Sunday, March 14, 2010
Metro columnist Dan Casey: Griffith 'really not that weird'
Photo courtesy Griffith family
Morgan and Hilary Griffith were married at East Hill Cemetery in Salem alongside Andrew Lewis' grave.
Dan Casey is The Roanoke Times' metro columnist.
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Whatever you think about his politics, Del. Morgan Griffith of Salem is a personable guy.
Sure, most of his votes are squarely in the conservative camp.
And he wields considerable power in Richmond, where he has a reputation akin to the Republican Darth Vader.
That goes with the territory of House majority leader.
And yes, he's a lawyer and he represents his share of drunken drivers. If that strikes you as in some way unbecoming, just wait until you need a traffic-court lawyer.
Griffith also has an odd fondness for dressing up like one of his heroes, Revolutionary War Gen. Andrew Lewis.
That's a little strange, but there's something about him I've always found even stranger:
Griffith was married five years ago in Salem's East Hill Cemetery, next to the dead general's grave.
No matter how you cut it, that is unusual.
A cemetery wedding conjures all kinds of peculiar notions, even before you get to the gothic undertones.
Lump it in with the 1995 law Griffith sponsored that banned sex with corpses, and his more recent travels to Myanmar to study bats in caves, and the notions stretch into the category of "seriously weird."
Of course, this is the kind of thing that will never be broached publicly during the coming 9th Congressional District campaign. Griffith is among a field of challengers who want to unseat Rep. Rick Boucher, D-Abingdon.
But you can bet it will be bandied about in hushed, election-season whispers throughout that district, for the purpose of making Griffith out to be a complete weirdo.
So I took a recent opportunity to ask Griffith's wife about this. Her name is Hilary Griffith, and she's a prosecutor in Botetourt County.
The first question was, "Is it true?"
She said yes. She and Morgan were married in the Salem cemetery, next to Lewis' grave, on March 6, 2005.
The next question was, "Why?" And that's where it got pretty interesting.
Nobody had ever asked her that question before, she said.
That's understandable.
Who would want to ask any bride about her wedding in a cemetery to a guy who legislates corpse protection and studies bats?
That's almost like asking her why she married a vampire.
But I asked anyway, and here's the story she told me:
Morgan and Hilary Griffith got married in the cemetery because of duck poop.
Bear with me, please.
This marriage was the second time around for both. Because of that, they didn't want to make a big deal out of the ceremony.
They planned a simple wedding at Lake Spring Park along West Main Street.
The day before, Hilary's father and Morgan went over there to check out the pond.
There were ducks all over it, and lots of duck poop, too. And goose poop, Morgan told me.
Obviously that would not do for the wedding.
So they had to come up with another place fast.
And "we just couldn't think of another place," Hilary told me.
"He said, 'Well, let's go up on East Hill and see what it looks like.' And we did, and it was beautiful."
Hilary did not notice that the place they stood was next to Lewis' grave. And even if she had noticed, she didn't know about her fiance's affection for that Revolutionary War general.
The wedding happened and the couple headed off on their honeymoon.
A few days later, a brief story about the wedding by reporter JoAnne Poindexter showed up in this newspaper.
The article noted the wedding location and Morgan's fondness for the general.
Somebody e-mailed or faxed it to the newlyweds, who were honeymooning in Greece.
When Hilary read the article she was floored.
To hear her tell the story, it sounds like it changed the mood of their trip.
She donned her prosecutor's hat and fired some questions at her new husband.
"I said, 'You often dress up as Andrew Lewis?'
" 'And we got married by his grave?'
" 'Are you kidding me?' "
And she added, "I can't believe I let you talk me into that."
So that's the background on an unusual ceremony that's generated rumors about Morgan Griffith for the past five or so years.
Hilary said she can grasp why some people might hear a one-sided whisper and conclude there is something odd with him.
But, "he's really not that weird of a guy," she said.
So there you have it.
The duck poop made them do it.
To borrow a phrase from the late, great radioman Paul Harvey: And now you know the rest of the story.
