Preparations were being made
for our upcoming wedding on June 9, 1990 by the Scottish contingency. In
America, Donna and I were getting excited by the thought of tying the knot and
sealing our love with a pledge of forever. We were amazed at how many of my
family members had decided to come over to join in the celebration. My sister,
Susan, Uncle Ellis and Aunt Enid, my brother, Robbie and his wife, Carol and
their two children five year old Max, and baby Emily and of course, Mom. It was
going to be a great adventure for her and a wonderful distraction from all of
the sadness and well wishers she had to put up with. Plus, she would be
travelling with Susan, landing in London Heathrow and driving a rental car all
the way up to Glenrothes, Scotland. They decided to leave a fortnight early so
they could bloody well take their time touring the countryside.
The first night in London they stayed at
Susan’s friend Helen’s flat and although my sister had a good time reminiscing
about old times, my mother found Helen to be a bit of a snob. Knowing Mom, she
probably told her so in the most subtle of ways. The next day they headed to
Bath but didn’t stop at Stonehenge and my mom loved it there and wished that she
could afford to live out her golden years in that ancient British town where archaeological evidence shows that the site of
the' main spring was treated as a shrine by the Britons before the birth of
Christ. A temple was constructed in 60–70 AD and a bathing complex was
gradually built up over the next 300 years.
From
Bath they cruised up the motorway to Birmingham where Susan had spent her
sophomore year at the university back in 1969 – 1970. It brought a tear to her
eye and my mom said, “Is this what you were crying your eyes out about for all
these years? It’s nothing but a bunch of old bricks and gargoyles.” They frolicked in the Lake District and then
Susan saw a sight that struck her sense of artistic wonderment. There was a
herd of Highland Cows grazing in an open meadow and the way the light was
streaming down on the heads made them look as if they were angelic,
mythological creatures from a different time and place. Finally they crossed
the border in Carlisle into Scotland and from there it was a mere two hour
drive into Glenrothes where the Smollett’s welcomed them with open arms.
Robbie,
Carol and the two wee Haymer’s landed safely at Glasgow airport about a week
before the wedding. They had rented a couple of rooms in a farmhouse with
plenty of acreage just outside of St. Andrews. One evening, just after the
wedding rehearsal at the kirk in Leslie, Robbie was driving home and got pulled
over by the Royal Scottish Police. He wasn’t drunk but because he was not used
to driving on the opposite side of the road he kept as close to the curb as
possible. Every time he felt himself getting too close to the center divider,
if there was a center divider, he would jink his car back erratically toward
the curbside. The officer got out of his car and approached what he thought was
an inebriated driver and said in a thick Fife accent, “I’ve reason ta b’lieve
you’re driving affected.” Robbie conjured up his best lawyer negotiating
resources and explained to the cop how he got scared every time a car would
pass on the opposite side of the road. The polite officer was nice enough and when
he realized he was dealing with inexperienced Americans, he let him go with a
warning to be more careful, maybe try practicing a wee bit in parking lots
before attempting to navigate the open Scottish roads.
Speaking
of the wedding rehearsal, it was held a couple of days before the big event in
the small kirk (Scottish for church) on the green in Leslie, Scotland which is
about ten minutes west of Glenrothes and just off a golf course. In fact, much
to my pleasure, everything in Fife seems to be just off a golf course. The kirk
was built in the late eighteenth century (one of the newer kirks) made out of
stone and granite that was indigenous to the area. It looked like a place where
James Barrie or Robert Louis Stephenson might have gotten married. The interior
was all dark wood. Even the pews were hand carved with religious symbols. There
was no way my mom and sister were going to kneel down on wooden benches, but I,
being an honorary Scot, would comply with tradition. I was told by Donna not to
worry since only Catholics kneel and this was a protestant kirk. The stained
glass windows were exotic and ancient and all of them depicted some type of
scene from the Bible. They were beautiful beyond description. In fact, Donna’s
Uncle Alec had actually created one of the stained glass windows in the place
about forty or fifty years earlier. Alec was an energetic man in his late
seventies who insisted on calling me Jamey. He was one of my favorite new
relatives who was an art professor in Glasgow and a collector of rare fossils,
and I didn’t mind. He was also a brilliant photographer and snapped the photo
of me dressed in a kilt while playing my Gibson J-200. His father, who everyone
called Uncle Bob, was in his early nineties and was one awarded an MBE for his
service with the Boy Scouts taking trips to Ireland and all over the Scottish
Highland with his troop. Even at his advanced age, he would spend hours and
hours in his wee garden, tilling the soil and sewing seeds. What and amazing
man!
Reverend
Thompson finally arrived from his chamber and brought out a large wooden cross.
I thought my mom was going to faint. Susan and Robbie knew that their brother
was marrying a shiksa but had no idea how Christian the atmosphere was going to
be but rolled along with those punches. But Mom, she had been a Jew much too
long to see her oldest son be blessed by a symbol of Christianity. Whenever
they would sing Christmas carols in school when she was a little girl, every
time the name Jesus was sung she would tighten her lips and sing, hmmmm, never
wanting to betray her faith. Now this. I could see she was struggling with it
and hoped for the sake of family relations she wasn’t going to make a scene. She
kept it together by the skin of her teeth and we got through the rehearsal
without a war. That would come later.
The
night before the wedding I stayed over at my future bother-in-law, Roy’s
parents, Ian and May’s house on the other side of Glenrothes. It is tradition
that the prospective bride and groom should be in separate places as sleeping
together was a definite no-no. They brought out a Casio keyboard and insisted I
play and sing all of my songs, and a few Scottish favorites they had marked
down in the wee songbook. On the morning of the wedding the weather was hot by
Scottish standards. It had to be in the eighties and the Brits were thanking
the Lord above for global warming. I had a pub breakfast in the neighboring
town of Auchtermuchty and as I was walking to the B & B where my mom and
Susan was staying, I almost considered walking the other way and keep on going
until I reached the sea, maybe then hop a steamer and head for Norway. Was I
really going to get married? I pulled myself up by the bootstraps and decided
that I was doing the right thing to marry Donna, even though I knew there was
going to be a culture clash. I had no idea how much of a clash was going to
occur.
I
arrived at the Archdoile House at about noon and saw my sister and mother
waiting outside in the driveway by the taxi.
I said,
“What are you doing down here, I would have met you up in the room, we do have
an hour or so until we need to be there.”
Mom
said, “Jimmy, the kicked us out.”
“What!
Why?”
She
went on to explain that the night before my mother had removed her make-up and
used a black towel to wipe off her mascara. She didn’t think it was a big deal
but apparently the owners did. It was the last straw that broke that camel’s
back. I knew that my sister and mother were, by British standards, pushy
Americans and they were beginning to have arguments between themselves maybe
from feeling the pressure of the upcoming events. My sister, you must remember,
is a producer and is used to giving directions in a somewhat demonstrative
manner and I guess their loud voices and demanding behavior would not be
tolerated by the owners of the B & B any further. I was appalled. How could
these people be so insensitive to their guests who had traveled over five
thousand miles to attend a family member’s wedding?
“Jimmy,
could you please go upstairs and bring down our suitcases?” My mom asked me. I
was already dressed in my tuxedo and the sun was peeking and the temperature
was spiking. I was sweating and trying to control my temper. You can tell by the photo pictured here that
I was not a happy camper. I was going to retaliate in some way to these
proprietors, but first I had to get married and I thought that things would go
smoothly from then on. I was wrong.
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