Things I learned from my wedding - Part 2 - BIRDSEED

Rob did not have a laundry list of demands about our wedding and reception.  He had one, and that was DO NOT under any circumstance let anyone "decorate" the car.  He arranged for our friend Jim Thurman to be the enforcer.  Jim was given the car keys and the responsibility to keep evil forces away from the Prelude.

That was not to be.  I don't remember exactly how events transpired, but this is what greeted us as we left the reception:

Because Rob did not have a laundry list of demands, and because this was his one and only concern, he was (to put it politely) not a happy camper.  His greatest fear had come upon him and all the assurances in the world from me that everything was going to be all right fell on deaf ears.

The culprit was, not surprisingly, Bram.  Bram was a long time family friend who was married to Rob's cousin, Robin.  He was a notorious prankster at weddings and had evidently outsmarted enforcer, Jim.  There was shaving cream and crepe paper and tin cans.  But the worst was the birdseed.

Bram Johnson, John Fiedler, Rob, Jim Thurman

According to our reconstruction of events, Bram had coated the dash and steering wheel first with vaseline, and then with birdseed.  This, of course, meant that not only was the car coated with those things, but eventually by riding in said car, parts of us and our belongings also became coated with vaseline and birdseed.  

After leaving the reception, our destination was the Del Coronado Hotel in San Diego.  But the few words I could get out of Rob gave the distinct impression that we were going to our apartment first.  To confront Bram, I suspected.  I'm a little fuzzy on details here, but I remember waiting with Robin and her son Jason while Rob and Bram went for a walk.  Not exactly how I had pictured the beginning of my honeymoon, but if you're going to have to wait while your new husband lets off some steam, you could do no better than waiting with the ever-calm Robin.

The boys came back.  There was no blood as far as I could tell.  I think that we all hugged each other.  And we were off in our hastily cleaned up car.

Of course, I thought that mess was now behind us and we could enjoy the start of our life together.  That might have happened if not for Rob turning on the air conditioner which blasted seeds at our faces, cruel reminders of that which were trying to forget.  We opened the moon roof, more seeds.  Glove box, more seeds.

Rob pulled into a Burger King after realizing that neither of us hadn't eaten.  More time to cool off, I thought to myself.  A couple of whoppers later, Rob seemed a little more settled and I no longer feared that he would accidentally drive us off a cliff.

We arrived at the Del Coronado and went to our ocean-view room.  All thoughts of birdseed expunged from the record.  Happiness.  We looked at the ocean and at each other.  More happiness.  Then, we open our suitcases.  We shouldn't have been surprised to find them filled with birdseed.  But we were.  Piece by piece we pulled items out of the suitcases and shook out the seeds.  Then Rob took the cases out on our beautiful balcony and dumped the seeds outside.

The next morning, we had a Hitchcockian moment when we looked out on to the balcony and saw it was covered with what looked like thousands of seagulls, all scrambling for their brunch of wedding seeds.  I think by that time we might have been able to laugh at the absurdity of the situation, but to be honest, I don't know that for sure.

The following spring, after a good rain, the ceiling around the moon roof started to leak so Rob took the car in to be repaired.  The mechanics had to take apart the entire roof.  They called Rob to tell him what they'd found - the inside of the roof was filled with sprouts.  Apparently, some of the seeds Bram had put into the moon roof cover had worked their way down into the roof itself, and with a little bit of water, had sprouted.  We had a roof filled with sprouts.  Bram.

 It might have been tempting to hold a grudge against the person who had pulled such a prank, especially after being warned not to.  If the prankster was not Bram, that is.  Instead, as the years went on, Bram steadily and powerfully nurtured our friendship.  We were lucky that L.A. was a part of his travel for FedEx.  He called every time he was in town and we lost track of how many dinners we had together.

The most memorable was when Rob had expressed the feeling that he was stuck in his job at Technicolor and really wanted to move on but couldn't because he had a mortgage and a wife and a baby and and and.  Bram said, "Okay, what if I pay your mortgage for a year.  NOW what are you going to do?"  Together, Rob and Bram came up with a prioritized list of who Rob was going to contact.  And it was from that list that Rob did move on.  And Bram didn't need to spend a dime of his offer.  It was all about setting goals and then achieving those goals.  And no one was spared.  No one within his sphere of influence could escape his questions or his enthusiastic support.  We could do anything we set our hearts on, and even do things we had never thought of doing.  He'd be in the middle of grilling one of us and then turn to someone else and say, "Don't think I'm letting YOU off the hook!  You're next!"  Once when Emily was housesitting for Bram and Robin during her spring break, Bram came back early from a business trip.  The next day he taught her how to drive a stick shift and then took her to shoot skeet.  Just an average day with Bram.

For the rest of the time we owned that car, whenever we turned on the A/C, some random seeds would fly out and yet again hit us in the face.  Each year fewer and fewer seeds, but it only took one to remind us.  Oh, Bram again.  He passed away almost four years ago.  It was one of the biggest shocks of our lives.  Little did we know at the time how deeply Bram had planted seeds in our hearts and souls.  The seeds were not meant to remain as seeds.  The seeds he shared were meant to grow.  Maybe he didn't intend for them to grow inside the roof of our car.  But he did intend for us to water them and watch them sprout and grow in our lives.

This photo shows Bram relaxing at my dad's house in Laguna and me, happy to have him there. We always knew it wasn't easy for him to travel on business and also trek on over to meet us for dinner, especially after long flights and long hours.  But he did it anyway.  And never complained for a second.

So, Bram, thanks for the zillions of seeds - in our car, in our suitcases, in our lives.  We no longer have the car, but that hasn't stopped the seeds from flying in my face at the most unexpected of times, and I say to myself, "Oh, Bram again."  Each time I know it's another reminder to take the seeds we've been given and make sure they aren't gobbled up by the seagulls, but that they sprout and grow and produce other new seeds.  And that seed produces new seed, and the cycle continues... 

I'm not sure anyone could have convinced me on November 28th, 1981, that I would ever be thinking of birdseed with anything other than fear and loathing.  But now I realize it's not all about the seed.  It's more about the sower.  And we were blessed with the best.  Thank you dear Bram.  We love you.