pool. It was just one of those verklempt moments for me.