Boys Weekend!

I hadn't had a bonafide "boys weekend" in about twenty years, so I jumped at the chance when "Tom" and "Darren (Note: to protect the innocent, names have been changed so I don't get sued.)" invited me to go to Darren's Summer lake cabin in backwoods Oklahoma.

Now, I love both these guys, met them back in my college dormitory way back in the stone ages. But due to adult issues (soul-deadening work, marriage, kids, divorce, trauma, stuff), I hadn't seen them in about half of my lifetime.

I wondered if things would be awkward or if we could pick up right where we had left off thirty years ago. 

The answer is "YES, you CAN go home again." Honestly, it was like things hadn't changed since college.

Well, with some exceptions...

First of all, we three still enjoy our most favorite thing about college: BEER. Yayyyy! And it flowed pretty much non-stop at the cabin that weekend. The great equalizer.

When Tom and I finally arrived at the cabin from Kansas City (we were talking in Tom's truck and ended up missing our appropriate exit, thus delaying our arrival by an hour-and-a-half), it was clear that Darren had begun without us. So we had some quick catching up to do, so sooooo much beer drinking, we forgot to eat dinner.

Soon, we lapsed into imitating old college professors and an annoying girl from our dorm, and reminiscing about good (and some not so good) memories from college and the years after. We caught up on family, friends, careers, everything we could think of. Sometimes, stories were repeated often because with all of the flowing beer, it was hard to keep up. In other words, nothing much had changed in forty two years. Except...

Okay, there were a lot more pounds and a lot less hair, to be expected. And then we lapsed into what all 63 year old men talk about: health issues. While Tom and Darren broke out their cigars, drinks in hand, we went around sharing our medical trauma and history. And we all agreed that once you hit 60, it's all downhill from there. (Okay, Darren said it was 62 for him, but it's still in the range).

Scars were shown, heart monitors displayed, massagers brought out for bone-on-bone arthritic knees, wounds marveled at, operations deliberated on, hemorrhoid stories shared with gusto, and just an overall wonderment permeated we three kings of Oklahoma as to just how we got in such shape and why our bodies had started to betray us so quickly. (Surely it had nothing to do with our mutual admiration for beer.)

It seemed like just yesterday, we were living wildly at Naismith Hall in Lawrence, Kansas (home of the Jayhawks!), and having the time of our lives, the whole world in front of us and we on top of it.

Age happens.

Politics does, too. This topic I had been dreading. Not only is the whole country divided (thanks to a certain orange abomination and convicted felon), but it's struck several chords of disharmony amongst my divided friends in Kansas City. I have yet to have a good, mutually eye-opening conversation that ends well with anyone on the opposing team.

Now, Tom and I were firmly in the same camp as we talked through a lot of our fears and anger and worries about what passes for politics these days as we drove to Oklahoma. But I knew Darren was defiantly and proudly in the other camp.

By and large, we kept politics out of the round-room convo Friday night, but it crept into our lakeside chats by Saturday morning. Amazingly, things were kept civil, but of course no minds were changed. As I knew they wouldn't be. When Darren wanted to start whipping out his phone to show "proof" of his arguments, I tried to steer the pow-wow away and back to decrepit, blue-haired advertising professors who barked (long story).

In college, I was far from political. Didn't really care about politics, to be frank. I had more important things to think about: beer, girls, friends, and grades. And Darren called me out on that. He was right. I really didn't start getting political until the Obama era. When my wife said to read the news once in a while. (And we all know how that ended up.)

So some things had changed: Politics. Weight. Health issues. Age. Life. But in many other ways, it was like we'd never broken up the band and for one fun weekend, we were living like college-aged rock stars with great camaraderie once again.

And I can't wait to do it again. If I can get my walker up the stairs and get a new supply of rubber underwear for those incontinent nights, that is, you damn young whippersnappers!

While on the topic of people who refuse to grow up, pity poor Zora, a beleaguered, often pregnant sleuth who has her hands full with numerous children and a man-boy husband. But when her vacuous, dunder-headed, immature, yet good-hearted male stripper brother keeps finding himself suspected of murder, Zora has no choice but to find the real killers and keep her nitwit brother out of jail. Read the zany, comedic mystery romps that comprise the Zach and Zora series available here.

 

Hey, kids! It's Snack Night!

After college, a lot of my graduate friends from the University of Kansas settled in the same Kansas City area, and we shamefully continued to act like college kids for many more years. On Friday and Saturday nights, we could always be found down in the Westport area (lots and lots of bars within walking distance, the trendy area at the time), closing down the place every weekend.

But along with old traditions, several new traditions were forged. There was the tradition of going to Don Chilito's for Sunday hangover lunch. Don Chilito's (which long-time blog readers may remember my writing about before) was a particularly terrible Tex-Mex restaurant with awful food, but we found it perfect for ourselves, immensely enjoying the camaraderie and comedy. (I know...it doesn't make sense to me now, either.)

However, the new tradition that I enjoyed the most was "Snack Night." It began small. When my brother and I lived together in a rented house, every Sunday we'd go to the grocery store and just stack our respective grocery carts full of ludicrous snacks. The worse it was for you, the better. 

I remember the check-out clerk always looking at us funny, when one of us would unload the cart onto the conveyor belt. There was ice cream and syrup, potato chips, french onion dip, crackers, cookies, Lil' Debbie's artificial sugary nothing-cakes, corn chips, salsa, drumsticks (not the chicken variety, mind you, but the dipped in chocolate and peanut ice cream cones), hot fudge, cheese dip, jalapenos, hot sauce, candy bars, you name it, it went onto the conveyor belt. And not a vegetable to be found, thank you very much, no siree Bob!

Then the other West brother would follow, emptying his cart onto the belt while the clerk just kinda gawped at us. It wasn't unusual for us to rack up fifty to sixty bucks in crap each week. (With inflation, it'd be about three times that much now).

But that was just the first step in snack night. While we'd gorge ourselves silly at home, we'd make a point of watching the worst possible film available.

That was my job. I'd study, read reviews, scan the latest video releases, and pull a winner (i.e., loser). (Side note: Hey, Millennials! You whippersnappers ever head of videotapes? You kids today and your instant streaming don't know how lucky you have it! Why, back in my day...)

Some of the highlights of our movie viewing included Cool As Ice, the ludicrously, unintentionally hilarious film starring nominal white rapper, Vanilla Ice, as a bad-ass, nominally rapping (natch), romantic lead. His slow romantic ballad and the ensuing slo-mo montage has to be seen to be believed.  

 Road House was another favorite, one of the dumbest, yet most inexplicably popular films we'd ever seen, where a bar bouncer in "Kansas (complete with mountains in the background!)" has a national reputation as the best bouncer in the world! My favorite scene is where the lisping hero (Patrick Swayzee) takes the bad guy's (perpetually sneering and grinning Ben Gazarra) girlfriend home with him to his house. While they're "making love," Ben Gazarra steps out on his veranda and watches them...RIGHT NEXT DOOR! And then there was Over the Top, of course, the heartwarming and pulse-pounding tale of a down-on-his-luck, yet lovable lug (Sylvester Stallone) who attempts to win back the love of his snot-nosed, annoying son (played by some snot-nosed, annoying kid) by dragging him to the utmost of importance arm wrestling championships.

I think you kinda get the drift of the entertainment we desired...no, craved. Perfect match for the quality of "food" we consumed. (Too bad there wasn't ever a film about a hot dog eating championship; that would've perfectly met our Snack Night requirements).

Snack Night grew in membership. First one college pal joined, then another, and another, until word on the street turned it into a mini-phenomenon (not really, but I'm a writer). Soon, we had about a dozen to fifteen guys crammed into our small and modestly furnished living room, crowded around a small TV with a beat-up Korean VCR on top of it.

Snack food wrappers littered the floor. The microwave was kept busy, constantly dinging. Nachos were burnt, eaten anyway, and spilled. Ice cream melted and was eaten with a straw. Chips crunched beneath our feet. The refrigerator was always packed, the food spilling out onto the kitchen countertops. It truly looked like a battlefield and as they say, War is Hell.

Or Heaven, eye of the beholder and all.

Now, there was an unspoken rule about Snack Night. It wasn't ever truly defined, but we had a no girlfriend policy. (Usually.) It's not like we were Spanky and Alfalfa's He Man Woman Haters Club. No, it wasn't like that at all. I kinda think that any woman we knew at the time considered our barbaric ritual as too utterly grotesque for them. I'm pretty sure they were right, too.

No matter, it was a place and time where we could hang out and do whatever. Given our youth and good health at the time, no weight was gained or diseases contracted. Shocking, I know.

I'm not sure when and how Snack Night disbanded, but I'm pretty sure marriages were involved.

Hmmm. I wonder if my wife would object to my bringing back Snack Night to our house... Yeah! I'll keep it simple and only invite ten guys the first time and...and...

Nah. My health couldn't handle it now. Maybe some traditions are better off buried. (And there's no way my wife would go for it. I'm sorry, Spanky and Alfalfa!)

While I'm waxing nostalgic, I'd be remiss if I didn't plug my book, Peculiar County. If spooky nostalgia's your bag, boy, have I got a book for you. Taking place in the '60's (right before the turbulence began), Peculiar County tells the tale of a tom-boy living in a small farming town in Kansas, who stumbles onto a murder mystery. Did I mention that there are also ghosts, witches, a haunted hanging tree, something that flies the night skies, and much, much more? A book for all ages (but don't let that throw you!), it also happens to be my favorite out of my 21 titles. Come visit scenic Peculiar County here!