Page 23 - Demo

Kendallville Mental School17us a happy life together. The Methodist minister had no specific requirements, and Father Hardebeck said he%u2019d take care of the necessary permissions on his end.The priest in Kendallville wasn%u2019t quite so easy. He was required by Church law to give us marriage instructions, but waived them when he saw we were both mature adults (as if adulthood prepares anyone for marriage). His only concern was that our children be brought up Catholic. We had to promise that, indeed, they would be raised in the One True Church %u2014 or he couldn%u2019t sign the appropriate form. I had no qualms about lying to a priest %u2014 with 12 years of parochial school under my belt, I%u2019d certainly done that before. Lynn, raised in an anti-Pope household, wasn%u2019t about to agree to raising her unborn children as Catholics. Although she said yes, as soon as we left, she said it didn%u2019t count because she had her fingers crossed.When we%u2019d selected the day after Thanksgiving for our wedding, I%u2019d forgotten it was the biggest shopping day of the year for retail business %u2014 which meant it would be a busy time at Dad%u2019s gift store without any of the Bower clan being present. Besides my parents and five sisters, we invited Lynn%u2019s parents, her grandfather, and her twin sister Lee. (No, they aren%u2019t identical, and Lynn is sevenminutes older.) By the time we added two of Lynn%u2019s college friends, my sister Mary%u2019s fianc%u00e9 George, my sister Marsha%u2019s husband Bob, and Lee%u2019s husband Bill, the affair wasn%u2019t as small as we%u2019d have liked. George was best man, and Lee was matron of honor. Lynn and I drove from Kendallville to Fort Wayne for dinner on Thanksgiving, then rose early the next morning to pick up our wedding flowers. Lynn%u2019s mom had refused to get them for us in Michigan, saying she couldn%u2019t be bothered. The florist in Kendallville was as nice as could be, and extremely accommodating. He met us at his shop an hour-and-a-half before his normal opening time, and had everything carefully packed in a disposable foam cooler.We decided to take Lynn%u2019s Nova, because it was roomier than my MG. Our first stop en-route was to pee at the Elias Brothers Big Boy restaurant in Coldwater, Michigan, where Lynn had an attack of cold feet. Her rational mind was asking, %u201cWhat in the world am I doing?%u201d After all, she%u2019d only known me for a matter of weeks. We