Where do I begin describing our trip to Tennessee last week for Matt’s brother’s wedding? I had such a great time. Here, in random order, are some vignettes.

I’ve never met three siblings more completely different than Matt and his two brothers. The youngest, Andrew (the groom), is a self-described redneck. He’s scruffy-looking and rides a motorcycle. (I didn’t see much of him since he was busy most of the time with wedding stuff.) The middle brother, Gary, is a jack of all trades. He’s incredibly nice and very funny, with a quick wit and oversized glasses. He looks a little like Matt. He went to welding school and now works at Lowe’s. He brought his dog for the weekend, a collie/mutt named Rosie, and she reminded me so much of my family’s old dog. (I would have taken her home with me if I could have snuck her on the plane.) Then there’s Matt, of course, who’s gay, lives in New York, and loves musical theater. I would never think that he was the brother of these guys. On the other hand, he loves to tinker with computers, so I guess the three of them have a love of tinkering in common.

Matt’s father and uncle were born in Roswell, NM in the 1940s. Both men believe there could have been aliens in Area 51. Matt’s uncle described some conversations with people who worked at the base, and Matt’s dad speculated that transistors might have come from alien technology. I couldn’t tell how seriously they believed in it, though.

I went to my very first Steak n Shake. Yum. I’d never heard of it before, which is no surprise, given its locations.

Matt, Matt’s mom and I shopped at the biggest Wal-Mart I’ve ever seen. It was cavernous.

College football is huge in the South. I went to school in Virginia, but someone joked with me last weekend that Virginia isn’t really the South. After the wedding reception on Saturday, Matt and I wound up watching the end of a Tennessee-Georgia football game with a bunch of middle-aged men in the living room of Matt’s parents’ house. The few times that someone addressed a sports-related comment to me, I nodded and smiled and pretended I understood.

Andrew’s childhood friend was at the wedding. He goes to Auburn. He mentioned that his best friend at Auburn is gay, and that the guy’s fraternity kicked the guy out when they learned this, except that they wanted him to stay long enough so that they had enough brothers to qualify for something-or-other. Nice work.

There’s so much open country. Standing on the steps of the church, one could look out and see
green mountains in the distance. Barely any vehicles going by. Quiet and beautiful.

I saw more political signs on front lawns than I’d seen in a long time. A majority were Bush-Cheney, but there were more Kerry-Edwards signs than I’d expected.

The bride’s parents had incredibly thick southern accents. “Like” was “laaaahk.” Each of her two brothers had intriguing facial hair and two earrings. (Matt told me that earrings don’t mean the same thing down south as they do in New York.) They both ushered at the wedding, but they wore their shirts open-necked and with no tie.

The men in the wedding party wore white tuxes and white shoes.

I was slightly thrown off the southern stereotypes by the wedding being Catholic, not Baptist or anything like that.

The priest definitely seemed to know what the deal was with me and Matt. Interesting.

The room where we slept had the 1981 World Book Encyclopedia on its shelves. I had fun poring over it.

On the way back to the airport, Matt’s dad gave us a driving tour of nearby Chattanooga and the surrounding area. I like seeing parts of the country I’ve never seen before.

Again, I had a great time. I’m glad I went.

More as it occurs to me…