Because Friends Gotta Celebrate

Last weekend we hopped in the car and drove to Fort Smith for a special occasion. Alec's friend Derek was marrying his sweet Christy. And of course we would not miss the opportunity to celebrate their special day and hang out with them a bit beforehand. We got to Fort Smith at about 3:30 and got checked into our hotel. Thanks to Derek's plethora of hotel points, he got our room upgraded to a suite. It's good to have friends. We had a bit of time, so we headed over to the Fort Smith National Historic Site to absorb some history.

 

I know: you're completely shocked.

 

We walked around outside and then headed into the museum in the old courtroom and jail. Their exhibits were well done and had some pretty interesting objects, including a piece of noose allegedly used to hang Cherokee Bill, a notorious outlaw. Only slightly morbid. Their exhibits were centered on Fort Smith's role as the gateway to Indian Territory and talked quite a bit about the sovereignty of Indian nations--still a hot topic today. Of course, I had to count spittoons in the reproduction of Judge Parker's courtroom. I found seven, but I suspect there were more. Alec noted that one panel said that there was a big span of time during Judge Parker's (the "Hanging Judge") tenure that there was no appeals court available to convicted criminals in the area. No wonder so many criminals were hanged out there!

 

We happened to be at the fort on the anniversary of a day that two men were hanged, so there were nooses hanging from the gallows. They only put them up on days when criminals were hanged. And the boys had to go examine the gallows to see exactly how the worked. It almost looked like they were looking at the underside of a car. Speaking of cars, we passed the horse-drawn paddywagon on the way to the gallows. It started a whole discussion on the origins of the term paddywagon. Thank goodness for iPhones.

 

Belle Starr also figures prominently into the history of the area, so as we were leaving we wanted to see if the gift shop area had a copy of the book that has the photo of her on its cover that looks so much like me (in which I look so much like her?) to show Derek. They didn't have the one we were thinking of, but they had another one with the same photo. We got to totally freak out a National Park Service employee with it. Score. And no, I am not a scary, horsethieving prostitute.

 

From there we got ready and headed over to meet up with Christy for a short rehearsal/point out where everyone goes session. We then went to dinner at Landry's near our hotel with the bride and groom and some of the bride's friends. The band that was playing was really great; they played some great 60s and 70s covers of some awesome classic rock. We hung out for a while there and then headed to a bar down the street. Shortly after that, my dinner or something else I ate decided that it didn't like my insides, so I had to retire to the hotel and empty myself in various ways of everything I had eaten in the previous 12-24 hours. Alec went back out to support his friend (with my blessing) and had, shall we say, a very fun night with Derek, as evidenced by the twin puke piles off the tailgate of Derek's truck in the parking lot the next morning. They walked back from the bar and sat on the tailgate for a while, apparently.

 

The next morning, after managing to drag himself out of bed, taking a long shower, and making himself human again, we made our way over for the outdoor wedding. The lovely bride, walked down the aisle by her six-year-old son, was radiant. The little flower girl was a cutie, and we caught her out back cleaning the grill at one point. We even got to watch most of the OU/saxet game :-) Everyone had a good time visiting, I got to meet some people I'd only heard about in stories, and the newly-minted Alexanders looked forward to a great week in Las Vegas.

 

Congratulations, Derek, Christy, and Noah!

 

Oh, and on the way home we passed a historical marker! The beginning of Indian Territory. The text, I have to admit, was not the best and had a misspelled name. But, another off the list :-)