The Wedding That Almost Didn't Happen

It's October 19th 1991. Yes! My wedding day.  My lovely bride and I got married that evening at the Milwaukee Athletic Club, a really nice men's club in downtown Milwaukee.  The wedding ceremony was beautiful and the party that night was really a great time with friends and family......though, it almost didn't happen

REASON #1
 The day of wedding my friends and I decided to play basketball at around 3:30( about 3 hours before the wedding.) The club had a small old time gym that was surrounded by brick walls(No padded walls behind the baskets like the basketball courts of 2012). So we're having a good time. 90% of us were severely hung over from the night before (Groom included). Some guy who was an actual paying member of the club made the mistake of asking if he could play in our game. Big mistake. My friends, for their own entertainment, abused this poor fella to the point of him leaving the court. I believe as he walked off the court all of us gave him the Atlanta Braves Tomahawk chop and chant(The Atlanta Braves were in the World Series in 1991 so it was a popular thing to do). Well, we've been playing for about an hour and of course I'm going 100 miles per hour like I normally do when I play sports. I drive down the lane to the basket, trip over someone's foot and THUD!!! I go head first into the brick wall behind the basket and drop like a bag of dirt. Everyone runs to me and I'm just lying there. Someone asks "Are you OK?"  I reply woozily "I didn't do my homework Mrs. Tiller, I'll take the zero" Just kidding. I was fine. Luckily, I've been blessed with a hard head. Some folks might say I have rocks in my head( ask my wife about that).

REASON #2
It's about 6:15 P.M. and we're 15 minutes away from the ceremony. The only thing to do is to have the Ketubah ceremony. The Ketubah is the Jewish Marriage Certificate that is signed by the bride, groom, a witness and the rabbi presiding over the ceremony. In the room besides my wife and I are my Mother, my wife's Mother and Father, the maid of honor(witness) and the Rabbi. The room is quiet.Very serious stuff here.  Everyone signs except me. I get to the desk and start to sign. I all of a sudden stop and say "Hey, I think I just signed the Rabbi's bar bill!"  The rabbi actually laughed (good man), my wife gave me the "Oh brother, can you be serious for 1 second" look but the best was my Father-in-Law.(Who I don't think at the time was so thrilled that his youngest daughter was marrying this moron). I wish I had a picture of his face. The color of his face was a mix of red and pissed off red. If you knew anything about body language and facial expressions, his look basically said "This wedding does not have to happen. I will stop this shit right now if I have too!" Priceless.

The wedding went on and 21 years later I can say that other than the day my daughters were born, it was the best day of my life...that almost didn't happen!