What went wrong on your wedding day? 💒 👰♀️ Was the meme posted on the Facebook page of my long-time friend, Kohn Case III today. My response:
When we left the reception in our 1956 Porsche, we made it all the way from Kingston to New Brunswick (remember the old RT. 1 traffic circle?). Connie asked me, do you have the Travelers’ Cheques?!” Oops, no! Zip around the circle back to Kingston. Good! Got the cheques. Now back to New Brunswick. At the light by the old J&J ESDP facility, a Mustang with 4 young men in it pointed at my car and made some disparaging comments about it. Green light! I punch the gas pedal, first gear to redline. Shift! Second gear to redline. Shift….SHIT! I can’t get it out of second. Bent something in the shifting fork on the transaxle. No gears coasting or 2nd. I pull over, pop the cover off the transaxle access port. Wiggle some metal. No joy. Manage to get grease on Connie’s new getaway dress. She’s super pissed off, not only because I forgot our travel money, blew up the transaxle “racing,” but now I’ve ruined her dress.
Howard Johnson’s Motor Hotel at Routes 1 and 18 was a sad place to start our honeymoon trip to Sturbridge Village and Boston.
I forgot to mention, we limped back to her parent’s house, unpacked the Shop Rite bags we stuffed into the Porsche (which had no trunk) and put them in her 1967 Mercury Comet Caliente with its 289 cid V-8 and not much gas.
How we survived that night and went to celebrate 43 years of mostly wedded bliss is testament to her deserved sainthood and my everlasting purge in Dante’s Hell.
