When Wade and Lindz tied the knot three years ago, The Black Eyed Peas “I gotta feeling” ended up being the theme song and inspiration for An Ode to Cincinnati. I wrote that story in honor of my friends in attendance and how my opinion of the Queen City, always adversarial in nature, had turned 180 degrees. The idea of living in Cincinnati had never appealed to me, despite so many close friends living there, but when I witnessed their joy as group that evening, living the lives they had imagined for themselves, I couldn’t help but have a change of heart.

Two weekends ago I found myself in Boston at another wedding and the theme from three years ago, “I gotta feeling”, was the second song of the evening. I was transported back to that night at Wade & Lindz’s wedding and remembered the joy of seeing so many friends in one place. When I returned from my momentary experiment with time travel, I realized I was among the second group of friends that had been incubated because of a lone friendship.

Gib, one of my freshman year roommates, had grown up in Cincinnati, only a stone’s throw from Oxford, Ohio where we learned the joys of life. Besides being a good buffer between our third roommate, Gib provided me the opportunity to meet his already existent group of friends from Cincy who had also found themselves in Oxford. Several of them had attended high school together or knew each other from the ‘burbs, but were quick to allow outsiders like me join their Band of Brothers. Fat, Wade, J-Dawg, Hoj, Cole, Zelch, and Hern were all there that evening three years ago, and I’d found myself among them because of Gib, a lynchpin of a man among men.

On this evening, I found myself in Boston because of the other lynchpin in my life, Juice. Over the course of my four years in college, I had progressively spread my wings and made random friendships, but Gib and Juice were the two branches that had provided me the most opportunities to meet new people. Juice was like Gib, another tall, lanky Ohio kid, but he hailed from Medina, in the upper eastern recess of Ohio.

And like Gib, he had a group of close friends, who while they didn’t join him in Oxford, were likely to visit at a moment’s notice. Juice was also accepting of me into his home on multiple occasions over the years, as Gib had been, where I quickly became a part of the Medina boys’ lives.

While that evening was a celebration of Beeker’s wedding, I was reunited with this second Band of Brothers from Medina: Riegans, Slaby, BillyJ, and Riiitz [Jinx, Daryl and my brother Will had also managed to finagle their way into this troupe by way of Juice]. Two groups of friends, tied together for me by two different lynchpins that I’d somehow been fortunate enough to cross paths with.

As “I gotta feeling” faded into “Gagnam style”, the parallels between these two groups slowly came to the forefront of my mind. While I may have been the lone common link between these two nights, I can’t help but see myself as an observer, rather than as an integral part of their stories. I’ve effortlessly floated amongst these two Bands, consisting of lawyers, physicians, engineers, accountants, chemists, and businessmen.

While each of us has managed to carve out our own lives, this night was in celebration of Beeker and Beekerette’s union, as Wade and Lindz’s night had been three years before. And each wedding brought together two distinct, yet somehow alike, groups of men.

Two Bands of Brothers, each celebrating one member’s nuptials, and like the days of our youth, letting the good times roll.