Three wedding rings

I got to know Josh in the late 60s when I was dating my first husband, Michael Bliss. Josh, Michael, Richard Olivo, and John Kyrk were sharing a house on Mount Auburn Street in Cambridge.  When Michael and I got married in July of 1969, Josh was best man at our wedding, and Richard and John were two of the ushers. (Josh is  in this photo on the far left.) At the wedding, shortly before I was about to start down the aisle, Josh pulled me aside, and said he had something he needed to tell me. From the anguished look on his face and the way he gripped my hand---well, you can imagine what I assumed! It turned out that the night before, the ushers had gone out on the town, and somehow the wedding rings, which had been in Josh's keeping, had gotten lost. Josh had run out to the 5&10 in town (Mt. Kisco, NY) that morning and bought some cheap replacements, and he didn't want me to be upset at the altar when the wrong rings turned up. He couldn't stop apologizing. Sometime during the wedding reception Josh disappeared. When he came up to me later, hot and sweating in his tails, he presented me with a small box. He had raced back to town in his little green MG, found an open antique store, and bought me a tasteful, gold wedding band. It was a perfect fit.  Months later, the father of one of the ushers was cleaning out his car before selling it--the car his son had borrowed for the wedding—and discovered the original wedding rings on the floor. Josh was finally able to laugh when he told the story. I had three wedding rings, one dearly-beloved friend.  

--Corinne Demas