Holiday season offers unexpected contact with old friends
My wife and I had Christmas dinner today with several hundred old friends, most of whom we rarely see anymore.She and I both worked for several years at the same company. She was offered an early retirement “buy out”; a couple of years before her early retirement I had been asked to “resign.” (Yup. I was fired.) The company holds an annual Christmas dinner for its retirees and their spouses/guests. She goes as a retiree and gets a nice name badge; I go as her guest and get no name badge.
But we both get a free dinner and still have friends we see and remember, so what the heck.
At today’s dinner, we sat with one of her former supervisors who retired himself the same year she took the early retirement buyout. It was a pleasure to see him after a number of years when we never saw him at the annual “feast,” and had lost track of how he was doing. I had neutral to negative feelings about the man when he was her supervisor. I found him surprisingly humble, friendly, and a genuine nice guy at today’s dinner.
I also heard a funny story from him, actually a true account. He is an ordained minister. Let’s call him “Rev. Smith,” though that isn’t his real name. It seems that a few years ago, Rev. Smith’s daughter, we’ll call her “Susie Smith,” though that isn’t her real name, fell in love with a young man named “Rick Smith” (not his real name, either). Rick and Susie, with Rev.’s blessing, decided to get married.
Two funny things here: 1) the two Smith families are absolutely NOT related by marriage, blood, or anything else (well, now they’re related by marriage), and, 2) we live in a part of the country where “marrying your cousin” jokes abound. (No, not Arkansas, but very near there.)
When Rick and Susie went to get the marriage license at the courthouse, they were thoroughly grilled by county officials who were highly suspicious and hadn’t seen such a thing as “Smith weds Smith.” When the Rev. Smith and his wife helped the couple prepare their wedding guest list and send out wedding invitations, eyebrows were raised time and again.
The best part, Rev. Smith said, was the fun he had after the wedding ceremony — which he conducted — when he took the marriage license down to file it at the courthouse. The only name and only signature on the license that wasn’t “Smith” was that of the best man who signed as one of the witnesses.
Can you imagine the fun Rick and Susie and all their descendants will have — all of the family’s immediate relatives will be named “Smith” (not their real name). Family fun for sure!
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