Wholly Matrimony in Port Angeles!

It’s not very often that an event will cause BowlingJoe to not be in attendance at an Al Stewart concert in the Seattle area, but here’s one that even trumped ol’ Al. Last Saturday, our family plus a couple of more crammed into the Toyota Matrix and headed off to the greater Port Angeles area for a wedding. My niece Alysa (daughter of my brother, SteelheadScot) was getting married to Derek from Minnesota. They met some time ago at a Bible School in Oregon called Ecola. And to think that all this time I thought that Ecola was something you get from eating bacteria-tainted spinach.

The crowd settles in for the outdoor wedding

We showed up a little bit after noon. I received a classic Olympic Peninsula greeting when my brother gave me a hug and doused me with some ritualistic beer from the bottle in his right hand as he was doing so. He has such a way of making me feel at home.

SteelheadScot and his lady Sheryl did a stellar job for weeks in preparation of this outdoor, footwear optional event. It all came together, including a glorious 75-degree sunny day. Tents, chairs and tables were in place. The caterers from Bushwacker Restaurant arrived on time and were busy preparing salmon, kabobs and lots of other stuff. Wheelbarrows full of ice, beer and soda started to show up. The hay bales were in place for us to sit down on during the ceremony.

The wedding official, BowlingJoe's dad and

BowlingJoe's stepmom: something that is not likely

to be seen in the same field of vision ever again.

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It was nice to mill around and visit with some family and friends we haven’t seen in a long time, as well as to meet some new people. And what a diverse crowd it was. The variety of folk ranged from the spiked hair/body pierced/tattooed set all the way to Latter Day Saint and everything in between. I was thinking and laughing to myself that this is the only occasion this particular assembly of humanity will appear together on the same piece of property.

After some official photos, it was time for the wedding to start at around 2:15pm. In lieu of providing a running commentary, I’ll simply say that it was a beautiful occasion and things went off without a hitch as far as I could tell. Despite the fact that I’m credited with officiating two weddings (yes, I’m the “Accidental Reverend”) what happens or doesn’t happen during a wedding ceremony still confuses the daylights out of me.

SteelheadScot walks Alysa down the aisle
In the end, however, the only important thing is that it was the day that Alysa and Derek were looking for. I have it on good word that indeed it was. So here’s to a long and happy marriage for you two. But please don’t be in too big of a hurry to start a family. The thought of calling my little brother a grandfather at this juncture of my life is really unsettling.

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Alysa reading vows to Derek: the deal is sealed!

The Failed Jocks Football League

For the last decade, the first week of September has meant two things: the opening of bowling season (which I’ll get to in one of these future blogs) and the Fantasy Football Draft. Except for a year’s hiatus, BowlingJoe has been making the annual late summer trek to Canyon’s in Bothell to try and outsmart a league full of other self-proclaimed football geniuses and win tens of dollars in valuable prize money.

The league is aptly called The Failed Jocks Football League, or FJFL, a name which Bowlingwidow invented for me when I was league commissioner. However, now that I think about it, a few of our teams are “owned” by the high school aged kids of our original members. I’ll let them have a free pass for now. I figure that by the year 2016 they too will reach the status of fully vested Failed Jocks.

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The Failed Jocks Football League: hard at work at the annual draft

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For the last few years, I’ve had a partner in this fantasy mayhem. He’s a loyal Washington State Cougar graduate and fan (and even remains so after last week’s savage beating at the hands of U-Cal) so we’re known as The Wazzahulas. And being a Central Washington grad myself, I figure that being tied to the only Pac-10 team east of the mountains is appropriate.

Everyone arrived at the draft on or before the designated time and most of us had our required supplies directly in front of us: beer, soda, appetizers. Oh, yeah, and the lists of available players with rankings that only football geniuses like us could develop.

In this league we get to keep two players from last year if we choose to. We kept running backs Frank Gore (SF) and Steven Jackson (St. Louis). Both were disappointments last year but are expected to be productive and have comeback years. Yeah…..that’s what I was thinking a couple of days ago when I saw a highlight of Steven Jackson taking a big hit for a loss and watched his helmet come off and fly across the field.

We’ll all be shooting to knock off last year’s regular season champion E. Chelsea (inexplicably, this league is loaded with guys who actually enjoy watching, playing, and coaching soccer). And in our “try and win your entry fee back” playoffs last year it was one of the kids and the Friday Night Lights team that prevailed.

Add Boyz Club, Boom and Nut, Who Dat?, Loose in the Palouse, The Bottom Line, Not Them Again, and On the Boards, and there’s our ten team league. Speaking of team names, BowlingJoe is really glad that we’ve managed to take the high road and keep the monikers clean. A long time ago in a league far, far away some schmuck decided to name his team Full Chub. A manly but nonetheless tasteless label.

The season is now officially underway, and our underachieving Wazzahulas are officially 0-1 after a ten-point loss to E. Chelsea. Next week we’ll send our squad back out to the pretend gridiron and take on the Boyz Club. The owner of the Boyz Club is a successful high school girls' soccer coach who is just starting his season and has a lot on his mind. Hmmm…..maybe if I can get him talking about his school team he’ll forget about submitting his FJFL lineup and we’ll default our way to the win column.

Let the strategy and dirty tricks begin!