The Prince and the Shooger Booger 15 years and counting

    They were all there in the Collinsville Baptist Church on April 1, 2006 for the marriage of the Prince and the Shooger Booger. David Larussa was there (and his wife), Aunt Katie and Meg, Paul Scarpa son's Doubles partner Ross, All American Raymond WEaver, Koch Brothers Casey Mattox and JoJo, Burgeoning screenwriter Russ Beene and Trusted UPS buddy Andy Myers, a designation of Jubilate from UVA, David Ryan in the balcony and Laura a few folks down; all there high and low for the betrothal of Prince John Morgan the Third and his Intended Susan R. Weaver,  aka the Shooger Booger.

   Becky Kennedy flew in from Waco to direct the choir. Mark Petty was an envoy from Terrapin Hills with the daughter of Ronnie McReynolds. Joni Gant of the fun Pacers Summer of 2000 came back.

    Becky was chosen as a product of the Collinsville church where she interned after college. I think she was in the foundation of the group Pure Heart, which she and the Prince's Mother directed, a very good youth choir for a small town church in NE Bama. They had a good run in late 80s through mid 90s.

     I sang in the choir. The other two members  of the Shooger Booger Adoration Society UPS Andy Myers and screenwriter Sam R. Beene were in charge of the candles. They were in the church at 1 pm CDT for a six pm Betrothal.

    Place was packed. I sang my best, even Mark Morgan made a rare appearance in the choir, the lesser brother of Duke. Was a very humid afternoon, I was kinda sweating on the front steps of the church waiting on the choir processional into the sanctuary. I remember an exchange with Casey and a frown from Jennifer Wilkins.

     The night before the brother of the groom professed adoration and lifelong devotion to both his older brother and his heroine, the bride, whom it turns out he had adored all along as a woman two years older who navigated the pitfalls of coming of age in a small town where a football coach and a babdist preacher were always under the microscope with aplomb. Well mostly aplomb.

    I wanted to tell the story of the scarf, but the bride asked my silence as it might provoke other comments. Most spoke of the Prince. I wanted to tell a shooger booger story. I'm still dying to tell Aunt Katy. I told Peg several years ago at lunch in the cafeteria of the school. She had a most memorable and witty reply.

     Jackie Weaver donated his 57 Cadillac convertible for the victorious ride of the couple from the church east toward the RR Tracks to the Reception at the Library under construction. Nessa's catered. The Snoopy song awaited them, the Booger's favorite, and a fine jazz band from a local juco was the sound track. By that time everybody was sweatin as no AC in the shell of a building. The Weaver males, cousins and Uncles took their food and refreshment on the sidewalk across the street sans Jackets. I remember a short exchange with them there and Joni Gant who I saw for the first time. that evening.

  Something of a food critic in addition to his screenwriting, Russ Beene volunteered Nessa's food was very good. Beene's culinary standards go so far as to appreciate the aromatic appeal of used tea bags when placed in the right cans of emptied Campbell's Noodle Soup, appropriately positioned for atmosphere.

 Dr  Brooke Shepard crashed the Reception to see her high school friend Matthew another brother of the groom.

     President Clinton's Secretary of Education's Dick Riley neighbor in SC Aunt Katy, the oldest sister of four of the bride's mother, pronounced it all Storybook. They had their own row, the Coplin row, at the FUMC of Guntersville, Alabama in the 60s.

    And with that review and those credentials, so it was.

    There was a honeymoon and the couple was back the following weekend for Palm Sunday; and on to good works With Habitat for Humanity in Americus, Georgia, the next chapter or as Denis Johnson said at the end of Train Dreams: And that time was Gone Forever.