AS A MAN THINKETH... 04/01/00

Subject: As a man thinketh...
Date: Sat, 1 Apr 2000 12:55:35 EST

...can be very different from how a woman thinketh. Consider my son Peter.

Peter called up today to make a generous offer to the Lockhart womenfolk: he would happily treat us to a complete wedding outfit - shoes and stockings to coat and hat, if we wished - for his daughter, Whitney's, BIG DAY.

Wow!

Just one problem. The wedding is two weeks from today.

Ladies, how many of you would be two weeks away from an important wedding and not already know what you are wearing and what you are wearing with what you are wearing. (Men, can you follow?)

If we were to take Peter up on his generous offer, it would mean having to do some intensive shopping over the next 12 days.

Men can go into whatever is their equivalent of Brooks Brothers or whatever and pick out a top quality suit, shoes, socks, briefs, T-shirts, ties. This woman approaches putting together an outfit differently.

> Due to a mastectomy and general physical decrepitude, my foundation garments are ordered from a specialty store in Jenkintown.

> My orthopedic shoes have to be special ordered from Faherty's and take closer to 2 months than 2 weeks to arrive.

> If I was planning on wearing a dress other than what already hangs in my closet, it would probably be made to order (see above for reasons), which means finding the pattern, fabric and a seamstress with enough time to get it done in less than 2 weeks.

As it is, the outfits I will wear to the rehearsal dinner, the wedding and the post-wedding day brunch already wait patiently in my closet for me to pack them up for our short jaunt to the Great Valley (Fraser, PA) Sheraton. I like them and they suit me. As for Elsa, she's had her outfit pressed and ready to go since December, with her jewelry in a velvet pouch pinned to the dress.

Yes, I will wear my somewhat battered clodhoppers, as well as socks instead of stockings.

Yes, I may look more like Mammy Yokum than Hope Montgomery Scott, since health has left my dentures all catty-whompus so they do not fit any more and there is no time to get new ones.

But with a bride as radiant as Whitney, a groom as happy as Chad, and a dad as proud of Peter, who is going to notice anyway?

What touches me deeply is Peter's thoughtfulness about my wardrobe and his undiminished belief in the wonders his Mom can pull off. They leave me with a smiling face and heart.

On a different note ~ I hope today is as beautiful wherever you are as this Pennsylvania spring day is here. Elsa is taking me to lunch at our beloved Pat's Colonial Kitchen, my first full-scale social outing (not counting a couple March trips to B&N) in months. The trees along Newtown's State Street should be in full flower. I am all a-twitter in anticipation.

Love to all - The Grandmother of the Bride

reposted in sweet memory of its author, KATHARINE REYNOLDS LOCKHART, by her scribe/daughter, Elsa Lockhart Murphy aka Deev, in honor of the 05/14 centenary of the Grandmother of the Bride's birth