How the Thornberries Became the Thornberries--Part II

Friday, July 30: Hopes and Dreams Go South

The Hangovers Hurt More

I woke up the next day feeling like masticated marshmallows. Nevertheless, I stumbled out of bed, pulled my pants on over my head, belted on my clipboard, brushed my teeth with my pencil and tied my shirt to my feet so I could eat my shoes for breakfast and get downstairs for the conference.

The conference itself would only be interesting to someone in the same field, so we’ll skip a description here. Suffice it to say that both JS and myself were quite glad for the breaks.

Our Boxy Little State-of-the-Art Workhorse

This being our first trip in a long time, Jennifer and I had decided to use it as our Rubicon into the world of advanced technology. Yes, technophobes that we are, we still finally broke down and purchased ourselves a very nice digital camera. Sure, there were probably more advanced versions, ones with telescopic lenses the size of a well-endowed elephant, flash bulbs bright enough to give the picture subjects sunburn or shutter speeds so precise it would capture windblown cellulite in a blur of mid-flap. But we were happy with a middle-of-the-road camera in the $250 range. This one had everything we needed, including a memory card large enough for 130 pictures. Hell, who needs more than that?

While I was at the conference, it fell to Jennifer to explore the area around the Beau Rivage. She went about the casino and dock outside, finding neat building facades, intriguing people, gelatinous living substances and prickly plants to be immortalized. I laughed when I came back to the room during a break at a time when she wasn’t there, because I found the camera and was able to view all of the neat little shots she had previously taken.

A couple of pictures Jennifer took with our new digital camera, whilst I was at the conference.

Oh, Yes! I’m the Great Proposer

At last came the moment I’d started tentatively planning as far back as the last week of March. Yes, following a long period of time in which the idea popped into my head several times, I had finally decided I would use the Biloxi environment as my opportunity to ask Jennifer, my significant other of five years, to marry me. As women will, Jennifer has been hinting at it for awhile, though she was probably not even entirely aware she was doing it. Men always are. ;)

I had wished I could have gotten the ring first, as that is more traditional and would have given her a better story to share later. But there just wasn’t a feasible way to transport it through airport security without her knowledge, and anyway, I really wanted her to have input on the selection of such an important symbol of our relationship. I didn’t trust my own butter-fingers approach to the world of sentiment and emotional homage.

At one point, while I sat in the conference, suffering from the previous night’s excesses and struggling to pay attention to a presentation less immediately relevant to my own professional interests or responsibilities, I made a journal entry regarding my intentions. I noted even then that just recording the intent caused my heartbeat to increase. That very entry noted: “It is a powerful decision I contemplate, one with irrevocable consequences. I do feel like an adult now.”

I figured that moonlight on the Gulf of Mexico would be a good plan. Okay, so I had no idea it would be a night of a full moon, nor that we would find a place overlooking the Gulf itself. But I did manage to "pop the question" away from the general hubbub, outside the Beau Rivage, on a little dockside pier where the waters of the Gulf flopped and undulated. The next day, we recorded the approximate spot in the video sequence you can see here:



When she calmly looked back at me and said she was proud to accept, the course of events was begun that would see us become The Thornberries. In fact, we walked around the big-ass boats moored there for some time, while she started planning out everything. She ultimately wouldn’t stop planning until nearly seven months later, when she said, “I do.”

Seven months after the proposal in Biloxi, on February 19, 2005, Jennifer and Thomas tie the knot.

But for now, were weren't sure how things would play out with invitations and such, we decided to sit on our newfound status as an engaged couple. My colleagues labored on, none the wiser.

Incidentally, it is worth noting here that the li'l balcony where I proposed was thoroughly destroyed by Hurricane Katrina over a year later, on August 29, 2005.


NEXT: Exploring the Deep South.

Click for Part III