In last weekend’s paper Daily World Publisher Mike Hrycko invited readers to share stories with us about how the coronavirus has affected their lives. What are your stories? We’d like to print as many as we have room for. Send them to mhrycko@thedailyworld.com.
By Alan Rammer
Central Park
While reading the Saturday issue of The Daily World, I came across Mike Hrycko’s column “Everybody’s Got a Story” and I thought, while there are many unusual, unique stories unfolding in this new world, I doubted many would have one like mine. I thought your readers would get a kick out of it because we need uplifting stories right now, stories that will bring a smile to our faces with the overload of COVID-19 news swamping our minds non-stop.
Last September a very dear friend of mine, died suddenly of an aortic aneurysm. I had seen him a few days before when he stopped at my house here in Central Park to drop off a package for a friend. We made plans to go to lunch in Long Beach the following week. Alas, that did not happen. The family decided to hold off on a memorial service at the Ocean Shores VFW until early December to give them time to process their grief and to get their new lives in order. I volunteered to officiate at the memorial service. I now had three months to plan a service.
When the service and luncheon had ended that December afternoon, my friend’s youngest granddaughter came up to me with her fiancé and told me what a wonderful job I had done eulogizing her grandfather and then she asked me to officiate her wedding in March. I looked around in disbelief thinking she was talking to someone else. I told her I had no experience in this realm and she told me very directly to learn and be ready for March 28th. I knew I had to step up. You need to understand a critical piece of information in this story that goes back 18 years.
I was the marine community outreach and environmental specialist for the state Department of Fish and Wildlife for 22 years and this young woman had been on one of my class field trips when she was 8 years old! On that trip she had told me she had a birthday coming up shortly. When I asked her when, we were both amazed to learn we shared the same day – May 22nd. This day is also the least likely day of the entire year for a child to be born on (but that is another fascinating story in itself). Thus began very special friendship with this young lady and her family. It resulted in me being adopted into their family at a family banquet when she turned 18 and graduated from high school (with full adoption papers I might add!). The adoption paperwork stated that my entry into this family included all the perks, privileges and responsibilities. Now I had a wedding to plan based on the latter.
So I became ordained and purchased a great book on planning weddings. Working with the bride and groom we had an action plan not realizing very shortly we would be sidetracked multiple times with an event none of us could have imagined. I had developed a beautiful service for Saturday March 28th, at a country club in Sumner.
Lo and behold COVID-19 raised its ugly head. The wedding (as were countless others across the county and around the world) was cancelled.) No assemblies over 50 people. So we thought, we can do this. Plan B. We will get married at Point Defiance Park with just family members. Then came the next closure, no assemblies over 10 people. They really wanted to be married on March 28th. They wanted the marriage certificate to match their chosen date. So now it is time for Plan C. We would do it on Facebook and live stream it. Alas the Auditor’s Office said that was not legal.
So then we developed Plan D, they would drive to my house and be married in my garage here in Central Park. They each brought a high school friend to bear witness. I had to hastily run to Safeway for a bottle of bubbly, flowers for the bride, some dessert (M & M cookies) and a wedding gift. Since it did not rain that afternoon, I set up a table on the driveway with the assorted wedding paraphernalia plus the marriage certificate and their first wedding gift — a 6-pack of TP complete with a bow! At 2 p.m., the designated time the wedding was to be held in Sumner, the happy couple were married in my Central Park driveway with two friends bearing witness and live streaming it through iPhones to family members! And yes, we were all six feet apart until they became husband and wife with a kiss. We clapped and had a cookie. They loved the TP as they were almost out. Then they climbed back in their cars and headed back to Tacoma, legally husband and wife to navigate their new life through COVID-19. The full wedding will hopefully be done later this summer.
The couple celebrated with Safeway cookies and the host broke out his best white, plastic bucket for the flowers. The gift table included practical furnishings for the bathroom.
