Zooming Along

On a snowy New Year’s Eve fifty-five years ago, my parents got married. We were talking about this together via Zoom call on their anniversary. It was a bit of a miracle that the Zoom call even happened, given the limitations of their computer know-how. As my mother put it when their faces popped up on the screen, “I just kept pushing buttons until something worked.”

“Sounds like me on our honeymoon,” said my father.

It was also a miracle that my parents ever met in the first place. In May, 1965, my father picked up a weekend edition of the Toronto Star newspaper. The Entertainment section had an article about the cross-Canada tour of a musical comedy called Spring Thaw. Featured in the piece was a profile of one of the young actresses in the show, accompanied by her photograph. My father, a young preacher who up until then had been enjoying his bachelorhood, liked what he read and liked what he saw, and so he wrote the actress a letter, care of the Toronto theater currently presenting the musical. He said he’d like to come see it and meet her afterwards. She didn’t get around to writing him back. So he wrote her again and went to see the show.

The two of them began dating shortly after that, but it wasn’t easy. Spring Thaw was touring the country, and my father was pastoring a church and building a summer cottage in the little spare time he had. Most of their romancing took place by telephone, hundreds or even thousands of miles apart. My mother would keep my dad up to date on all the backstage gossip. One day she mentioned that a dancer in the show had been proposed to by her lawyer boyfriend. “They’re getting married December 18th,” she said. The next day my mother received a telegram: I hate to be beaten by a fast lawyer. What are you doing December 17th? When my mother telegrammed in reply that she had no plans, my father’s not-so-politically-correct response (hey, it was 55 years ago) incorporated the fact that he was constructing the cottage not far from a Native American reservation. Native American tribes tend to choose their chiefs based on wisdom and maturity. Using those criteria, I’m not sure my father would have been chosen by them to even run a lemonade stand, because here’s what he telegrammed back: Big Chief need squaw to make wampum, live in teepee, carry papoose. Will you marry me?

I kid you not. That was his marriage proposal.

My mother, in a moment of temporary insanity, said yes. Shortly after that, Spring Thaw took a break, so she flew back to Toronto to meet up with her dashing new fiancé for a few days. He told her he’d pick her up at the airport, which he did. Dressed like a Native American chief. Standing in the middle of the concourse near baggage claim, he presented quite a sight. When I say Native American chief, I mean one that has lost all self-respect, and in addition has been cursed by the Great Spirit with a violent form of colorblindness. He wore paint-spotted sneakers, green-and-brown plaid shorts, a red-and-white striped t-shirt, a multi-colored blanket draped over his shoulders, and a smattering of seagull feathers which stuck straight up from his head like some bizarre mating signal.

She married him anyway (on December 31st as it turned out), and they’ve lived happily ever after. Life zooms along when you’re having fun.

In a few days I’ll be on Zoom with them again, this time to celebrate my father’s birthday. It’s been tough, due to pandemic precautions, not to be able to visit them for these milestones. But being able to see each other, thanks to video-calling, makes it a little more bearable.

I wonder what would have happened if there’d been video-calling back when my parents were dating. Maybe when my mother’s plane landed and Big Chief video-called her from the terminal, she would have taken one look at him, stayed in her seat for the return trip and called things off, never to make wampum or carry a papoose. In which case, I wouldn’t exist.

It’s amazing to think of how each of us came into being through a highly specific chain of events. If one small circumstance changes (like a certain bachelor not buying the Toronto Star that day), a couple may never end up meeting, and never become parents together. Some might call it chance. Others, like me, believe in an Almighty “Chief” who has every detail under control, who doesn’t randomly push buttons until something works, but has a purpose and a plan for everyone and everything.

I’m not sure, God, what your plan is for allowing the coronavirus pandemic, but thanks for finally hitting the “delete” button on 2020. Also, Lord, if you could delete the horrifying visual I now have of my father “pushing buttons” on that honeymoon way back then, I’d have a much happier new year.