Page 18 - Demo

Fools%u2019 Journey12end and have a honeymoon of sorts. That allowed us just over a month to make preparations. When we told friends and relatives, most expressed surprise %u2014 in some cases, they were mildly shocked. Around town, word spread quickly, and we learned that a neighbor was watching the lights every evening in our duplexes to try and figure out who was sleeping where. We were never sure what sequence of on-and-off satisfied her %u2014 or which sequence scandalized her %u2014 but we were definitely being scrutinized and gossiped about. Our students took it all in stride. After all, to them, we%u2019d always been together, even if for only a few weeks. When a high-school friend of mine heard the news, he asked my dad if Lynn was pregnant. Dad said he didn%u2019t know. Actually, the very first person to learn about our upcoming nuptials was a door-to-door salesman %u2014 a total stranger in a navyblue, polyester, off-the-rack suit, with a crisp white shirt, conservative tie, and wing-tip shoes. This was a mere two days after my whydon%u2019t-we-just-get-married question, and we hadn%u2019t even told our family or friends. Yet, this guy standing at my front door knew %u2014 although he wouldn%u2019t tell us who his source was. Maybe he was just a lucky guesser. I suppose he could have been psychic and extracted the information from the ether %u2014 but he didn%u2019t seem the metaphysical type. Anyway, he just knew we would be recording the event on film for posterity and would want to share copies of all the photos with friends, acquaintances, colleagues, and relatives, not to mention our students. We didn%u2019t think so.But, glued to our front step, he was quite unrelenting in his plea to be allowed entry. With nothing else on our agenda that evening, we reluctantly opened the door and invited him in %u2014 I suppose as a bit of entertainment. Of course, we told him right up front that we weren%u2019t interested in buying anything. Playing deaf, he proceeded to tell us about his photographic reproduction service, whereby we could get tremendous discounts on all the enlargements and reprints we would ever need. We said we didn%u2019t need any. In point of fact, it was actually a reasonably good deal %u2014 but only if you truly needed enormous quantities of extra prints (of all sizes) to send to people who probably didn%u2019t care if they received them or