No. 167 – The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face

Performer: Roberta Flack

Songwriters: Ewan MacColl

Original Release: First Take

Year: 1969

Definitive Version: None.

This, of course, is an incredible song. You have to have a heart of stone to not be moved by it. In fact, this probably is the first song on this here list that if the circumstances and timing had been different, it could have been a contender for the top slot. (And, yes, I STILL don’t know what that song will be, although I have a better idea.)

However, I didn’t know The First Time Ever I Saw Your Face beyond just in passing when I met Beth or Melanie, and neither of us were together when I finally did. So here it is, at No. 167. Nevertheless, I still have a tale of romance that I associate with this song. How can I not?

Not counting the wedding where we met, Laurie and I have attended five weddings together. Until a year ago, we had attended as many that involved gay partners as straight. The only difference aside from the sexuality of the couple, of course, was that one group couldn’t legally marry, which is an outrage.

The first “gay marriage” I attended was that of two of Laurie’s (and now my) closest friends—Stephen and Michael—in 2006. It was one of the best weddings I ever attended in every respect.

Stephen and Michael wanted to have a commitment ceremony in front of their sea of family and friends, so they said, sod the law: We’re doing it. I took particular delight in the fact that it was planned for a site in South Haven, Mich.

I was at Torch Lake during the 2004 election when Michigan voted to constitutionally ban gay marriage. I wrote a letter to the editor of the Traverse City Record-Eagle, calling the paper wrong-headed for its editorial that backed the ban. (Of course, it wasn’t published.) My point: Legalized discrimination never has stood the test of time in this country and it wouldn’t here either. It was inevitable: Those in support of the ban would be on the wrong side of history.

Now, a decade later, I have my “I told you so” letter written and ready to send to the Record-Eagle—for it to not publish—when Michigan inevitably has its constitutional amendment repealed. So, yeah, in 2006, I was more than happy to go to Michigan and flip the bigots the bird as I witnessed two gay lovers commit to one another out of love. (SPOILER ALERT: They’re still together.)

In June 2006, I drove myself to the location after finishing work at my still-new job on Friday. Laurie had spent the previous week at her summer writing program at Kenyon, so in addition to the ceremony itself, the weekend would be a reunion for us as well. Love was in the air, all around.

As can be the case, traffic out of Chicago was stop-and-go, so I arrived later than expected and much later than Laurie. This led to much consternation from those in Michigan—those awaiting my arrival and those tired of comforting those awaiting my arrival. I got a text—my first—from a friend of Laurie’s. The exasperation was obvious: Where the f r u? I couldn’t respond.

At about 8, I arrived at the two-building plantation-like inn where the lawn had been set up for a wedding the next day. Laurie said later that as soon as she recognized my car, she left her group of friends—who told me that Laurie could barely hold a conversation before I showed up—and raced over to greet me. Yes, I’d missed her terribly, too. How things had changed since she essentially booted me out of her apartment to have some space the previous January (good ol’ No. 554).

Friday night was a big party. The drinks flowed freely, and everyone was jovial. The party continued for me and Laurie in our second-floor hideaway, which was just big enough for a queen bed, an end table and a door to a bathroom, not that we needed much room.

We stayed in the wedding-party building, because we were part of the wedding party. Well, Laurie was. The last thing Stephen and Michael wanted was formality, so they had a nonreligious ceremony that was more pagan than anything. Laurie, who was the most spiritual of anyone in the inner circle of The Posse, was asked to be the celebrant. OK, so it wasn’t the same as the hot nun fantasy, but I’d never been with a minister before.

The next day was spent preparing for the ceremony, and, like any wedding, as the event drew near, tensions rose. Part of the ceremony involved Stephen and Michael placing Hawaiian leis over each other. (Yes, they wore aloha shirts. I wore a suit.) One problem: No one could find the leis before the ceremony. As you can imagine, panic ensued.

Brent, who acted as the wedding planner, took Laurie and I aside to fill us in on the trouble. We quickly decided we had to keep this a secret from Stephen and Michael. The leis would turn up, we were certain, but it might not be in time.

As Laurie went with Brent to look for the leis in one direction—and this was like just before the ceremony was to begin—I went in another. My path took me close to where Stephen and Michael stood. Everyone was getting antsy, and I suddenly found myself face to face with BRIDEZILLA-zilla-zilla.

“Where’s Laurie?!” Michael shouted at me. “We have to get started!” I played coy. “Oh, uh, she’s a-round.” “You go find her … NOW!” “Uh, yeah, I think I saw her go this way. I’ll go get her.”

Of course, I knew exactly where she was, but I needed to keep buying time. I went to look in our bedroom, where I knew she wasn’t. However, time ran out, and people were called to the area where the ceremony would take place.

Brent and Laurie had no luck finding the leis, so they worked out a routine whereby Laurie would sprinkle loose petals when the time came. But just before she started, one of Michael’s nephews who had been filled in remembered that he put the leis in the refrigerator in his room. They were retrieved, and the ceremony went off without anyone being the wiser. Whew!

The ceremony was as loving and beautiful as any I’ve ever attended, not only just because my love of Laurie swelled with pride as I watched her perform her duties. She was very nervous, and I reached out to her to get through it. As she said later, this was more important than acting. This was real.

Midway through their ceremony, Stephen and Michael had more of their (and our) friends perform this very song. These were professional musicians—two singers, a guitar player and a violinist—and they blew everyone away. There wasn’t a dry eye in the yard, particularly Laurie’s. She stood to the side with her eyes welling up, and I hiked around the circle until I was close enough to be able to slip my arm around her for the rest of the song. She said later she couldn’t tell me how much she appreciated that.

Then it was done. Stephen and Michael kissed, we cheered and the party began full tilt. Later that evening, Stephen and Michael heard the whole story about the leis, and Michael couldn’t apologize enough about his behavior toward me, but I told him not to worry. It was funny at the time and funnier now.

The lei hunt was a wedding-day secret that became known right away, but there was another. Later in the evening, while everyone danced, I snuck up to my room with the wedding celebrant for a private, two-person dance session. Laurie thought we were ending our night, but I had other ideas. Nah, let’s go back to the party. She said she’d never snuck off—only to return—like that before. She said she loved hanging out the rest of the night wearing a secret smile for reasons no one knew about … until now.

The party went till 3 a.m., and it was quite a time. It made for a bit of an early morning the next day when we had to clear out, but it was worth it.

Because Laurie and I drove separately, due to arriving from different starting places, she went ahead. I took Cliff in my car. (Janet had to leave earlier than we did due to work.)

That was fine, because Cliff and I had a stop to make. A few hours later, we were pulling off U.S. 20 outside of Chesterton, Ind. See, I was in charge of the ordinance for the Fourth up North in a few weeks, and that meant one thing—Shelton’s Fireworks.

Cliff didn’t know about Shelton’s, and he was overwhelmed the first time ever he saw the aisles of fireworks piled to the warehouse rafters. We spent an hour in the store like kids in the candy aisle. Oh, we gotta get Chicago Fire! How about Rain Forest? Ooh, Voodoo; I love purple! We left $300 poorer but much richer for the secret knowledge of the spectacle that was to come in July.

Come to think of it, it had been a weekend chock full of fireworks.