I stood at my window and looked out across the open space that could have been a parade ground, and watched the refugees tramping through the muddy gravel. They were people hell bent on getting away, and taking their possessions with them, no matter how much effort it took to haul the little cart along, filled to overflowing with bags and boxes and packages. They leaned and strained and eyes glued on their feet they tugged like oxen bending to the yoke. They reminded me of pictures I have seen of Polish peasants fleeing the Nazi invaders, caught in black and white prints, fuzzy and faded by time; those pictures marked an epoch. And so did these overloaded guests staying at the Evergreen Lodge, a luxury resort high in the Sierra Nevada Mountains.
I turned back to the gas heater hissing at my elbow, next to the Sirius satellite radio which sat next to my cup of tea. I was reading In A Sunburned Country, and laughing and waiting for the curtain to go up on the new epoch in my wife's family. Her youngest nephew, the last of the small brood, was getting hitched. And I was a guest. An honored guest, for I am the groom's favorite uncle. It is a family joke as I am his only true uncle, and I find my presence at these events is de rigeur. Even at 6,000 feet in late September.
The bride and the groom are of the new generation, both raised to be aware and to live life greenly. He is a park ranger and she studies to be a nurse; meat passeth not their lips, and every burned hydro carbon is an offence against creation. I hope for once that the new generation will be able to pull off the magic trick of converting high ideals into practical reality; something my generation signally failed to do. I wonder how many generations of almost-but-not-quite-accomplished high ideals our over-engineered world can cope with.
The marriage was a robust affair, as it had to be, thanks in large part to a storm that produced light snowfalls, black thunderclouds and cold heavy rain. We cheered the young couple on, and they are so perfectly paired it seems certain to me that they will have little difficulty holding their vows up to the test of time. I witnessed both sets of parents escort their offspring down the aisle, both sets of parents still married, still setting a singular example to the parents-to-come. That's not a sight one sees too often in a world rendered complex by multiple families and tangled relationships. These two are families that appear to mate for life. 
It is clear from this picture that two happy people are getting married. A celebrant holds the book, the groom's older brother looks on, as the witness-in-chief. It is a scene that is reflected around the world in all human cultures and a marriage is a public event that, like a funeral, has a purpose that is immediately discernible to any human observer. We all get married, in more or less the same way no matter what our language, history or even religion. I enjoy that multinational subtext at weddings. I have seen Europeans marry, Berbers marry, Hindus marry, Africans marry and Americans marry, and its all pretty much the same. I even understood my Jewish wife's traditions at our own marriage...
It is clear from this picture that two happy people are getting married. A celebrant holds the book, the groom's older brother looks on, as the witness-in-chief. It is a scene that is reflected around the world in all human cultures and a marriage is a public event that, like a funeral, has a purpose that is immediately discernible to any human observer. We all get married, in more or less the same way no matter what our language, history or even religion. I enjoy that multinational subtext at weddings. I have seen Europeans marry, Berbers marry, Hindus marry, Africans marry and Americans marry, and its all pretty much the same. I even understood my Jewish wife's traditions at our own marriage... .
The ample fireplace was also the theme of the weekend, in a place where daytime highs grazed 60 degrees and nighttime lows hovered near freezing; temperatures decidedly not suitable for my Florida-thinned blood. The young people who attended the celebration were not one whit deterred. They reveled in their loud plaids, their hairy shirts and even hairier woolen Andean caps, with long flaps over their ears and puffy down jackets insulating them from Nature's fury. Some few of them slept in tents for want of $175/night to sleep with gas heat and satellite radio. We took pity on the Preacher and his own soon-to-be-wife and encouraged them to sleep in our spare bedroom. Our cabin was as large as our modest Florida home. Everything is ample in California, not just the fireplaces.
The ample fireplace was also the theme of the weekend, in a place where daytime highs grazed 60 degrees and nighttime lows hovered near freezing; temperatures decidedly not suitable for my Florida-thinned blood. The young people who attended the celebration were not one whit deterred. They reveled in their loud plaids, their hairy shirts and even hairier woolen Andean caps, with long flaps over their ears and puffy down jackets insulating them from Nature's fury. Some few of them slept in tents for want of $175/night to sleep with gas heat and satellite radio. We took pity on the Preacher and his own soon-to-be-wife and encouraged them to sleep in our spare bedroom. Our cabin was as large as our modest Florida home. Everything is ample in California, not just the fireplaces.
I looked on and shivered and not just because of the cold. I became more acutely aware of the passing of time as I watched the robust youth busy themselves with all the social activities that these occasions demand. They strode and organized and huddled and planned and laughed and I was glad I was in the second tier, at the back of the marriage party. 
Uncle Chuck was not at this wedding, a first since I married into the family. He was killed by a heart attack a good few years ago. In the old days he stood and smiled and sang when called upon at Jewish gatherings, prayed in Hebrew when needed and toasted all who needed a reminder of why families are families. I missed Uncle Chuck this past weekend, I mourned the absence of a generation older than mine and I cannot but help feeling that I was an inadequate substitute, no matter how old the passing of the generational torch made me feel.
