And here it is, part one of the wedding epic. I'll drop it in chunks and drops as time permits.
7.28.04 /Lawrence, KS to Elk City, OK/
I got up some time after Nena did (6:30a) and got dressed. It's never a good idea to get up more than ten hours before you start to drive cross country, but in the interest of Arturo's safety I had to drive Nena to work so as not to strand him in an unfriendly parking lot for two weeks. Ahh, the sacrifices we make for our family. I got back into town around 9a and started on my long-assed day of errand running.
The list wasn't too long, but it meant running all around Lawrence on a Friday, which is something that is never suggested or recommended. Lawrence isn't a large town, but it's spread out pretty well and its main arteries clog up really quickly when there's any kind of blockage. Being the last week before students begin to arrive in earnest, the road construction crews were providing the kind of blockages you'd expect in a 400 lb guy's circulatory system.
I ran by the local locksmith and picked up my new Cubs housekey. Yeah, it's a housekey, it's cubbie blue, it has red C's all over it. I love it, it rocks my world, it was $5, it makes me happy, it makes my mother jealous, I love it. So brilliant. After that I swung by the office to say goodbye to my neighbor and THE ROCK. yknow the people that make my dept run. Seriously, anyone out there who disses on support staff just doesn't get it. As per usual, Rocky and my neighbor saved my ass, smoothing out my issues with the union bookstore so I could get my course's books ordered before I left. Cuz if I'd waited until I got back from the wedding, there'd be no books for my students on the first day of school, and no one wins in that scenario.
After a few more stops including one to DAS ÜBERBÜY to get give them my post-wedding availability I was on my way to pick up Nena and by 5:15p, we were on the road to yet another wedding; our own.
We hadn't decided how far we were going to drive the first night- we figured we'd go like hell until we couldn't go anymore and as we drove (to the strains of Celia Cruz and the Blind Boys of Alabama) we hatched out a plan for the night; eat lots of crap, drink lots of crap, drive lots and evaluate our situation outside of OKC, Clinton, Elk City, and Shamrock TX with grand goal of the gods being Amarillo. Yeah, that'd work. . .only that meant driving until like 1a or something. I think in our heart of hearts we knew we weren't going to make it to Amarillo, but there was something about trying to convince ourselves that we would that was inspiring.
***
We were somewhere just outside the northern edge of OKC when we remembered that it was about time for Sen. Kerry to give his acceptance speech at the DNC. We turned off Oklahoma and flipped around the Oklahoma airwaves to find us some NPR. We found a station pretty quickly and settled in to listen to the speech for ourselves, thankful that we wouldn't have to let the pundits tell us what had been said.
That was our soundtrack through OKC, John Kerry talking about a new vision for America, a vision which isn't all that different from the old vision- but better than the future we're both seeing right now. Driving through OKC, Nena and I kept nodding at his points and smiling when he started calling the President a bitch without actually calling him a bitch. It was pretty awesome. I mean, he found new and interesting ways of calling the guy out every few minutes. Brilliant.
I had some issues with phrasing at key points, but that's just the wannabe speechwriter in me. . .I had more important speeches to critique, like mine at my own wedding in a week. Yeah, much more important shit to deal with.
However, I wasn't able to quell my BIG issue with the speech; the Dems aren't invoking FDR's Four Freedoms. This seems like a brilliant, brilliant time to do so; but I must be the only one. . .because it isn't being done.
What are the Four Freedoms? OK, I'll tell you. In 1941 FDR gave a speech to a joint session of Congress *cough*StateoftheUnion*cough* and in this speech FDR laid out four essential human freedoms that it was the duty of government to protect and insure. What are they? Freedom of speech and religion, and freedom from want and fear.
Freedom from want, freedom from fear. Isn't that an amazing doctrine for a democracy? All citizens should want for nothing, and citizens shall fear nothing. As I watch the news, as I watch the President's campaign ads, I don't feel as if the administration is trying to make me free from fear, they're making me dependent on it. Fear is quickly becoming the only constant in post-post modern American life. What we need now isn't a leader, it's a leader whose mission is to make us free from fear.
By the end of our drive through OKC and Sen. Kerry's speech we realized that Amarillo was a less realistic dream than an administration trotting out the Four Freedoms so Nena drove on through the night while I poured over the carefully packed AAA guidebook to find us a place to stay.
While I flipped through the books, Nena and I discovered the dirtiest trick yet played upon the interstate driver by the state highway patrols of the world. As we flew through the Oklahoma night, we saw up on the shoulder, in the distance, a lightbar going apeshit. Sensing a police presence, we slowed down. As we passed the lightbar. . .we saw that it was just a lightbar on a stick that the OHP had planted on the side of the road to scare the shit out of us with. How freakin' dirty is that? Pitch black, in the middle of nowhere and there are these really bright lights to scare the shit out of you. Grrrrr.
After that distraction I managed to find and book a room for us, at the Elk City Holi-daaaay IIIIIInn. I talked to the guy for a while, shmoozed a bit, and scored us a cheaper room rate for what turned out to be a phatty, phatty room. Too bad we were only going to spend 8 hours in it. . .asleep.