The Boys Are Back in Town

I'm on the road goofing off again. Don't hate me.

This is a two-part adventure that took me to Louisville for about 24 hours and now I'm in Toledo with a bunch of my fraternity brothers. These are some of the guys I usually go with to Eatons' Ranch in Wyoming every September.

This isn't Eatons'; it isn't Wyoming; but it is a bunch of guys I've known since 1971, and they are the best part of the Wyoming trip anyway.

In fact, this has been a trip of oldest, bestest friends. The Louisville trip was a visit with a buddy that I first met during my two-year stint selling men's clothing at a family-owned specialty store in the mid 1970s.

We terrorized the management there. He was smart enough to move on before we were fired. I held out until the bitter end.

On this trip we were sitting at the bar in a fairly new Louisville watering hole. The bartender poured our beers and as she served them, she asked if we were on the same check.

I responded, "For more than 30 years."

When I say we used to tear it up, it's an understatement. That someone didn't kill us or we didn't spend a few nights in jail, is only by the grace of God. We typically had more fun than the people around us, and thought we were a lot funnier than we probably were.

Man, we had a ball.

So now I am with a bunch of guys I love like brothers, and indeed we are. If you have a friend (or friends) you don't see for years, connect with and then launch into conversation like you've never been apart; that's what this crew is like.

Each guy immediately assumes the same role he played in college: the clown, the story teller, the game organizer, the calming force, the nut job, and so forth.

I love these guys!

Our Wyoming trips are just the boys; but we are meeting at the home of one of the guys and the gathering includes significant others. One of the guys even brought his new daughter -- yes, a guy my age has a 4-month old kid. That's a story for another blog.

I am the only unattached guy here. All the significant others have been around for a while, so they fit right in. One of them is the college sweetheart and wife of one of us.

Dinner last night lasted about three hours; most of it was spent laughing. It wasn't giggling, but bent-over, gut-splitting guffawing. I had a headache from it by the time we finally pushed away from the table.

Our big activity today -- it's Toledo, remember -- was going to The Anderson's, a privately  owned general store that makes a super Wal-Mart seem insignificant.

The crowd is growing as I type this. We are preparing for another afternoon and evening of full-on clowning around.

This is great!