Janek Raven

Sunday, July 10, 2011
In which a wedding is attended in the south…

Janek Raven was to be married that day.
The same young man, now 30, who had been lost for three days in the Swiss Alps.

At services, last-minute plans were being set for the afternoon.
Joe was in jeans and flip-flops.
“I hope you’re not wearing flip-flops to the wedding,” said Mom.
“Jesus did,” he replied with a grin.
“Can’t you just stay home so you can take me to youth group?” Linnea asked. “You’re only going to the wedding for the food.”
“The hotel has a waffle press,” Joe explained. “I’m not going to let you girls sweet-talk me into staying behind.”
No one got between Joe and his waffles.
After the sermon, OLeif and Joe did their new secret-best-friends-rock-paper-scissors-handshake, which could have lasted forever…

A few logisticals… Puck had already spent the night with his Nana and Papa… OLeif playing both services…
11:30 departure.
Dad and Joe razzed each other about driving skills.
McDonald’s.
Hit the road.
Joe jokes. Even Dad got his smile lines. Repeatedly.
And Dad, as usual, was anxious to forge through the five and a half hours with as few delays as possible…
“I could shave off another hour and a half if you let me drive,” said Joe. They call me the Scalpel of Time.”
And Mom read of spooky St. Louis happenings of the past, including pirate cannons and body snatching.
A call from Puck, who had done well at church.
Gum at a rest stop vending machine behind two van-loads of youth from Grace Community in Loveland, Colorado.

Five hours later, Wingate hotel at Blankenbaker, there was just enough time to check in before driving over to the Catholic-Baptist-Kirkwood-U.-City-type-neighborhood which housed the Southern Baptist Seminary.
Already, the lawn of white chairs under shade trees were being filled with down-south accents. There were no familiar faces in the audience, but then Janek came out energetically greeting people, passing out a bin of mini Dasanis. Then the red heads of Garret and Sylvester (on leave from Afghanistan) and Kelsie, none of whom had changed in nine and seven years, and the two younger boys and Mr. and Mrs. Raven with Garret’s wife (whom he had met in Canada at an AWANA camp ten years ago) and their little girl. It was funny how time seemed to have stood still every time they met up with that family again.
Despite the heat, all members of the bridal party stood for the whole ceremony, the ladies in grass green, and the Mississippi bride, facing into the setting seven o’clock sun in blond curls and sparkling gown. Fortunately for her, there was no fainting or swooning or passing out, and the ceremony was agreeably short.
As was the reception, housed indoors. A pianist was already cajoling guests into the candlelit hall where a buffet of heaping fruits, croissant sandwiches, meatballs, and lemon pepper chicken were being consumed. Followed by a chocolate cake with white fondant.
The next two hours or more was spent catching up with most of the Raven family, who knew very few of the other guests present. Mrs. Raven spoke of the fix-it-up house from the late 1800’s/early 1900’s that Janek had purchased, whose cellar flooded high enough to cancel the water heater. Somehow, Mrs. Raven didn’t think that Janek’s new bride would put up with cold showers every morning. And Joe and Sylvester discussed Black Ops and motorcycles.
“I only met Janek’s best man [from Hawaii] yesterday,” said Sylvester, who also insisted that the mention of his Afghani location was a top secret error made on behalf of the printed wedding bulletin.
And with the night coming to a close, the guests lit super sparklers on the seminary campus as Janek and his bride ran through the glittering tunnel, having taken the old-fashioned route of changing into ‘street clothes’ (which for a girl from Mississippi meant a pink cocktail dress), into the white get-away car dubbed in ‘just married’ and stuffed with white balloons. And off and away to a location Mom thought might have sounded Mexican.

Some final goodbyes, with promises to meet again.
And Cosby at the hotel.