Plus-One Perspective

Plus-One Perspective

I am here to offer you my plus one perspective.  Even though I was five years old at this plus one event, I was unaccompanied.  Let’s face it, plus one means very little to a five-year-old even if he’s running loose at his father’s wedding.  

Early in November 1961, my father George, Sr. married Carole Bent.  It was my dad’s second marriage and Carole’s first.  In a romantic getaway honeymoon, dad would take his new bride to South Bend, Indiana to see the Syracuse University Orangemen take on Notre Dame in a collegian football contest. The Orangemen would lose on a disputed penalty which my dad would gripe about until I graduated from high school, but he would remember his anniversary as he put it, “a week before the Notre Dame Game.” Carole would only remember it as the place she almost froze to death as wind off the Ohio River blew into the open part of the stadium where the Touchdown Jesus stood proudly. 

But I’m getting ahead of myself, because I promised to offer my perspective as a plus one at their wedding.   

So, dad told me that I was going to their wedding a month before, because telling me sooner would have opened the door to a hundred questions he did not wish to answer.  The tragedy was my mother, Mary Alice, had passed away when I was just three years old, leaving my father responsible for a rambunctious child, me.  

One thing he did was move us into a hundred-year-old duplex in Manlius, NY, next to his younger brother Allan.  Aunt Ann Marie, Allan’s wife, already had three toddler sons and one infant.  Now she had me to deal with.  While my three cousins and I were left to our own devices, she managed to keep an eye on all of us while attending to the baby.  There are few people I will bestow the title “saint,” but Aunt Ann Marie was certainly one of those that truly was a saint.

I had no idea what a wedding was at that time.  All I knew is I had to dress up in better-than-Sunday clothes.  Until Carole came along, I had never set foot in a church of any denomination, but she told me once my dad and her were married, I’d have to go to church every Sunday.  Somehow that did not seem like a selling point to me as I had been on my own for as long as I could remember.  The no-meat on Fridays rule was another thing that did not sell me at the time. 

I had started Kindergarten with my cousin Mark who was three months younger than me.  Usually, he would have started the following year, but because of circumstances, he went to school with me.  We’d walk the two blocks to the school together, but when everyone else filed out, they would grab their mother’s hand. There was no hand for me to grab once the bell rang for the last time in the day.  I didn't mind at the time.  It meant that I would walk the two blocks alone in my constant daydream mode.  Trees became dragons and snow was like magic dust fallen so we could make snowballs to defend ourselves from the monsters waiting for us on the way home. 

I must say, I do not remember all the details of being the plus-one at my parents’ wedding, but I do remember the music and everybody making a big deal out of me.  Afterall, how many kids remember their parents’ wedding?  

Then there was the cake that was taller than me.  Having an unforgivable sweet-tooth, I eyed that gigantic confectionery like a pirate discovering a treasure trove. Aye! 

“Soon matey, you will be mine.” I thought as people fussed over my dad and Carole.  Dad told me that we’d be going to court to have Carole adopt me as her son.  I had no idea what he was talking about, but then I never really understood much of what he was talking about anyway.  

I had other cousins including four from California.  Carole’s sister, Joanie and her husband Jack were there with their four children.  

California?  I heard about that place.  There was a famous mouse who lived there with a man who was on television with that mouse.  He talked about a magical place that had opened a few years before.  There was a castle there and rocket ships.  I could not wait to see it and these people lived nearby.  How lucky is that? 

There was an ocean there, too.  I had never been to the ocean before.  Sure, New York was full of lakes.  I had been to quite a few of them since my dad was in love with the lakes of New York. He would take me to some of them in the summer.  I got to swim in them wearing my big bright orange life jacket.  I would complain when he put it on me, but it also meant I could be in the water.  It was often dark when he had to come fetch me.  I loved all the lakes he took me to.  He had taken Carole and me during the previous summer.  She did not seem to like the water no matter how hard I tried to convince her to join me.  She would just shake her head.  Did she know she was missing the best part?  I felt sorry for her.

Then I found out her father, who would become my grandfather, loved to swim, but he swam the “adult way.”  My father, Carole and I would pile into a rowboat and dad would row as grandpa would do the Australian Crawl across the entire lake. This was truly amazing to me.  Later he would teach me how to swim in the above-ground pool he put in his backyard.  

I also remember my soon-to-be grandma, Viola, who would win me over with her French fries at our weekly family dinners.  While grandpa grilled the big stakes, she made French fries she cut by hand into a pot of pig lard. She was quiet and laughed a lot at my horrible jokes which also endeared her to me.

In setting up for his youngest daughter’s wedding, grandpa made sure that the reception was first class.  Since he had worked for Swift’s Premium, we had steak and an open bar for the adults.  The open bar did supply me with plenty of Coke for the asking and I made sure I drank my share. The sugar-buzz made my insides tingle.  With the extra sugar rush, I edged closer to that gigantic cake.  

While preoccupied between the Coke and the cake I could not wait to get my hands on it, I had no idea what was taking place with Carole.  According to the accounts I heard when I got older, some of dad’s colleagues from work kidnapped Carole in a wedding day prank.  From what I heard was that mom missed a good part of her own wedding which infuriated grandpa.

“I paid for this reception and Carole’s not even here to enjoy it.” He complained to my father since the perpetrators were dad’s colleagues from work.  As a certified public accountant (CPA) graduate from Syracuse University working at one of the leading companies in the city, he never suspected his colleagues were plotting a kidnapping that had been hatched at the reception.  

“Should we call the police?” He suggested.

“No, of course not.” He knew it was a prank, but grandpa was still not happy. He had spent a lot of money to make Carole happy and here he was caught in this fiendish act.  

As this commotion was going on around me, I edged closer to the cake.

Meanwhile a crowd of friends and relatives kept coming up to me saying, “Frosty, you now have a real mother.”

I was polite.  I thanked them, but I hated my nickname, “Frosty.” The kids at school kept calling me a snowman.  I wasn’t a snowman.  The nerve of them, but these people were my relatives, whether I knew them before today or not, and they were simply repeating Frosty since my dad’s name was George Sr. and I was George Jr.  Like my cousin Alan Jr., who we all called Skippy, I would have to endure this nickname without protest. 

Suddenly there was live music from a small ensemble playing swing and jazz.  Adults got up and began to dance as my grandfather grumbled, “I wish Carole were here to enjoy this.” 

The pranksters still had not returned the bride from her unexpected ride through Syracuse.  Dad was calling somebody who might talk to them so they would return the bride to her own reception.  No sooner had the ensemble completed their first number when Carole came into the room followed by the pranksters.  There was a lot of loud laughter and talking as my new grandpa seemed to be a little more at ease with the appearance of his daughter still dressed in her full wedding gown. 

Carole and my father began a slow dance and ugh, there was kissing.  I hated kissing, but I got closer yet to the cake.  I had no idea that the serving staff would put the cake on the table I was standing next to after the music paused.  I got the attention of one of the staff requesting another Coke.  A minute later, I had a soda in my hands.  I was beginning to like this place. 

Jimmy Skinner, the youngest of Joanie and Jack’s sons ambled over.  He was a couple of years younger than me and had just recently learned to walk.  He was a towhead with a head of stark yellow hair. He was quite friendly, but like me had his eye on the cake.

“Dat’s a big cake, hey?” He nudged me with his elbow.

“Yeah.” I nodded.

“I is Jimmy.” He said with a smile.

“I’m George…I mean Frosty.” 

“Like the snowman?” His blue eyes went wide.

“Yeah.” I rolled my eyes, “Like the…” 

“Hey, you like boats?” He asked, still smiling.

“Yeah, they’re alright, I suppose.” I agreed.

“I got some.” He shook with joy.

“Good for you.” I was already bored talking to him.

“I’ll lecha play with them sometime.” He patted me on the back before scurrying off into the crowd.  

I was glad, because little kids can be so annoying.  I grew up as an only child even though my four cousins lived in the duplex.  Skippy was close to Jimmy’s age, and he would get into all our stuff.  We would build snow forts when it snowed and mud forts because it rained a lot in Manlius during the summer.  Skippy was always getting in the way and made his older brothers yell at him for his destruction of our hard work.  

Still being an only child was peaceful and let me explore my imagination without any disruption from other siblings.  And the truth of the matter was, I had a very vivid imagination which I was free to use as I pleased.  While I did not consider myself spoiled, I certainly had more options than those burdened with younger siblings like Jimmy or Skippy. 

Two of the staff entered the room and ceremoniously picked up the platter with two silver handles that held the cake. I could not believe my eyes when they placed the cake on the table that I was standing by.  

The cake had seven layers coated in a creamy icing and silver decorations hanging in dozens of places as though they were magical ornaments.  My eyes went wide with anticipation.  I had been to a friend’s birthday party where the guests were served cake.  It was a good cake, but this one appeared to be sent from heaven.  My mouth was already washed with countless plastic cups of Coke-a-Cola I had drank over the course of the last hour.  I was ready.  Never had I wanted something so much as I wanted to stick my hands in the frosting and come away with fingers worth of divine sweetness.  Glancing around the room, I saw no one was paying attention, so I reached out and grabbed one of the dangling silver decorations.

It tasted better than I thought it would.  I had to have some more. 

“It’s picture time!” I heard someone shout as I reached my second decoration.

Carole and dad stood on the stage as the photographer snapped some pictures.  Everyone applauded.

Got my third dangling decoration during this event.  

“What about the frosting?” I thought to myself.  

Why not?

My hand went out and one of my fingers came away with a hearty helping of white frosting. 

“There you are Frosty.” I heard Carole say.  I figured the jig was up, I had been caught white-fingered, but when I looked, she was breathtakingly beautiful and smiling at me, the Plus-One with his fingers white with frosting.

“Carole?” I shoved my finger into my mouth before she noticed.

“Mom will be fine.” She put her hand on top of my head.  My hair was nothing more than a crew-cut with bristles. 

“Mom?” 

“We are going to have our picture taken.” She knelt down next to me as the photographer got into position to take the shot of a lifetime.

“Smile.” The photographer ordered.

I kissed mom on the cheek as I reached out for another ornament.

There was a flash that nearly blinded me.

The photograph is presently in my closet of me kissing Carole as I am clutching the ornament.  Few photographs can so completely capture a moment like that one did.  The five-year-old boy, kissing his new mother on her wedding day while clutching an ornament from her wedding cake.