The whole bunch of us went to Wilson's Mills last night to look at a house that Hilary and Travis are considering.  Both sets of parents, Hil and Travis and Travis' brother, Tyler.

It's a nice house, good condition, three bedrooms, unfinished upstairs.

These are uncertain times to buy a home. The market is very soft, as evidence by a story in today's paper.  Buying an asset in a falling market, whether it is a stock or a home, can sometimes be as perilous as catching a falling knife. Timing a market bottom is tricky. 

Home prices seem to be holding up here, but that may be only because sellers have not gotten sufficiently anxious to drop their prices enough. A more important indicator, I think, is the days that Triangle homes are sitting on the market. A $200,000 house that has sat there for six months may really need to be $180,000 in order to sell. People get very emotionally attached to their equity, regardless of current market conditions. But if a house hasn't sold for months, then it's probably overpriced. That is the majesty of our capitalist economic system -- it sends a very clear signal whether something is priced appropriately, i.e., is there a buyer willing to pay that price?

There's also the matter of concessions.  Sellers may be sticking to their price but paying a greater share of closing costs. Or throwing in other goodies.  But sometimes these concessions muddy up a transaction. 

The same rules apply whether you are buying a house in a good market or a bad one. Shop around, keep a tight rein on your emotions, and get over any concerns you may have about having your offer rejected. Try to imagine, two or three years from now, if you're selling a particular house, whether you think you'll get your money out of it.  Obviously, the more you pay now, the more you'll have to list it for in the future. Some future buyer won't give a hoot what you paid for it; the only thing that will matter to them is the price they're willing to pay.

As I said back in November when I started this thing, one of my goals re: my daughter Hilary's wedding was to be able to dance with her. It looks like that's going to happen. Next month, we will start dance lessons.

The last time I took lessons was in 6th grade. I remember sort of learning but not really the box step, tango, fox trot and cha cha. Rumba, maybe. None of that stayed with me. I have not danced in a meaningful way for 40 years or so. (I am discounting whatever I may have done at parties in the '70's. Like our president, I think there's no productive purpose to discussing the 70's.)

The 6th grade girls really, really loathed dancing with us. Their lips curled. Developmentally, they were way ahead of us. For our part, this dance stuff was not anything we would think of doing short of being held at gunpoint.

No, it was regarded as stupid and taking valuable time away from hanging out.

They brought in this guy to be the instructor and a classmate's mother volunteered to dance with him. They had a great time dancing around the gym. Me, less so. Certain I am that if you want to get boys to hate something, make it compulsory and hold it after school.

All that said, I am now feeling some pressure. (Somewhere in the hereafter, my late, sainted  mother is saying, "Serves him right. I paid good money for those lessons, but did he pay attention? No." Actually, that's just for literary effect. She never talked like that. She was endlessly forgiving of me.)

When you are surrounded by dancing couples, no one really can tell that you are aimlessly shuffling. When it is the dance with the bride, they can tell. ("What is he doing out there" you don't want to be hearing whispered from table to table.)

My future son-in-law Travis and Hil found a Clayton dance instructor named Raquel on the internet, and hired her services, so we will gather at the Methodist church in Room 9 for a series of six weekly lessons.

Participants will include Travis, Hilary, me, Katherine, Bill and Priscilla (Travis' parents), his brothers, Tyler and Timothy, and bridesmaids Megan and Amanda. Amanda's fiance may join us.

Here, then, are some salient details you may want to jot down as part of this home-study course.

At the reception, Hilary and Travis will dance first. Then I will dance with Hilary and, simultaneously, Travis will dance with Priscilla. I will be watching them closely during lessons so as to see where they set the bar.

After that, the rest of the wedding party will join us on the dance floor. I understand that Raquel will provide dance instruction to the assembled masses as a feature of the reception, which is actually a heck of a good idea because there may be others who have not done this in 40 years.

My turn on the dance floor will be to "My Girl" by the Temptations, released around Christmas 1964. It was actually written by Smoky Robinson, which I did not know until I did some research.

So I'm playing the song in my head and trying to figure out what you dance to it. I consulted one of my co-workers who went to Wake Forest and was a frat boy and should know. "Simple. The Shag," was his counsel.

I got on the phone and called Travis and said, hey, could Raquel teach me the Shag? And he said, sure.

But then I went on the web and looked at some videos of Shag dancers, and I don't know. It looks complicated, not something you would want to bet on six lessons. I expect that Hilary will have something to say about what we dance, it also occured to me, as she does not leave things like that to chance or Dad. We'll see.

We went to the house of Hilary's former music instructor on Friday to hear the wedding music. Crystal and several of her students will be playing flutes. They were very good.

I recognized some of the tunes, but mostly I reflected on why I was having butterflies.

Every single time I have heard wedding music, I have been been one of the people sitting and fanning myself with a program. Friday, I heard music that will be my cue. I realized: When you are the father of the bride, the flutes mean something big is about to happen and it involves your being outside in the hallway, readying for the ceremonial walk.

The wedding musicians have three jobs. First, it's to keep the crowd entertained before the show begins. Second, it's to get the wedding party down the aisle -- meemaws, moms, the march of the bridesmaids, and, finally, the bride and the stiff in the tux.

Third, it's to get the wedding party back up the aisle after the I do's.

Sunday, we had Easter dinner at Travis' parents home, and among the guests were Pastor Vann, who is doing the wedding, and his family. After lunch, under the influence of ham and taters and my wife's exemplary orange salad, Vann and I alternately dozed and watched the tournament in the living room.

I thought in one of my moments of consciousness: there's the guy who, when Crystal and her students finish with Job #2 75 days or so from now, will look at me and ask, "Who giveth this woman?"

Hilary and Travis went to the Clayton prom last night. Hilary, as you know, is a teacher now at CHS.  So last night she went as one of the chaperones. You know, the people who tap you on the shoulder and say, hey little Comets, put some space between you.  Do chaperones still do that, even?

A bunch of the kids at the prom grew up with my baby in Methodist youth group.  I'm sure they got a kick out of seeing ol' Hil keeping order at the Crabtree Marriott.

 Just four years ago, she was at the prom, a high school senior. But now she's Miss Barkin.  

So I was talking to a new bride, whom I won't name because she is a good source and I don't want to burn a source. 

The other day she bought a mushroom brush, which is used to brush dirt off mushrooms, in case you thought it was a brush made out of mushrooms. Years as a journalist have taught me to be clear.

She had been waiting since she registered for her wedding last year for someone to buy her one. 

 Didn't happen. She got lots of nice gifts. But not the $4.95 brush. 

It was the one thing she wanted, and she put off buying it. This week she finally broke down and bought it.

Gift registries should be configured so you can communicate to friends and families: I really, really want this thing. Yes, I know it's only a $4.95 item, and you want to make a statement by purchasing the most expensive doohickey on the registry, but this thing I long for, so I won't think less of you if you show up with a present under five bucks.

About 50 people showed up. Hilary got a bunch of presents. Including a spoon rest. Waffle iron. Blender. Embroidered towels.

She was teased, I'm told, by her friends about all the cooking utensils she got, because of her alleged lack of cooking skills. Actually, I think she cooks ok, and if she wants to, she'll become a great cook, because she is good at figuring things out.

It was a busy weekend for her. Saturday, she took the praxis up at Rocky Mount. It sounds like a dental procedure. But the praxis is an exam that the state uses as part of its teacher licensing process.

Me, I got one of my headlights fixed and a haircut.

Farmers' Almanac has a Worst Wedding Weather contest. Entrants wrote about their weather-related nuptial catastrophes. You can vote on the worst one. One of the entries is by a couple from High Point whose wedding coincided with Hurricane Fran in 1996. You can read the entry here.

We ran a Charlotte Observer story about it in the N&O.

This is why it is a good idea to have that Troy-Bilt generator listed in your gift registry. $698 at Lowe's.

We get to Crabtree last night, and as we park, we discover that both of us have forgotten the name of the tux place. We knew it was at Crabtree, so that was something. On the map thingie  there are two formalwear places.

We find the first one and give them Travis' name. Then we both forget exactly how to spell it, the last name, Holtzhauser. H-o-l-t.....I look at George...S? Z? He's no help. Hey, it's not an easy name.

Eventually, the guy figures out that we are at the wrong place.

So back to the map. We go looking for the right store, get lost several times, eventually find it. The guy behind the counter is wearing the tape measure around his shoulders. He finds Travis' file in the computer and says take your shirts off. He measures this way and that for the pants, vest and jacket. No cummerbund. OK by me, because they make me look like a head waiter.

How tall are you, he asks me. George starts to laugh. I am 5'8", but for some reason, I always thought I was taller than that, maybe 5'10". As George grew up, he was aware like kids are of how tall he was getting, and when he became 5'10", he realized that he was looking down at me.

There is a time in every son's life when it hits him that his father is a goofball, and that was the time. He is now 6', wiry strong, and able to walk up behind me and lift me up in a bear hug, which is something that he likes doing.

How's business, I ask tape-measure guy. Pretty good, he says. Prom season. That was the extent of the small talk. He was all brisk business and efficiency. I try to make up a story in my mind about him. How does one wind up in the tux business? But he does not invite curiousity.

We sign a lot of paperwork and hear all the wherefores and whatnots. Renting a tux is not a casual transaction. Evidently, the tux industry has a fleet of lawyers who try to think of every bad thing that can happen to the suit. It is not hard to imagine that a lot of bad things can happen, given that liquor is consumed at tux-required events.

He says come by on June 5 and pick it up. Bring it back the day after the wedding or the meter starts running at twenty bucks a day. Got it, I say.

We head for the food court. That is my tux story.

George, my 18-year-old, calls a little while ago. This is a transcript of the conversation for the FOTB archives.

Him: What are you doing?

Me:  Working so as to pay your tuition and rent at N.C. State, my second born.

Him:  Can you talk?

Me:  Yep.

Him:  What are you doing tonight?

Me:  Nothing special.

Him: Want to go get the tuxes?

Me:  OK.

Him: Do you want to go get something to eat first?  (i.e., want to buy me dinner?)

Me:  OK

Him:  So what time do you want to go?

Me:  How about 7.

Him:  You want to pick me up? You want to meet me there?

Me:  Why don't you come here.

Him: OK. Later.

 ************

So never mind about Saturday.