It Was The Best Traffic Tie-Up

West North Street, going east, usually is an easy drive; seldom is heard a discouraging word, even during rush hour. This was early on a Saturday morning, when you can play marbles between the yellow lane markers. “That’s odd,” I said, in an even voice, “something big must be going on, perhaps a horrible multi-car traffic accident with multitudinous cars of cops, fire engines galore, ambulances and media photographers drooling at the mouth.

A wedding. At the stone church, whose population is about 50, most of whom are on walkers and use oxygen tanks, the rest remember President Johnson – the one who succeeded the assassinated president, Lincoln.

I doubt the wedding actually took place there; most likely they chose that spot as one of several for stunning photo locations. Another was on the diagonal stone staircase of a local lawyers’ offices (splitsville already??) with trees in the background. In front of the church was their royal carriage, pulled by two white horses and driven by a man in full livery. No wonder traffic was tied up; everyone slowed down, or stopped, to take all this in.

It looked a little bit like the marriage of Princess Diana and what’s-his-name, without the “what am I ever getting myself into” look someone captured in a photograph of her at the time. What was his name, anyway? Ah, yes: Prince Philip, already dreaming of what’s-her-name and how he can slip out of the palace tonight.