The kids will be getting married in less than a week now. I find myself walking around with a big stupid grin on my face at the thought that my son - who I am pretty sure does not yet know how to tie his own necktie - will be standing up before God and all his pals to promise the rest of his life to his new bride. I am completely certain that Shannon and Pat will be the best bride and groom ever.

They live about two hours away from us, so I can only assume that all the preparations are going well. At least, we haven't received any hysterical phone calls. We did see this message posted to Shannon's Facebook page:

Things I need ASAP: 

A.) Someone to drive an 18 passenger old school Dodge shuttle van from the hotel to the wedding site (approx 3 miles) from 4:30-5:30 & 10:30-11:30pm. 

I can pay you, you just need to be sober. 

B) A bagpiper that doesn't cost an arm and a leg from 5pm-6pm. 

oh yeah... AND I need 3 strong boys that wanna help Pat get 2 300lb cement flower pots out of his truck tonight at the wedding site. They are VERY heavy!

I received a pretty unique voice mail the other day. According to the caller ID it was from a friend who likes to talk almost as much as I do, so I was not all that surprised to see that her message was more than fifteen minutes long.

As I listened to it, though, I was kind of puzzled. She did not speak, but I could hear faint sounds of shuffling silverware and stacking dishes. I could hear my friend's voice, ghostly and distant, singing in the background. After a few minutes of this I heard keys jangling, a car door slamming, and then a radio playing - with more of that weird, haunting, far-away singing.

I mean "weird" in the best possible way, Leah. Really I do.

One of my all-time heroes left our world today. Ernie Harwell, the Hall of Fame broadcaster who used his gifts to transform Detroit Tiger games into works of art, passed away today at the age of 92. Here is a column I wrote last year, when Ernie told us all that he had inoperable late-stage cancer, and that he would soon be leaving his wife Lulu and all his loving fans behind.

I moved to Southeast Michigan on a blind date in the Spring of 1975. When I arrived I was a White Sox fan, mostly because I had spent my formative high school years within easy obscenity-shouting distance of Chicago. Back in those days, probably the best thing about our pathetic Sox was a broadcaster named Harry Caray, who was known for saying "Holy Cow!" Harry used this as a fairly transparent substitute for shouting obscenities .

As that first summer unfolded, two amazing things happened more or less reshaped my life. First, Nan and I decided that the blind date was going well enough to get married, which is bound to make a summer stick in your mind, just about any way you cut it. 

Second, I discovered the Detroit Tigers and a baseball play-by-play man named Ernie Harwell.

My son is going to get married in a little less than a month. For Nan and I this is the coolest thing ever, since we are crazy about his fiance, her parents, her brother, her friends - and her taste in guys.

As the weeks go by, all the wedding plans are proceeding more or less normally for the kids, with nervousness over all the details spiraling steadily up past anxiety and into flat-out hysteria.

All this elaborate wedding plan stuff is a little bit foreign to Nan and me. Thirty-four years ago when we got married, we had a quick service in a tiny stone church (she wore a peasant dress, and I splurged for a sport coat) followed by a really fun potluck at a friend's house. With a pool.

Yes, the groom did go swimming with all the other kids.