The Wedding

The wedding tells a tale. Two people wanted to be married. However, things may not always be as they seem. Sometimes things become different and we have to think on how we feel at the end of it all. Listen to this tale. Let it show you the lives of two simple strong people. Think about weddings. Also, think about the expectations of families and friends. This story talks about Racie and Hernando. Watch two young adults marry each other. It happens in a small town on the cool side of a mountain.

The Wedding

Does anyone have a problem with these two getting wed?
This was no shotgun wedding.

This was truly a wedding of equals.

Racie and Hernando were getting married.

Both of the families were pleased.

The pair had gone to college in the city

And they had learned new ways of living.

But their whole known world got jolted

When the two decided to get hitched

Right here at the mountain church too.

Zhaney-May had raised the bride, Racie, during hard times.

The timber industry and the coal mines had left

Yes they abandoned Jackson County,

Just about the time of Racie’s birth.

Zhaney-May raised her family in the tin-roofed cabin

Way up on the north side of the mountain.

Here the summer sun touched only for a few hours

And that was in June and July.

This was not the sunny-side of the mountain

Ice chilled their lives for most of the year.

This was hard living.

Hard living was all they had ever known,

But it spawned strong people—very strong people.

Zhaney-May would not be attending the wedding.

She said, “I would rather be it a funeral.”

Hernando was a mean, tough—a brute of a man,

He had a temper that could stop a freight train.

He had once chased off a bear with a chunk of fire wood.

Yep, he smacked her right across the snout.

“I didn’t want to hurt the bitch, b’-cause she had cubs nearby.

They were cute cuddly critters

That couldn’t yet fend for they-selves;

They will make good eat’en come next fall.”

Now he had returned home, a college graduate

With a veneer of civilization that was a smidgen improved—

Just a smidgen.

Steward came to see his little brother become hitched.

Upon orders from his wife,

He had brought his five-year-old daughter,

Sue-Ann, to witness the affair.

An old Lumber-jack said,

“Stewart is a gentle man,

Although he recently beat the shit out of Hernando,

Yes he taught him to obey orders.”

Stew had said; “Orders from me only,

And no one else on God’s green earth.

Sir, I made sure that he understood”

There was an undercurrent of tension

In the small gathering that summer afternoon

As Racie and Hernando walked down the aisle.

This was not a shotgun wedding.

No one was pregnant.

Also, no stern father in the background.

No angry rejected lover.

But—there was an awkward shuffling of feet

Among the locals as the couple walked

Through the small grove of trees

That would serve as the church.

Stew had positioned himself near Preacher Jake,

Where he was visible to clan and neighbors—

Neighbors who were mostly clan.

His presence gave the group a sense of serious calmness.

Kinship runs deep—and sometimes violent—

In these mountains.

In these mountains that time

Time and progress forgot.

There was an awkward silence

When Parson Jake asked

In a voice that had a hint of a hesitation,

“Does anyone here know of any reason

Why these two should not get wed?”

No one uttered a word,

Although there were a few shifty-eyed glances

In Stew’s direction.

Silence was loud.

Parson Jake completed his appointed task.

Stew handed him the three dollar fee and the parson left.

The father of the bride did not kiss the bride.

The best man did not kiss the bride.

There was no rice and no flowers,

No little girls screaming with delight.

Little Sue-Ann tugged at her father’s sleeve,

And said in a loud clear voice,

“But daddy, they’s both boys.”s