Home

Thy Will Be Done 🎵

My 2023 setting of The Lord’s Prayer

Hannah Suz Song 🎵

My 2023 song about toddler Hannah Suzanne

Weidenbachers’ Romance-Fantasy 🎵

A 2021-22 father & son collaboration

A Haddonfield Idyll 🎵

My 2019 song about the town I love living in, and why.

A Ring Around Your Finger  🎵

My 2022 re-up of a 1936 song by my Mom & Dad

Ginny 🎵

My 2017 song about Girlfriend #1 way back when, 60 years later.

Words, Words, Words

Words of The Wise

Be Prepared

Mined & Smelted By Me

Words of Consolation

Walter’s Opera

Link to the Cincinnati Museum’s PDF 23-page listing of just some of Dad’s works over the years. (I didn’t know he was this prolific, nor how consumed in his mind he must have been all the while. He was always busy.)

POLONIUS:  What do you read, my lord?

HAMLET:      Words, words, words.

                        📚

“Incline your ear and hear the words of the wise.”

(Proverbs 22:17)

Sources can be found on Google

The Wedding of the Century

Remarks by Walter from the House of Weidenbacher

Upon the marriage of his daughter

Laura Beth to DJ DuRocher

May 31, 2019

Hello everybody. I’m Laura’s Dad, and I’m so happy to see all of you here for this auspicious occasion.

Because it’s expected of me—the Father of the Bride—having just “given away” my precious daughter, I have a little speech about what a lucky guy I think I am, and what a lucky guy I think DJ is.  You done good, man, but this is all about Laura.  Still, I’m darn sure that Laura is darn lucky, too.

I’ve got loads to say about this woman I’ve known for lo these many years—and, comparatively speaking, precious little to say about the groom—but enough.  Laura’s life has been beyond interesting—with many stories to tell. But, I’ve decided to pare down all the biographical stuff to a single sentence about both Laura and DJ, which is this: They are two solid individuals, and they love each other!  All the rest is talk.  And so, talk I shall.

The wedding invitation talks about the “House of DuRocher” and the “House of Weidenbacher.”  Sounds like some kind of game.  But what kind of a game would have only two houses? Not a game of thrones. Actually, in this game there are many mansions.  The House of Ditzel. The House of Drumm. The House of Lampe. The House of Franz. The House of . . . .  and the list is endless.  But I’ll stop to give a special shout-out to the House of Ditzle, namely Laura's mother, Constance, for having given me and us—all of us—this child and gem.  And, too, I want to thank DJ’s parents, Suzanne and Robert, whom I’ve never met.

The good book instructs:  “Let us call to mind those who have finished their earthly course and have been gathered to the eternal home. Though vanished from bodily sight, they have not ceased to be; they abide in the shadow of the most high.”

I can tell you for sure that, today, Suzanne and Robert have been with us here.

Maybe others of you, from some house or other, would like to say a few words, and I hope you do. I’m all ears.  This is one big happy family meeting.

About a year ago, around the time Laura and DJ put this date, May 31, 2019, on the calendar, an eloquent friend of mine, Karl Kraft, quite by coincidence, wrote the following words about the marriage of one of his own children. Karl wrote: "There’s hardly anything that compares with the marriage of a parent’s child to someone he or she knows is unquestionably his or her life mate to fill that parent’s heart with joy.”  Oh my, how that word “joy” resonated with my own feelings about DJ and Laura and their intention to marry. And it still does.  They rock!  Am I right, or am I right?

I watched DJ and Laura bond over several years. It was a beautiful thing to see. Like two different—but not terribly different—elements having been tossed into the cauldron of destiny.  We can call it fate, divine intervention, miracle, or just the Haddonfield restaurant where they met. Whatever.  Fact is, over time, the soup was stirred, and magic happened. Actually chemistry happened—real science. And voilà! Love blossomed.  Exactly when it happened I don’t know, but at some point, as the old song goes, a page was torn out of time and space.  And I believe that when it happened, it happened silently.

How silently the precious gift is given.  Which brings me to another quotation I want to use. This from a poet talking about how our lives change constantly and dramatically, usually in silence.  The poet is speaking to his wife who has just given birth to their second child. It includes the following lines:

I quote:

“The constancy of change is a silent worker. . . . .

Now a new voice enters the domain.

And we find ourselves a new four.

You and I and TWO. . . . .”

He repeats the refrain,

“The constancy of change is a silent worker.”

That singular moment of contemplation was written a lifetime ago. But it is decidedly relevant to today’s mirth and merriment. You see, the poet was Laura’s grandpa, and that newborn later became today’s Father of the Bride. That “new voice” became the one you’re hearing right now. And when I came across the poem recently, I thought it would be altogether fitting and proper to mention it—it having come directly from a house from whence came our Bride.

Which brings me to a word of fatherly advice of my own for the happy couple, from my storehouse of lessons-learned:  Love each other, submit to each other, and never do anything that might give you reason later for regrets or resentment.  In short, strive to live the contemplative life, and always be sure to do what you really want to do; what YOU want to do. Never put yourself in the position of looking back, whapping yourself on the forehead, and saying, “What was I thinking?” Know that answer!  Always, know what you’re doing!  When a sacrifice is called for, think about it, and see to it that you’re committing to something you want to do, with cheerful purpose and with Love. Otherwise, don’t do it.  And be always sincere, never selfish.  Observe The Golden Rule. Do unto others as you would have them do unto you.

Before I close, I have to tell you: I promised Laura I wouldn’t say anything embarrassing. But I did not say I wouldn’t DO anything embarrassing. Right, darling?  Well, I’m leaving whatever I might do to chance.  But I did decide not to wear my tutu for our big dance.  I ask you: Did I decide the right thing? Anything for the Bride.  No tutu.

Thank you all for coming, and I, the Father of the Bride, want to especially thank Laura and DJ for paying for it.

In closing, I want to add: This is a match made in heaven.  God has already blessed this Union. And the wedding itself was one more awesome manifestation of the abundant blessings that God showers upon us with unending . . . Constancy.

Thank you.