What's in Dave's Head

After Kate’s wedding, Donna and I were ready to take a few days off. There’s a considerable amount of stress in planning a big production like a wedding: You worry that you will forget something; that the vendors won’t do what they’re supposed to do, when they’re supposed to do it; that the weather won’t cooperate; and on and on. When it’s over, and everything has gone well, and there were no fistfights or wine thrown in someone’s face, and no one fell and hurt themselves or threw up in the limo or missed the bus and were stranded at the venue; when you realize you got through the day and can’t find anything that didn’t go just as you had hoped, you take a deep breath, say a prayer of thanks, and trade in your real clothes for flip-flops and a tee-shirt. So we headed to New Jersey’s Long Beach Island, a barrier island that we have visited just about every summer since we were married, and where Donna spent her summers since she was a little girl. It's a place that’s made fo...

Our oldest child Kate was married on July 15 to Stephen Ritchie. They were married at our parish of 28 years, St. Louis Church in Clarksville, Maryland, and we held a reception for them in Pasadena at a beautiful venue on the Chesapeake Bay. Donna’s family, mostly from New Jersey but also Detroit, California and New York, started arriving Friday. I really enjoy spending time with them – I think of Donna’s siblings as my own brothers and sisters, and her mom as mine. The weather had been brutally hot and humid all week, but we got enough of a respite that we were able to sit comfortably on the deck, against a backdrop of Donna’s beautiful flower baskets; the pines, oaks and a giant Douglas fir that provide privacy, shade and nesting places for birds; and a lawn that hadn’t yet been turned to dust as it always does by late July. After the rehearsal at the church Friday evening, Steve’s parents, Bonnie and Buddy, hosted a wonderful dinner at a restaurant in Ellicott City. Sev...