Laid Bare: Essays and Observations by Judson, Tom (read 50 shades of grey .TXT) 📕

Randy, that’s when they were married. As far as the state of Iowa is concerned, however, Randy Van Syoc and Allen Coit Ransome are newlyweds who were legally married on August 26, 2009.

Randy and Allen have been my friends for just a few short years but we’re as close as family. Our mutual friend Jeanine and I were the witnesses who signed the marriage license. But when their friend Ken, who officiated at the ceremony, asked who would stand for these two people, the entire crowd yelled, “We do!” and leapt to their feet.

The ceremony took place on a boat that launched onto the Mississippi from Dubuque and in the middle of the ceremony, in addition to heckling the minister, Allen instructed the captain to veer a little away from the Illinois side and further into Iowa waters just to make sure the marriage was legal.

All the trapping were there: the open bar; the cheese platters, the bacon-wrapped shrimp; the relatives meeting out-of-town friends for the first time. The usual. The atmosphere , though, was anything but; it felt historic and long, long overdue. Allen told me earlier in the day that he had been lying awake a few nights before the ceremony trying to come up with some appropriate vows.

“And I started to get really mad. ‘Vows?’ What was left for me to promise? I realized after all these years that I had been cheated out of the chance to make vows as a young man when romance and love are fresh and making promises like that really means something.”

Both of The Boys (as everyone calls them) injected a little politics into their vows but overall their words were touching and heartfelt. All the guests were in tears. And in a moment that was so over the top it wouldn’t make it into the gooiest Lifetime movie, just as The Happy Couple exchanged rings a bald eagle swooped majestically down from the sky and made a U-turn past the bow of the boat before soaring back up above the water.

After the ceremony and the hugs and the kisses and the laughter and the tears we all took the stairs to the upper deck. I stood in back of the boat looking out at the endless Mississip’ and couldn’t help thinking that, while it may have taken Allen and Randy thirty-six years to prove it, the world, and Old Man River are not, I say they are not, just rollin’ along.

MY HUCKLEBERRY FRIENDS

I had one of those Proustian sense memory moments at the gym this morning. As I rounded the 27-minute mark on the treadmill my iPod started playing the Sarah Vaughan swing waltz version of Henry Mancini’s “Moon River,” in which “Sassy” stretches out “moon” over 12—count ‘em—12 syllables. As the music played I experienced a cinematic dissolve back to 1994, shortly after Henry Mancini had died. I was an ardent fan and had been saddened to learn of his death. As a tribute my husband Bruce and I decided to throw a Henry Mancini Memorial Cocktail Party. It was Pride Week and the weather was fine. We knew there would be competing events on the weekend so we called the party for 6-9 PM on Wednesday evening and asked that our guests come dressed as characters from “Breakfast at Tiffany’s”, the original source of “Moon River”, one of my favorite songs.

I made a 90-minute Mancini compilation tape that would play over and over on the auto-reverse deck in our living room. Bruce and I felt very sophisticated as we went to the restaurant supply store in the neighborhood to stock up on cheap stemware for the event; Mancini’s music was the essence of “cool” and we intended to have our soirée live up to his swinging tunes by offering nothing but martinis.

Bruce wore his all-purpose red satin tux jacket for the party while I, sporting an orange flattop at the time, made a stunning Rusty Trawler in my white dinner jacket and black sunglasses with the lenses popped out. When our guests started to arrive we were pleased to find that everyone had gotten into the spirit of things and dressed for the occasion. A beret here, a taffeta party dress there, and much chunky costume jewelry on both sexes. We had dueling Holly Golightlys at one point but fortunately no blood was spilled. Jeffrey and Tim showed up in vintage suits and were chastised for their usual lateness by Kyle who brandished a martini in one of her gloved hands and a long cigarette holder in the other. Ann Magnuson was out of town and sent her brother, Bobby, as proxy. Even Steve Brown, the cynic’s cynic, only mentioned once or twice how ridiculous we all were. Bruce trolled the room with a pitcher of vodka while I followed behind armed with an eyedropper of vermouth. Between us our guests never wanted for their dry, extra-dry or parched martinis.

The Stolichnaya flowed freely, the conversation increased steadily in both volume and hilarity and above it all Henry Mancini looked down approvingly from the framed studio publicity shot I had found in a junk store on 2nd Avenue. I cupped my hand to Bruce’s ear so he could hear me over the “Peter Gunn Theme” that blared from the speakers. “We did it, honey; this is the party from ‘Breakfast at Tiffany’s’.” Bruce had to agree as he looked around the room at our wonderful friends drinking and laughing and Twisting to the music.

At almost 9 o’clock on the dot in a moment of serendipity the tape reversed itself in the cassette deck and began to play the introduction to “Moon River.” As the plaintive harmonica started on the opening notes of the melody everyone in the room spontaneously chose partners and began to slow dance. With Bobby Magnuson in my arms I floated past our living room window and looked out to see