Weddings and Funerals: the first 1,000 words.

The teenage trio on the American Legion bandstand took off their plaid jackets, turned up their amplifiers, and blasted the hall with a shriek of feedback.

"Holy Cripes!" old Roberta Chance complained into Irene's ear. "They're turning up the volume!" You're right, Irene thought as she nodded to her mother-in-law, who sat next to her at a center table. The kids and their loud music are taking over. They want the adults to go home.

Then the band began "Jumpin' Jack Flash" with the same corny bounce that had filled "The Hokey Pokey" ten minutes earlier. But by the first chorus, the singer howled into the microphone, the drummer beat hard and fast, and the guitarist cut a jagged edge that echoed through the hall. Irene watched the dance floor fill quickly. Girls dropped their shoes along the walls and hiked up their long skirts to dance more freely. Boys, with loose neckties and rolled shirt sleeves, followed the girls and threw themselves into the music. Couples danced apart, apparently ignoring one another. How can they enjoy that? Irene wondered, they're not even touching!

Irene saw Charlotte, her son's bride, unpin her veil and drape it over a chair. Then she skipped weightlessly to meet Bobby, the boy in the blue tuxedo. And Irene spotted her daughter Cathy, spinning with her arms raised, her glasses missing, and her white corsage drooping on her powder blue bridesmaid's dress. She danced with her brother David. Now free of his jacket, cummerbund and bow tie, he moved with crisp, choppy motions like gym class calisthenics. Scanning the crowd, Irene could pick out three more of her children. Jeffrey (in his mutton chop sideburns) attempted a clumsy jitterbug with his girlfriend Karen. Mary and Joan, the two younger girls, smiled broadly as they danced with mop-headed boys whose jackets flapped loosely on their tall, slim bodies. Even her little girls were growing up, drawn irresistibly away from her. Her children would be gone before she knew it, so she should make the most of nights like these. She remembered that she wanted a family portrait of everyone dressed for the wedding. But time was getting short; she'd better round everyone up before the reception was over.

Irene sighed and turned to her mother-in-law. Ravaged by cancer, Roberta Chance looked 80, though she was only 67. Her cane leaned against the table, and, the corsage of white orchids seemed huge on her sunken chest. Irene thought of her own mother, dead from cancer two years now, saw her pale, wasted figure in a white hospital bed, with a translucent tube coming out of her nose. Missing her mother, Irene reached over to pat Roberta's hand.

Then Roberta leaned toward Irene and yelled into her ear so she could be heard over the music. "This has been a lovely wedding, dear," she said. Roberta's loud, strained voice sounded familiar to Irene. They talked by telephone every Wednesday, and Roberta still thought she had to shout for long distance. "I love to see the young ones enjoying themselves."

"Everyone's having a good time," Irene said. But when she looked across the hall and saw Bobby and Charlotte-- their smooth, round faces flushed from dancing -- she felt uneasy. What are these kids getting themselves into? She shook her head and shouted over the racket to Roberta. "I hope this will give the kids a good start."

"Did they get a whole lot of money?" Roberta opened her eyes wide and smiled broadly to reveal her three remaining teeth.

"Bobby's coat was jammed with envelopes," Irene reported. "And David handed Joe a stack of cards a couple of inches thick. Everyone has been so generous."

"So I'll be a great-grandma by Christmas!" old Roberta laughed, and squeezed Irene's hand with a hot, damp grip.

"No, ma, they didn't have to get married," Irene said and shook her head to defend her son. Then the band stopped playing and the kids filed from the dance floor past their table. Irene lowered her voice and leaned toward Roberta. "As far as I know," she said, "Charlotte's not pregnant."

"I'll never understand these kids," Roberta laughed. "Why don't they wait till they grow up?"

"I'm the wrong one to ask," Irene sighed. "They're in love."

"Oh bullcorn! They just want to sleep together!"

"Ma!"

"Well, make sure I get copies of all the pictures," Roberta said and smacked her lips over her jaws. "You know how I love to keep pictures of everything. I even have pictures of your wedding, Irene, of all those crazy kids at your mother's house on Portage Street, when you and my Joe got married before you knew any better, remember? I love those pictures, don't you?"

"Yes, I do, Ma."

"My favorite is the picture of you with your Dad, Irene. He was so tall and distinguished-looking with that perfectly white hair, even then, and here standing next to him is this pretty young brunette in a wedding dress. You were looking at the camera, Irene, but your old man was looking at you."

"My father loved me in his own way," Irene said softly.

"Of course, he did. In his way. Well, make sure I get all these pictures that fat young photographer is taking. My, doesn't he have a weight problem?"

"Don't we all!" Irene laughed, thinking of herself being photographed at her wedding. She was 17 then and weighed 120, 26 years and one hundred pounds ago.

On the opposite wall, a clock hung from the claws of a gilded eagle. It read ten after ten. The reception would be over soon and the family's first wedding would be just a memory. If Irene was going to have a family picture made, now was the time to round everyone up.

"Excuse me, Ma. Now that the band's taking a break, I'd like to get your fat photographer to take a family portrait for me."

"Good luck at rounding up all them little Indians!"