From Mazel Tov to Oy Vey

Writing about my threat to hijack the tour bus I felt like I was held hostage on so that I could free my fellow hostages into the safety and comfort of our hotel rooms reminded me of another bus hijacking story from my past that I thought I’d tell.

Back in the last millennium, I managed to sucker some poor sap into marrying me.  Bless his heart, he has stayed the course and put up with me for the past fourteen years plus.  I felt confident in marrying him, as we were both old enough to make grown up decisions, and we planned a wedding and built a house all at the same time and didn’t kill each other.  Mike didn’t much care if we flew to Vegas to have a fat, Asian, Elvis Impersonator marry us, or if we drove to the Courthouse, or if we had a big, fancy wedding.  I, however, did care and, more importantly, my family cared.  There is a huge generation gap in my family, and I am the oldest in my generation by a few years and the first to have gotten married, so there had been decades in between mine and the last.  These folks were ready for a show.

And these folks, I must say in order to explain the events to follow, are New York Jews.  For those of you unfamiliar with the breed of human known as the New York Jew, I suggest you watch a few episodes of Seinfeld, and pay particular attention to Jerry’s parents and the Costanzas.  These people do not do anything halfway.  Nor do they do anything quietly, nor are they willing to assume that things will go well, nor do they keep their opinions to themselves. 

Since there were a number of people flying in to town for the big event, we hired a bus to take people from the hotel to the wedding and then from the wedding to the airport after the wedding. 

Our wedding was on Sunday, March 14, 1999 – Pi Day -- at high noon in Norcross. There was a light rain here, warm enough, but a perpetual wet drizzle that put the kibosh on any of our outdoor wedding plans.  In New York, however, it was threatening to snow.   This was in the days before the internet was on your cell phone and no one had laptops or wifi.  In other words, you couldn’t get instantaneous information the second you wanted to have it.  So as the afternoon wore on, my older relatives, specifically my Uncle Walter and Aunt Pearl (my grandmother’s siblings) and Aunt Muriel, Uncle Walter’s wife, who I suspect was along for the ride and not one of the ring leaders, began to worry aloud that it would snow in New York, and their flight would be cancelled, and they would be stuck either in Atlanta or wherever the airline decided to land them when they got the signal that LaGuardia was a no-go.

I, of course, was in wedding day oblivion.  Happy to be married to Mike, happy to see friends and relatives I didn’t often to get to see, and swept up in the excitement of the day.  So I admit I wasn’t paying attention.

Someone then informed me that the bus was missing.  This was an immediate problem because the people who intended to ride the bus to the airport had stowed their luggage on the bus for safekeeping during the wedding.  The problem was brought to my attention, and several phone calls were made to the bus rental company.  (Remember – no cell phones in 1999, calling was no small task, and the bus had limited ability to contact the driver.) 

Eventually, through a bit of detective work and conjecture, we figured out the following:  Uncle Walter, Aunt Pearl, and Aunt Muriel’s worrying had reached a fever pitch, and they decided amongst themselves that they had better high tail it to the airport and try to catch an earlier flight.  They went to the bus, and ordered the driver to take them to the airport.  He informed them that he was instructed to wait until the wedding was over and all the folks had boarded the bus.  This was met with no telling how many loud, Yankee-accented commands.  This poor bus driver was a polite, quiet southern man, no doubt trained to respect his elders, and had never before been confronted by three elderly Jews in this state of frenzy.  This was more than he could take, and rather than be subjected to further abuse, he said something like “Yes sir, yes ma’am” and drove the bus to the airport with his captors.

“All’s well that ends well” was my attitude.  The bus managed to get back in time to the wedding location to get everyone else to the airport on time and with their luggage.  Even the ones who went to the gate to find Uncle Walter, Aunt Pearl, and Aunt Muriel sitting and waiting for their original flight time.  No doubt there was quite a loud riot at that gate, with the hijackers justifying their actions, and the stranded folks yelling at them for the obvious.  No, no one was arrested, and yes, everyone made it home on time.

A few of my friends were worried that I would let the incident ruin my wedding, but there was no chance of that.  Frankly, that is my favorite memory from my wedding and really the only one I can recall in vivid detail.  The rest of it is a blur, but I will never forget how hard I laughed when I found out that three weaponless senior citizens in what for them was akin to a foreign country managed to scare a bus driver into doing their bidding.

All of which proves the point – words are a powerful weapon.  Use them carefully.