For Thursday, June 19, 1997 Drummer Column, Gibbs, 704 words

Peace party

My wife is a genius. She is also brave. She's lucky, too.

Our daughter Kristi is engaged to be married in September to Chad, her boyfriend of four years. They get along fine, but their combined family trees branch frequently, and in radically opposite directions.

Chad's parents are divorced and remarried, as are Kristi's parents. For many years the relationships between the Ex's has been strained at best. Chad's dad's new wife and Chad's mother do not speak. Whenever they've been forced together, like at Chad and Kristi's graduation from Humboldt last spring, they've just glared at each other from across the room. My wife, Susan, and Kristi's dad's new wife have done similar glaring things. The new and old husbands just have little if nothing to say to each other.

So, Kristi and Susan have been fretting over the upcoming wedding. We sure wouldn't want a brawl to break out at the country club. How could we possibly get everyone on the same wave length? How could we get everyone to swear a truce, at least long enough for the kids to have a nice wedding?

The solution: turn responsibility over to my wife.

Susan decided the best thing to do was to throw an engagement party at our house and invite all the combatants. So we did that last Sunday, Father's Day.

First, she set her own problems straight by calling Carol, Kristi's new step-mom. Susan flat out told her that they had to start getting along for the sake of the children. Carol, relieved that Susan had made the first move, agreed. Then they had a nice talk on the phone about dresses and flowers. Chad called his mother and flat out told her she had to behave herself or else.

Anyhow, everybody called everybody and we agreed to meet in my backyard at high noon.

Susan ran out and bought lots of beer and seat cushions. She figured if she could get them buzzed and seated comfortable, a conversation might ensue. Sure enough, that's what happened, eventually.

At first, each group captured a section of the house or yard and pulled their wagons into circles, virtually ignoring everyone else at the party. Susan and I zipped about filling glasses and making jokes. Slowly, the walls came down.

At one point, the men all converged in front of the new big-screen TV Susan bought me for Father's Day. We flipped to channel 2 and watched a bit of the Giants game. The guys started talking baseball -- safe, neutral territory. Then we switched to channel 6 and watched a bit of golf. More chat ensued. I grabbed everyone another Sierra Nevada Pale Ale.

A few of the wives poured into the room and my son Adam switched the channel to MTV. Mick Jagger and the Rolling Stones were burning up the stage. Mick was strutting before the camera flexing that weird rubbery face of his. The women all had comments to make. Mick was either a stud, or a freak, or a freaky stud. "More white wine, anyone?"

Susan sensed the momentum building and capitalized on it. She called everyone out onto the deck for a toast to the new couple. George, Kristi's bio-dad, had prepared a speech. This required that we gather in a circle, all intermingled. He talked about peace and unity, a wonderful topic. "Champagne, anyone?"

When George finished, a few other people made impromptu speeches, mostly funny ones.

Again, Susan was on the move. While the speeches were going on, she was cutting the cake into 24 pieces. We went from sharing words, to sharing champagne, to sharing cake.

As we finished the final crumbs, she called everyone into the living room so the kids could open the few gifts that arrived. This stimulated more chatter. By this time we were all home free. Ex's were talking, new parents were talking.

When the party ended, everyone walked smiling to their cars. Kristi, Chad, Susan and I all flopped down on the couch and breathed sighs of relief. Now, instead of September bringing a possible new Ice Age to the Bay Area, it will bring together new old friends.

My wife is a magician, an extremely attractive magician.