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2022, September 1: a wedding in Ohio
About a month before the unplanned Florida trip, I found myself taking a much happier, anticipated one, moving in the complete opposite direction and with a totally different set of family members: my wife and her parents instead. Which isn’t to say that, though knowing months in advance about this wedding, the way we initially learned about it was any less surprising.
It all starts when Erin’s cousin, Kati, calls to break the big news about tying the knot. Kati has been living in Torrance, California, which is basically a suburb of Los Angeles (unnecessary fun fact: I also have a first cousin, Shanna, who lives with her family in Torrance), for who knows how many years. Except she and her fiance are about to move, back to his hometown, about which Kati knows nothing.
“Where?” I hear Erin question, from my nearby seat. Listens to Kati’s reponse, then mutters, “hmm, I don’t know,” before asking me, “hey babe, have you ever heard of Bucyrus, Ohio?”
I start cracking up and tell her, “uh…yeah! It’s basically the next town over from where I was born…”
So this is all completely mind-blowing, considering Erin’s side of the family does not hail from Ohio. Erin and her sisters and parents were all born in New York City, the borough of Queens. With the other family members mostly branching outward from that same…
