By Scott Graber
It is Wednesday, and I’m in the deserted lobby of the Stamford Hotel in Stamford, Conn. It is 5:30 in the morning, but some thoughtful employee has made a canister of complimentary coffee, filled a stainless steel pitcher with half and half, and set-out a small, plastic container of honey.
I’m sitting at a long, library-sized table accessorized with brass lamps and outlets where one can plug-in one’s laptop. From where I’m sitting, I have a view of a deserted (lobby) bar that comes with large video monitors — those now silent monitors showing green and red blobs of rain sweeping through coastal Connecticut. It also shows selected scenes from the Paris Olympics.
This morning I’m feeling the sense of security that comes with large, conference-hosting hotels — Kansas-sized spaces with beige rugs and sturdy black coffee tables built to withstand crowds of energized, hard charging, drink-holding guests. But this morning that complement of conferees — most likely young men who are somehow attached to corporations and the multi-storied towers that puncture Stamford’s skyline — are still sleeping.
Once Stamford was gritty, ethnic and industrial. Then and now it was surrounded by smaller, well-barbered “bedroom” communities where New York City’s post-war executives built their homes and raised their children. Greenwich, Westport, Rowayton, Ridgefield, New Canaan and Darien were connected to Manhattan by the New Haven Railroad.
Darien was the location of my wedding to Susan Roller in 1969. This was not a ceremony completely free of anxiety. My father in law, Reid Roller, was not reconciled to the marriage of his young, middle-born daughter to a callow, southern-born, borderline-grotesque law student of uncertain, unimpressive lineage. Just before the ceremony began, he took Susan aside and said, “It’s not too late to call this thing off.”
Yesterday we drove over to the Presbyterian Church in Darien — actually we went into the adjacent chapel — and stood precisely where we had exchanged vows in 1969. Thereafter we were given a tour of the entire ecclesiastical campus, including a large-windowed sanctuary that now hosts a congregation of about 2,100 people. After that we walked through various lounges and educational offices that were probably built sometime after our marriage. The tour ended in front of the portrait of the man who married us — Dr. “Pete” Horton.
I was later told that Susan had dated the Reverend Horton’s son and that theirs had been a serious romance. I was also told that Susan broke off that relationship and now suspect the Reverend Horton was not happy about that.
Looking back, I also remember that my rented tuxedo did not fit. The pants were way too short the cuffs ending well north of my ankles. This created a hillbilly, Jed Clampett-like vibe not entirely consistent with the buttoned-up, Madison Avenue image then favored on Connecticut’s Gold Coast.
The reception at the Darien Community Club went reasonably well but ended on a sour note when my 1965 Opel Kadett failed to start. I remember that my father, and several of his best friends pushed the car for at least a quarter mile before the engine started. I remember looking through the rear view mirror and seeing these middle-aged men — bent over, gasping, dry-heaving as we made our uneasy way to the Ridgefield Inn where we would spend the first night of our marriage.
My new sister-in-law and her husband, John, gave us a week in their Upper West Side apartment as their wedding gift. It was December and New York City was seasonably frigid and we were more or less broke.
So that first week was a series of cold weather hikes — across a snow-carpeted Central Park; up and down Amsterdam Avenue; then a long, forced march down into Greenwich Village. Along the way we saw the painted, perfumed ladies at the cosmetic counter in Saks; the mechanical, toy-making elves in the windows at Lord and Taylor; the muffled-up skaters at Rockefeller Center; the homeless in Union Square. But those hikes were informed and infused with a sense of expectation — the belief that our life would be full, eventful, loaded with opportunity.
And so …
And so we have come — using that lazy, all-too-easy metaphoric manner of speaking — full circle. Yesterday we were back in that small, darkened chapel where our peripatetic and wonderful trip began. And I can report it has been eventful, and happy, but not without some heartbreak.
Scott Graber is a lawyer, novelist, veteran columnist and longtime resident of Port Royal. He can be reached at cscottgraber@gmail.com.
