The Ballad of High Noon

Ellie Chen and Daniel Hubbard celebrated their marriage in the High Noon Saloon in Madison, Wisconsin! The bride wore cowboy boots, and the groom stood slim and tall and not-at-all horizontal, as most of us are getting. Ellie is no cowgirl, and Daniel is no rancher. On the wall of their house there is a fine, old Stag's head, which Ellie bagged on a hunting expedition to an antique store of the more ordinary sort. They do have two shelter dogs, and a delightful sense of just how solemn it is to marry.

The High Noon is no storefront on a dusty street. It is a brick building on a major Madison street, and Madison is no dusty cowtown, either. It is a large, small city cradled by larger lakes and a determined land bridge between them. It is a capital city, a university city, a city with restaurants by the side of the lakes, and the capital square wears a necklace of hand-picked produce and flowers. It is a rowdy and civilized city, where people come to learn and to laugh and argue about what it should mean to be alive, and in love, over a Spotted Cow.

We were all believers, at the wedding of Daniel and Ellie, and we all believed we would have another Spotted Cow.

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