“Remoted – Hybrid” – Day 598 (Thursday)

A lifetime ago, I was married. It was the 1980s and I was about 18 months out of college and working as a bank teller. Even though we married in September, it was November before we took a honeymoon trip. Partly due to our “not exactly rolling on dough” status, or maybe we were just cheap as all hell, our post-wedding trip was low budget and low key. We went to New York. Don’t get excited, it wasn’t like we stayed at a ritzy place in Manhattan.

My sister-in-law at the time got married November 4, and we were in town for the wedding. The wedding was in a function facility and started with a cocktail hour and smorgasbord in one ballroom. Then the wedding service took place in another room, followed by a sit-down dinner in a different ballroom. Rolling liquor carts came to the table to deliver drinks. The only thing you needed to leave your seat for were dancing and to use the rest room. It cost a bundle. As in tens of thousands of dollars.

After the wedding, sister-in-law and her new husband went to St. Thomas for a week on their honeymoon and we went to their apartment in Rego Park, Queens for a week for ours. Elegant and exciting, no? The apartment was small and the kitchen was claustrophobic. The car had to be moved from one side of the street to the other each day. Hubby wrapped our cash in aluminum foil and put it in the freezer.

During that week, a hurricane hit the region and the St. Thomas honeymoon had heavy rain, so we probably got the better honeymoon of the two. And our accommodations were free. 

Age 23, in the early
days of adulting.

From our base in Queens, we did New York things. We rode the subway and took a horse-drawn carriage ride in Central Park. We saw Cats at the Winter Garden Theater with my mother-in-law Helen and her friend after our friends bailed on us and left us with two extra tickets. There was a shopping trip at Macy’s, and a visit to the family jeweler, a guy named Al who had a counter in the Diamond District where Helen would badger him until he promised he wasn’t charging her sales tax.

We drove to Atlantic City and I heard at least 1,000 times on the drive that Bruce Springsteen is from New Jersey. We stayed at the Tropicana for a night or two, where I spent lots of time in the room alone and the husband lost most of our money gambling. Those are the things I remember, but it was a long time ago. Somewhere, there are photos of the wedding and the trip to Queens, but not in any of the dozens of photo albums that are readily available.

Neither of the marriages lasted. Maybe the storm during the week of the honeymoon was an omen for the St. Thomas couple, and the unexpected solitude and gambling were omens of things to come for the Queens honeymoon couple.