Posted on December 28, 2009 - by Hubba
OOh Kay…
To anyone who may still be here, I apologize for the long absence from my House.
A lot has happened since I was last here. I moved to White Owl, SD and got engaged to the lovely Ms. Bonnie Timmons. It was about damn time I reckon.
I wasn’t even sure if I wanted to continue doing this, but I think I do, so I may as well start today, it being the first day of the rest of my life and all that jazz.
This morning on the Rapid City Journal website there was an article about the Horseshoe Bar in Rapid City. The Horseshoe Bar has long been the blue collar dive of choice in Rapid City, and for years it was situated on the very edge of town, in a field full of Appaloosa horses as the Journal pointed out. But the city has slowly and surely crept toward and around it, and it appears that the Horseshoe Bar will fall victim to the next round of development.
I have only been in the Horseshoe Bar once, and the regulars gave me a most touching Fallen Hero’s welcome, which I did not at all deserve.
It went like this here-
In August of ‘05, I was conscripted as an usher at the wedding of two dear friends in Rapid City. The afternoon before the wedding at the rehearsal, the minister went to great lengths to impress upon us the solemnity and seriousness of the occasion. The minister unfairly characterized some of us as “godless heathens” or something, and decided that we needed a firm hand on the tiller of the ceremony, along with several extra sermons about the proper time and place for celebration.
Well, it was all too much for one of my fellow ushers, who likely wasn’t entirely comfortable with churches and such to begin with. The Victorian manner of the minister had the opposite affect of that intended, and at the earliest opportunity, our fractious usher got just as drunk as a person could possibly get. And then woke the day of the wedding and proceeded to get drunker at the Horseshoe Bar.
Meanwhile, the wedding party was supposed to meet at the church at 12:30 for pictures. I did not understand that I didn’t have to put on my penguin suit until I got to the church, and so, liking to be prepared, I went ahead that morning and put it on. And I really was cutting quite a figure, in my lightly starched tuxedo, with a mandarin collar on the shirt, shiny black shoes, black Ray-Bans, and cowboy hat. I was western James Bond.
So there I was, all shined up to the nines, when we got the call that our usher was in the Horseshoe Bar, presumably defiled, and he had fifteen minutes to be at the church, and could two of us please go retrieve him, and something about “using force if necessary.”
Our usher had indeed been at the Horseshoe Bar, where he had loudly proclaimed to anyone who would listen that he was supposed to be an usher at a wedding, but that pushy Minister So and So wasn’t gonna tell him what to do, so take that world, and yes he’d take another, and here’s to defiance, etc. etc. And then he had left. And the regulars at the Horseshoe Bar were waiting…
Out in the parking lot, my second wasn’t terribly excited about “using force if necessary” on an increasingly belligerent and very big drunk, so I offered to just bop in there and see if our drunk, er usher, was in there, and amend the plan accordingly. And I stepped through the door of the Horseshoe Bar all dressed to the nines in my shiny penguin suit. At 12:45 pm on a Saturday, which was precisely what the regulars at the Horseshoe Bar had been waiting for.
In the act of walking through the door, I became their Fallen Prince, my beautiful wedding being ruined by an unruly usher. They had all literally been watching the door waiting for my arrival, and they proceeded to give me a most solicitous welcome home. No amount of reasoning could have ever convinced them that I was only an usher; I was the Hapless Groom. After the cheers, I was given the warmest sympathies and told that I had “just missed him,” but if I hurried, I could probably catch him (no one was quite sure where I should hurry to…) I thought to ask the apparently deaf proprietor if he sold Copenhagen, whereupon I was offered a shot of Crown Royal (I had already turned down something like thirty shots), a pencil, and a cell phone, before someone bawled in his ear that “HE’S ASKING FOR COPENHAGEN!” and he replied that no, they didn’t sell that.
If I had had time, they would have regaled me all afternoon with tales of disastrous wedding ceremonies and dying dreams, but I did not. I bid farewell to my hastily acquired friends, and one woman offered that “we could try it again tomorrow if this doesn’t work out” and I left.
The usher was at the church in all his glory when we got there. Several attempts were made to make him look presentable, all utter failures, and he was removed from the wedding party. Our usher formation was a little assymetrical, but the wedding went ahead more or less as planned. There was a little hitch, in which Minister So and So got his comeuppance in front of the whole congregation, half of whom including me laughed.
But I kinda wished I’d stayed at the Horseshoe Bar…
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone!
20 Comments
We'd love to hear yours!
Leave a Comment
Here's your chance to speak.
-
Flickr Photos
Visit My Website
December 28, 2009
Permalink
It was -and not that its relivant but i was most pleased to hear it
Glad your keeping hubbas house
Visit My Website
December 28, 2009
Permalink
Matthew! Congratulations!! I am so happy for you! What are you doing to pass your time in White Owl?
Visit My Website
December 28, 2009
Permalink
I’m very glad you are back. Don’t stop now.
Visit My Website
December 28, 2009
Permalink
Man! I didn’t think you was ever coming back! Stick around and tell us more!
Visit My Website
December 28, 2009
Permalink
Congrats!
Visit My Website
December 28, 2009
Permalink
So glad that you are back. I have been eagerly hoping that you would pick up your pen (metiphorically) and find your way back to us.
Visit My Website
December 28, 2009
Permalink
Glad to see this, I knew you would find your voice again.
Visit My Website
December 28, 2009
Permalink
Great Horseshoe story… and great news about you and your Bonnie lass! I get the feeling your ushers will be just as lively a bunch. I hope you and Bonnie will enjoy your wedding and married life as much as Erin and I have enjoyed ours.
Visit My Website
December 29, 2009
Permalink
Glad your back bud!!! God bless you and we look forward to reading more..
Visit My Website
December 29, 2009
Permalink
Thanks everyone!
Visit My Website
December 30, 2009
Permalink
Congratulations on your engagement (and on your mention as a notable South Dakotan in SoDak Mag’s recent edition).
Glad to hear you’ll still be blogging!
Visit My Website
December 30, 2009
Permalink
I’m pleased you have decided to press on with Hubba’s House. Keep it coming!
Congrats on your new life in white owl.
Visit My Website
December 31, 2009
Permalink
missed your wit and and stories. Don’t leave again!
Visit My Website
December 31, 2009
Permalink
Congratulations on the impending nuptials.
Visit My Website
January 1, 2010
Permalink
I do believe the last time I saw thee was 4th of July in Wasta – you on stage, me taking pictures and scribbling notes for a Penn Courant story of same. And then you announced my name and I had to stand on stage with you crouched in front of me as I read something someone wanted you to read, but you shuffled off on me. I’m glad you did. It cured me of my 55-year stage-fright phobia. Just like that! Cured. By you. How much do you charge for curing stage fright?
Never mind. I’m broke. I saw your picture and write-up in SD Mag. Wow! You’re famous. I know someone who is famous. What does that make me? A friend of the famous? Someone who knows someone who is someone? Less than you but more that the guy passed out behind the Wasta Bar? Gee, Matthew T., I remember when you were a little shaver and you’d come in the Wall DQ with all the siblings and I’d wait on you and take your dad’s money and then deposit it in the bank, the successful businessman I once was. Once was is therapeutic you know. Once was. I heard in a session once. Never forgot it. Like I will never forget the time you announced the Wasta Fire Dept. firemen’s competition. Remember that day? Hot as blazes. And you alone in the sun atop an abandoned flatbed, not a soul within 30 yards of you, but there you were doing your emceeing and announcing stuff. And I took your picture and put in the Penn Courant and by God I think we sold extra papers that week. Must have sold extra papers because you is someone as opposed to me, who is not someone. Truth is I’m just one of them, which is 180 opposite of one who is someone, namely you and your kind. Your kind is awfully kind, too. I think Trask is a universal word for kindness and goodness, and hard work and preservation and justice and music and the sound of life on a lonely night when the only other sound is a coyote in the distance. That’s what Trask means to me. Of course I used to sleep in a house up the street from a Trask who was also the SD Miss Rodeo, just about the prettiest girl this side of the Mississippi. That much I know ’cause I been to every state ‘cept Texas and Oklahoma west of the Mississippi and I know pretty when I see it. So you Trasks are smart and preservationists and masters of the high plains and smart and, well, darn good looking, every one of you.
Anyway, Hubba, sorry to hear you’re not writing Elm Springs news, but am glad you’re married and working on other projects. I just hope as you go through this world we call life you remember some of the people you acquainted and drop them a line or something.
You take care.
You take care.
Terry
Visit My Website
January 1, 2010
Permalink
CONGRATULATIONS HUBBA!!
Visit My Website
January 1, 2010
Permalink
hubba hubba hip hip hooray. my buddys back and i’d like to say. it’s good to see you back old friend, so tell them stories, don’t let ‘em end. here’s wishing you a great new year, next time we meet we’ll drink that beer.
Visit My Website
January 5, 2010
Permalink
This is great — so glad you’re back. For some reason, the image of a tuxedoed and Ray-Banned you has me thinking, “The lone penguin rides again!”
Congrats to you and your bonnie lass. But mostly to you — my dad tells me that we all marry above our station …
Visit My Website
January 7, 2010
Permalink
I am so glad you are back. I love to read your stories. In my hectic life, it is wonderful to take a moment or two and read your writings. They make me smile and feel good.
Visit My Website
January 19, 2010
Permalink
Now Matthew…we have a few things to discuss about this story….I know you are in lovie la la land but my dear you are a year and a month early on that date
haha That would be September of 06 and you were not wearing shinny black shoes you were wearing rocking american flag cowboy boots as requested by none other than ME and thanks alot for rather being at the bar than my wedding!!! 
haha it’s alright i still love ya and am still happy you made it to the wedding ON TIME NOT DRUNK…