And More Beer

Yesterday’s wedding, literally in my backyard, seemed by all accounts to be a success. I wore three caps during the set-up, ceremony and subsequent celebration, a hard-hat for construction of the now infamous birch arch that served as official exchange of vows prop, the emergency FED-EX cap for the premium rush of two canopies to shield the wedding party and guests from the rain, and the informal cap of the dinner bartender. I had tons of quality help for each so please do not needlessly consider that I am playing a sorrowful dirge on my fiddle busking for sympathy. It was a pleasure helping the two young kids and their assembled family and friends. I have great faith that their journey together will produce better results than mine. 

The highlight of my evening I will share with as little fanfare as I am able. Goes like this:

I am behind our makeshift bar handing out mason jars to serve as beer mugs. For this special occasion he groom’s college mates hauled a keg of good local IPA all the way from Bozeman, MT. That being the most popular item on our short list of available beverages, along with red wine, white wine, one bottle of Prosecco and assorted flavored waters. After the initial rush, things settle down and I start chatting up the guests in the attempt to, as they say, break the ice. The father of the bride eventually makes it to the bar and asks for a mug. I ask if he is a Montana native and he says yes, third generation. That was all I needed. 

I give him, and the others standing near-by with topped-off mugs, the back story. In or around 1980, back in the area after a disastrous stay in LA and return on the day Mount St Helens erupted, I ran into a guy that would become one of my best friends. He was from Billings, MT. He, too, was recently singled and we shared a rental house for a year or so. Some of his buddies started to come out and spend long weekends, holidays and other festive occasions at our place. It quickly became apparent that he had a very cool rolodex of pals. So much so that I started keeping unofficial score. It seemed that everyone I met from Montana was cool. So I started the saying that “I have never met anyone from Montana that I didn’t immediately like.’ This has worked especially well with Big Sky cowgirls (on occasion). 

I tell the story to the father of the bride and he, as everyone, is charmed by the collective praise heaped upon him by a volunteer bartender wearing a Washington Huskies ball cap. But he is laughing a little too hard and I think for a split-second that there is a joke hidden somewhere that I am about to become the butt of. I ask his profession.

‘I have been Sheriff and Parole Officer of Gallatin County for forty years’, he says, ‘so it is doubtful that you have met any of my clients.’ The place erupts with equal spontaneous volatility as our famous volcano, and I add, ‘maybe I have and they were all so reformed by your outstanding work that when we met they had become model citizens!’

More laughter, more guffaws. More good cheer.

And more beer.