Hello everyone, for those who don’t know him
that’s my little brother Dan over there, he
got married earlier today, to the girl in the
white—Hi Tara. This speech will mostly be
about me and it won’t be short either—no way
I’m wasting an audience this size. Laugh
whenever I pause and it will be over soon.

I’ve decided to render this speech in the
dialect Dan and I spoke when we were kids,
before he became a big fat Southern Frat Boy
sell-out. This requires no effort since I was
always too stubborn to talk any other way.
His kids may not sound like me when they
start talking but I am sure I can find other
ways to corrupt them. But we'll come back to
that. 

So a couple years ago Dan was sitting at the
end of the bar, and Jerry Kovar, who, as far
as 17-18 spouses go—really top-notch—anyway,
Kovar walks over to where Dan is sitting and
without preamble he starts slapping his face.
And every time he slaps him he says, “Tell
her how you feel.” “Tell her how you feel”
SLAP etc and he’s pointing at him etc. I
would have liked to stop Jerry and say,
hey—that's my brother if anyone should be
slapping sense into him it's me—but I guess I
was too amazed, I mean the guy is just
slapping away here like it’s the Three
Stooges and you don’t see that every day. I
could have told Jerry that Dan is not afraid
of getting what he wants. It’s more that
courting Tara from inside the fishbowl that
is our hill was probably not an attractive
prospect to him—plus, have you seen the
in-laws? He probably wanted to put off having
to babysit Danielle's brood for as long as he
could.

I really wanted this job; I really wanted to
do this for Dan. Dan has earned and kept in
    his life several men of talent and virtue
    who could have done it. Instead he got
    me! So I never took it for granted. In
    fact I wasn't really sure I got the job
    until they handed me the microphone just
    now. What happened was, last summer Dan
    and I were, you know, socializing all day
    in various Hoboken saloons and we end up
    in this seedy cigar bar watching
    cowboy-and-indian movies, and he says,
    "So you gonna be Best Man or should I
    have Mike do it?" (He might have said,
    "Beefchip.") And I'm like, "yeah sure,"
    as though people ask me to be their best
    man all the time and I'm accustomed to
    it, but really I want to get up and pump
    my fist, you know, after having waited so
    long for him to ask. And that was all Dan
    said about it—ever. This has not come up
    since, so for a good long while I was
    left to wonder whether Dan had even
    remembered asking me. I was afraid to
    bring it up, so when people kept asking I
    said, "I think so," which turned in to,
    "Yeah," which brings us here. 

So like I said Dan lost his accent at UVa but
he received much in return. For example, he
went on exchange to Denmark and, Dan does not
like to brag, but he's actually now fluent in
Danish. When Dan was a senior in high school
I selflessly offered to drive him down to
Charlottesville to assess the academic
potential of the university there. We hit a
few beer blasts as well. From what I saw
there I was able to offer my full-throated
approval and before you knew it Dan had
matriculated and was on his way to being a
big hit on campus. I would take more credit
for all of this if I hadn't almost screwed it
    up for him on a later visit by
    accidentally offering his dorm warden a
    beer.

Actually I sped down I-81 a number of times
to visit Dan in Charlottesville. It had
several advantages over my own univeristy
setting, such as sunshine, football, and
co-eds in tennis shorts having tickle fights
on the quad. You can have things like that
when it's 80° and sunny in February. I was
there when UVa's Cavaliers upset Florida
State. I was way up in the stands and I could
see Dan down on the field, leading about 2000
of his closest friends in a sincere effort to
uproot the goalpost. There he was, hoisting
people onto the crossbar one after another
with that manic devil grin on his face that
all of us here are familiar with. I caught up
with him later that night and while he was
unable to communicate verbally at that point
he still managed to terrify some FSU fans we
came across in the street.

So as I said at the beginning, Dan and Tara
wed earlier today; I suppose I should say
something about how that all came about. I
recall a particularly Disney Channel moment,
the night of the “White Party”—not to be
confused with “White Power,” which is a
different night altogether— when Tara’s
brother Mike announced to a mostly younger
crowd in the Kids’ Casino that “some of you
may not have heard, but Dan and Tara like
each other.” Guess so. Every day since has
led to this day. I received warnings from my
sister, concerned that I would influence Dan
against matrimony. But it's Tara, so she need
not have worried. 

Tara I’ve known her whole life—which entitles
me to speak for twice as long. Tara knows me
better than anyone I can think of. I'm not
sure she knows how valuable that is to me.
She sends plenty of eye-rolls and skeptical
scoffs in my direction, but it's from a place
of understanding. She's quite good at
Scattergories. Now it looks like we get to be
friends forever. Hear that Tara? You’re going
to be rolling your eyes for the rest of your
life! I hope you considered that before
taking your vows earlier.

I don’t remember exactly when Tara stopped
being my friend Mike’s gawky little tag-along
sister and started being my friend but I do
remember roughly when she decided to bring
Dan to heel. She had her work cut out for
her; it was no easy pursuit. At one point, I
won't say when or where, her exasperation
crested and she had to ask me, “What is wrong
with your brother?” However now that all is
said and done I can reveal that what must
have seemed like obliviousness on Dan’s part
was in fact a shrewd test of Tara’s resolve!
I'm glad Tara stuck it out. She's everything
we could ask for in a sister-in-law. 

I recently wrote a letter to a friend who got
married, in which I compared him to Dan.
Might as well reuse some of that right? Well,
the point of comparison was Dan's pragmatism
and his confidence and resolve. Dan is a man
who gets things done, who never broods or
feels sorry for himself, who thinks!—but for
whom thought never excuses lassitude, a man
who makes the very best of things as he finds
them. He's going to be an excellent husband,
an excellent father. I'm proud of him, I'm
happy for him. 

Cheers.