and wishing one hadn't...that same evening, having to return to our point of departure because our party consumed the typical night's alcohol supply in about 30 minutes!...having our own military escort during a run in P'town, MA...Trudi McBride & Lorelei Cave...a co-worker asking Mike why he was outside getting fresh air (or taking a break from the stress factor) since the building was designated as completely "non-smoking"...the infamous Tom Ernst & his band of auditors, vendors, cohorts & assistants & internal yes men who used you and then discarded you...'Peterbuilt' items...sailing down the Maumee River in Toledo, and visiting the OWE...the Human League...G'kar & Swedish Meatballs...Bill Arnold's 30th birthday party; the "July" birthday party, held at Fox Street, with a Trident Int'l. symbol on the top of the cake...Anne Rice & the Vampire Lestat...tired of being call a "Damn Yankee" by Southeners, 135 years after the Civil War ended...Bertha & Fernand Sajous...Enigma & B-Tribe...learning what "MARTA" & "OMNI" really mean...the PBP picnic held at Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf; Christmas parties held at various hotels & restaurants in the area...Charlie Pittle from Fairhaven, MA and his bottles of wine that were usually consumed on Sunday mornings after night auditing at the Holiday Inn...MaryAnn Audette & Margaret Washington & Saundra Lindsey-Marke & Mohamed Ibrahim..."Preaching" from the pulpit at Florida Southern Univ. in Lakeland, FL (designed by Frank Lloyd Wright)...being asked by a stately Long Island woman what a "cockring" was, and diplomatically explaining it to her...the surprise 5th Anniversary party given by our club members, on a day when we were arguing & thinking of breaking up; we almost didn't attend that meeting...the 5th anniversary celebration of Trident Int'l DC, held at TRACKS...chomping on Oreo cookies while walking home from an FFA social, held at Robin's house in Del Ray...Anita Burns & Sanae Richardson...the abysmal rooms at the Quality Inn at Rapid City, SD; and the Best Western of Glendive, MT...Catonsville, MD & Chet Shields (Those are my neighbors!, enough said!)...Geppi's Comics, in Crystal City, Silver Spring and Harbor Place...Leslie Smith aka 'Smitty'...the exploding eclair!...in the middle of nowhere, between Moab, UT & Cortez, CO, stopping at a traffic light; the car next to us had the same state tags as our rental (Wisconsin); at that point they asked us what city we were from, quickly we thought & said "Green Bay", so were they! the light changed at the right time, and we quickly drove away (I kid you not! That is a true story! Even with my deranged imagination I could never dream up an experience like that!)...to Frank Augustosky, my boss, the man who betrayed my trust...the record breaking consumption of a king-size candy bar!...Talk in the dark!...being stuck behind a very slow "Pimpmobile", whose passenger was screaming at his fillies to "shake their asses", this took place while driving through Boston's "Combat Zone"...the Lost Angels' chili contest, from one- to 5-alarm strength...driving on a deserted road from Ft. Stockton to Pecos, TX, watching a buzzard hovering above, and thinking it was waiting for the car to die so it could attack & devour us!..."Don't get him mad!"
"Know what you fear; fear what you know!"
...visiting Brad's workplace, finding it surrounded by police cars...memories of a dog I loved (Pal): taking an unexpected walk, putting a bulletin on the radio, getting a call & finding him down the road from where we lived...eating birthday cake & spitting out the candles...eating half a loaf of bread...spitting out teeth as he lost them...falling asleep after a surgery, his head resting between the bucket seats...keeping close watch of the car while in the moving van, as we split into different roads on the New Jersey Turnpike, and he understood Portuguese...the romp through DC during "Autumn Scrambles"...the quarter on the Colorado River bridge in UT...watching Mike's programming staff reduce to zero...Barbara Bruce...How do you get the meat out of a lobster tail? Pretend you're fisting it!...Mike W. as the 'poster boy' for the "Ethiopian Relief Fund"! and an Entre Nous run...being rejected for a department store's credit card, reason: 'Insufficient income!"; said store closed a year later...Corona (the singer)...the search for a "heads up" penny...What's life without a Mercedes? Nothing!...hauling a 32 inch TV from Pentagon City to our home via METRO & footpower, then bringing it upstairs to the bedroom...explaining Chippendale furniture to tourists as "made from a now extinct tree that once grew in Madasgascar", and they believed it!...seeing the "Queen Mary" & the "Spruce Goose" in Long Beach, CA...the numerous Trident Int'l DC meetings & parties held in various places in MD, DC & VA...David Schroll & his beer can collection...Jeff Kirkpatrick, his tattoos & his romp with Mark C. in the sling during a Trident Int'l, DC meeting at Mike F.'s home in Greenbelt; said man came upstairs, naked, looking for paper towels...melting the lid of a "Fry Baby" by forgetting to take it off!...stopping for a red light under an overpass in the San Fernando Valley, and hoping that the earth did not feel like shaking at that moment... Walking, walking in the rain...
...Fire!, as in watching a fire travel across a road from one tobacco field to another due to a severe drought in NC; as in watching a fire peek through the METROrail tracks near the Rhode Island Ave platform; as in seeing it burn acres of grassland in eastern Florida; as in, for Mike, opening a door to view row after row of clothes ignite (the factory his father managed)...being friends with Mr. Drummer 1983, before & after he won the title...Waterside Mall...being stuck near the top of a very narrow bridge approaching Charleston, SC with an accident preventing us from going forward, and hating to look down at the water through the roadway!...Blowout '82, an event which occurred when Mike W. was the Treasurer of the Vulcan RC club (never again!)...the hanging Peking ducks in the window, and the huge bowl of dragon soup at a DC restaurant on Seventh ST NW...Mike propositioned to go home with someone for $50; Mike's reply, "Not enough!", and continued walking to the Rogue...Ralph Beverley & Madeline Carver...losing a hubcap just south of Marion, IL on I-57, and not being able to find it...the awful experience of being on Prozac!...Brad being denied the use of his credit card; when he called the company, their response was they thought he was dead since the card had not been used for years!...designing pins & posters for various L/L events..."Tina Santana", "Susan Saint-Jaymes" & "Dana Terrell"...finding a rat swimming in the downstairs' toilet bowl, a squirrel in the small room upstairs that was immune to poison! Note: this rodent attempted to bite his way to freedom by gnawing through the door!, a bird that flew in through a window (and the persuasion needed to make it leave) & the mouse who ate row after row of Indian Corn; said animal fell into a basin of water & was rescued by us (PS: these events happened over a period of years!)...
1981: When Mike & Brad arrived in DC, we knew no one. For a couple of days, we tried to look for a place to stay, but didn't know how. We moved from motel to motel. Then, by sheer luck, we went to the DC Eagle for dinner. There we saw a person that we had met in P'town in 1980. We explained to him our situation, and were offered a place to stay. The man is Ron Horst. His English sheepdog, Willie (or "Woo" as he was called), had a tendency to crap in the house, especially on Oriental rugs. His legs would start shaking, and we would try to push him outside before the main event. Sometimes we would say, "Ron, Willie's shaking again!". Whereby Ron would yell, "No!". We had a 50/50 chance to escort him to the back yard before anything happened. When it did, Ron would get a bottle of tonic water to (hopefully) remove the stains on the carpet. Willie & Pal did not get along well. Pal had to be kept in their bedroom. This lasted from July, 1981 until March, 1982.
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