Hilarity Ensued: A night on the town

I want to be able to remember my happiness and youth, long after I have grown past the point of easy recollection. In that vein, I have decided to write down my memories of childhood while they are still relatively recent. This will be part of an ongoing series called "Hilarity Ensued". While many of my childhood memories have a touch of the absurd, and quite a few of them are sublimely hilarious, some are very difficult, and some still elicit that thin line of emotion in the bottom of my eye.

A night on the town

My brother and I were pretty fearless in our youth. We did all kinds of crazy things that would have gotten us into serious trouble, turning poor mom's hair white, had we ever been caught. Sometimes when I look back on our youth, I am utterly amazed that we made it through alive and unharmed.

One of the only sleepovers I can recall from those years was at our friend Joey's house. Joey was mom's best friends son, and one of our only friends. Why we were spending the night and what we did prior to bedtime has left my mind over the years. But as is so often the case with adventurous little boys, the real adventure didn't start until long after we were supposed to be in bed.

It was around eleven thirty when Joey suggested it. We had been laying in bed joking and laughing at farts, when out of nowhere Joey says "You guys wanna go out?" Josh and I, looked from him to each other, and though my eyes said no, Josh's burned with the bright light of oncoming adventure. I knew better than to voice opposition when Josh had so clearly decided already. All I asked was that we not get caught and that we not split up.

Josh and I lived in the heart of the Rocky Mountains of Colorado in the tiny town of Kitteridge, population 700. Joey and his mom, Marge, lived in Denver, or rather in one of the many suburbs on the outskirts of the city. This was our first night sleeping in the city since we were six and seven, and since we were much older (a whopping ten and eleven), we agreed to explore the city streets after midnight.

Marge was still in the living room watching TV when we made up our mind, so while we waited for her to check on us one last time before going to bed. We got dressed and filled our pockets with things that only a child could explain while quietly preparing a plan. Joey suggested a route that would have taken us past a liquor store so we could get some candy. Josh, ever practical and possibly the most diabolical among us, nixed the idea, simply because who wouldn't question three little boys in a store alone after midnight?

Sometime after midnight Joey made the signal and we all laid down and feigned sleep. Through the narrowed slits of my eyes I watched as Marge opened the door, glanced around at all three of us, and then closed the door. I followed her with my ears as she shuffled down the hallway to her bedroom. When her door closed, Joey sat up and said we could leave in about 20 minutes (it took her about 15 to do her evening routine and then fall asleep, the other 5 minutes was just in case).

The three of us, all dressed in the darkest colors we had thought to bring with us, slunk past her bedroom door on the way to the front door. As soon as the door had been shut behind us, we all ran right out into the middle of the street. Joey led the way into the night as we explored the familiar streets at a time of day we had never seen. I stayed close between Joey and Josh so I wouldn't get lost in the night.

We wandered the streets for about an hour without anything eventful or exciting taking place. We had wandered over to a big church that lay at the center of an adjacent neighborhood, and there we sat to rest and decide what to do next. We were obliviously obvious sitting on the main stairwell leading up into the sanctuary, and I wasn't really paying attention to the conversation until they started arguing. When I tuned back in, I realized they were debating a car that was parallel parked halfway up the street that faced the front entrance of the church.

Josh said it looked like a cop car, while Joey held firm that it was just a car with a ski rack. I was about to chime in with my opinion when both of them froze mid-sentence. Someone had come out of the house and gotten into the drivers seat of the car in question. It was dark and impossible to tell if the man was in a uniform or normal clothes. The debate still hung on the air waiting for resolution, when the answer flooded the stairwell on which we were all perched.

The headlights went on and we were all blinded. "Ski rack" said Joey as he shielded his eyes. Then more lights seemed to come on as the side light and revolving red and white light illuminated us. "COPS!" yelled Josh. For one brief moment the three of us were stuck on the stairs. Then the car started to move and the flood light focused directly on us.

"RUN!" screamed Josh, and we did.

Joey was up and around the right side of the church before the word finished leaving Josh's lips, thinking maybe that they couldn't follow all of us, and that I was going to stick with Josh, he said as he ran "meet me at the back door". Josh and I booked around the left side of the building. The cop car decided to follow us.

Somehow I had pulled ahead of Josh in the race to not get caught. And though I heard him yell at me to not stop until I got to Joey's back door, I didn't hear him behind me. When I chanced a glance back over my shoulder I was already a block away from him. I saw him dive down into a stairwell on the side of the church just moments before the cops side light would have found him. I covered my mouth in terror and stopped running.

I was sure that he was caught. I saw where he hid from a block away and I knew the cops had to have seen him too. The cop car slowed to a crawl as the light scoured the side of the building, I guess you couldn't really see the stairs from the car. I slowly sneaked out from my hiding place and slowly wedged myself between two cars. I don't know where the nerve came from, but somehow I found myself standing in the middle of the road. As soon as I knew the cops had seen me and turned their attention away from Josh, I turned and ran.

To avoid immediate capture I ran around the first corner and then ran as fast as I could to get around the next corner. I was just getting to the second corner when the cop car turned onto the street behind me. They saw me and sped up a little bit. But I was too far ahead of them and I had a plan of my own. I turned the second corner and ran into the side yard of the first house on the right. I ran into the back yard, and poised myself just below their waist high chain link fence. I watched as the cops drove by and turned right to follow me. As soon as they turned and moved past their view of the side yard, I hopped over the fence and started running back to where I had been separated from Josh.

Only problem, he wasn't there anymore.

I sat near the spot I had last seen him, crouching in the stairwell in case the cops made a second run. They did, and I hid exactly where he had hid the first time. The cop car stopped in the same spot it had earlier, and the side light was aimed exactly three feet above me in the stairwell. Again, luck held out and they didn't get out of their car to explore. I was not foolish enough to think that I would avoid a third brush, so when they were out of sight again, I moved covertly in the direction that I though Joey lived.

Remember, I was 10. And though I had been to that neighborhood before, it was completely foreign to me that night. I wandered, looking for the familiar. Starting to get really scared and worried that I wouldn't be able to find the house again, I began to cry a bit. Just as the tears began to flow, someone ran into the street two block ahead of me.

Josh.

My tears immediately dried up as I ran to catch up with him. He, the consummate badass, casually strolled in my direction. Routinely checking for cars over his shoulder. We met in the middle of the street, and he looked at me and asked if I was ok, and how I had gotten away. As I was telling him how scared I was, and how the police had almost gotten me twice, we heard leaves rustling off to the right. Looking at the hedge that lined someones back yard we both were startled and relieved to see Joey emerge from the leaves.

We had all had just about enough adventure for one night and started heading back to the house. Since we had all been separated from each other, we took this moment to tell each other what we had just been through. Joey had run around the Church in the other direction and took a shortcut home through some back yards. There he had waited for us for what turned out to be the better part of an hour. When he finally got worried enough he took the same route back to the church, emerging magically out of the hedge of someones back yard.

All I remember about what Josh did was that he separated from me on purpose. Not because he wanted to ditch me, but for the exact same reason I stepped out in the road for the cop car to see me. To distract attention from the other brother. He had gone back to Joey's house to check, but when he saw I wasn't there, he circled the neighborhood, eventually returning to the church where I was looking for him.

We snuck back into the house as softly as we had left it, Joey pausing to listen to his mom snoring through the door. We were safe, and unsuspected. Though Josh and I had many more nights out on the town while the parents slept, this was the first of only two times that Joey joined us. The second... is another story...

Childhood without...

I feel sorry for the generations that have grown up in the last couple decades. In an age of instant gratification and thirty-minute everything, some things have been irreparably lost. The movement towards political correctness and standardization has led these new generations of kids into creativity-free lives of mediocrity.

My generation survived being born to mothers who smoked, drank, did drugs, took aspirin, and ate whatever they wanted while they were pregnant. And though we "know" these things are BAD, somehow entire generations born under these conditions have not only lived to tell the tale, but quite a few of them have prospered very well.

We were put to sleep on our bellies in baby cribs covered with bright colored lead-based paints. We had no childproof lids on medicine bottles, doors or cabinets and when we rode our bikes, we had no helmets, not to mention, the risks we took hitchhiking. As infants & children, we would ride in cars with no car seats, booster seats, seat belts or air bags. Riding in the back of a pickup on a warm day was always a special treat, today it's against the law.

When I was a child, parents took the more active part in parenting. All those things I just mentioned we knew to be careful because our parents explained things. They knew to be more careful and observant because they payed attention and read books on childcare other than the bible. We have now begun raising generations of kids who honestly believe that someone else can be to blame for everything. And created for them with our laws, rules and litigiousness a world where no one has to think for themselves, and kids grow up believing what they are told.

We drank water from the garden hose and NOT from a bottle. We shared one soft drink with four friends, from one bottle and NO ONE actually died from this. We ate cupcakes, white bread and real butter and eggs, and drank Kool-aid made with sugar, but we weren't overweight because, WE WERE ALWAYS OUTSIDE PLAYING! We would leave home in the morning and play all day, as long as we were back when the streetlights came on. No one was able to reach us all day and we were O.K.

We would spend hours building our go-carts out of scraps and then ride down the hill, only to find out we forgot the brakes! After running into the bushes a few times, we learned to solve the problem. We learned by trial and error, not by being told. We learned how to use reason and logic to solve problems all by ourselves. In school we learned how to think, not just how to memorize. We were taught philosophy and music, thereby developing self discipline, curiosity and logic. We were taught that religion was to feed our soul and books were to feed our brain.

We did not have Playstations, Nintendo's, X-boxes, no video games at all, no 150 channels on cable, no DVD's, no surround-sound or CD's, no cell phones, no personal computers, no Internet or chat rooms... We had friends that we played with, we had family activities that didn't involve the TV. We had to use a fast dying medium of imagination to entertain ourselves. It was not a chore or a punishment to sit and read a book. We had parents who taught us about the things they liked and encouraged us to create our own likes from nothing.

We fell out of trees, got cut, broke bones and teeth and there were no lawsuits from these accidents. We ate worms and mud pies made from dirt, and the worms did not live in us forever. We were given BB guns for our tenth birthdays, made up games with sticks and tennis balls and, although we were told it would happen, we did not poke out very many eyes.

We rode bikes or walked to a friend's house and knocked on the door or rang the bell, or just walked in and talked to them! Little League had tryouts and not everyone made the team. Those who didn't had to learn to deal with disappointment, and learn how to get better with practice. The idea of a parent bailing us out if we broke the law was unheard of. They actually sided with the law!

These previous generations have produced some of the best risk-takers, problem solvers and inventors ever! The past fifty years have been an explosion of innovation and new ideas. We had freedom, failure, success and responsibility, and we learned HOW TO DEAL WITH IT ALL!

The generations raised in the last twenty years have had too many things handed to them. They have lost music and philosophy as necessary thought disciplines. Replaced by school sports and religion. We have actually started teaching our children that people, including school teachers, are hell-bound liars for not teaching the same things that the parents faith teaches; instead of simply explaining the difference between faith and science. Parents today have taught their children to fight at the top of their lungs (in the name of god) against things like equality, acceptance and tolerance for all, while completely ignoring the bigger responsibility of teaching responsibility, respect, common decency, manners and dignity. Those are not subjects taught in school, and it is clear with the attitudes of the younger generations that they are not taught at home much anymore either.

Because of the way these children today are raised by their parents ignorance and irresponsibility, we now have the most violent, disrespectful and mediocre generation of young adults this country has ever seen. And they are dying by the thousands every year because we don't stop them and correct them out of fear of being sued or assaulted. I weep for the future, and pray I don't live long enough to see this generation come to any position of power.

Creatures of Memory and Habit, part 1

The first fundamental question is this:

Why would world governments and organized religions (that are allegedly based on love, compassion and acceptance) spend their time, money, and resources restricting the list of people who can and should adopt the worlds discarded children? While limiting the people who can adopt to a group of people that seldom do, and requiring a rigid judeo-christian family structure for all applicants. It's common knowledge that family's with children of their own rarely adopt more.

It's like we are saying to the people who want to care for children: "If you want to adopt children in this country, you must have a family structure exactly like the diagram here shows." We are telling them to convert to our nuclear christian religion or no child, as if it was a priveledge in the first place. With the sum of money that has been spent fighting about this petty argument of who is fit and who is not, we could have completely overhauled the entire foster care and adoption system. Sparing the current and future generations the pleasure of growing up in prison.

But this is not the real question.

How can we have entire generations of children to whom the foster care system and it's revolving door of faces act as mom and dad? Instead of focusing on who can't take care of these abandoned and given away children, why do we not instead ask; Who is having all these children and then throwing them away? Why do we regulate who cant have children and not who can? Why are there no legal or financial responsibilities placed on people who undertake the creation of life? Is creating them and leaving them somehow more socially acceptable than trying to take care of them and give them a stable home?

Why do these governments and religions not say "everyone must be responsible for giving these abandoned children stability and love." If you can raise a child and give it a stable home and provide all the basics like food, clothes, education, oppertunity and spirituality, than you should. Because it is better than being raised by a business.

Must we remain forever unmoveable in our individual faith and the minute details, yet so blind to it's greater meaning? Family IS important, all families. The Family of Humanity. Progress is recognizing that life has become bigger than a set of rules in a book. And evolution produces situations that the book never even concieved of. The governments have adapted, changing with the progression of society. Religion has stopped providing any new value. All that religion offeres is a two thousand year old structure that recognized nothing of the growth of the human race. How can any religion produce anything meaning full when all it's time is focused on the begining events? Will there be no middle, no growth? There was a time when religion was a new thing, and the people who wrote the great religious books decided what tales to include for the maximum future value. There has been no forward thinking since then.

That conundrum has brought us to where we are now. Religion is now focusing of what is present and how we have evolved and how it was not talked about two thousand years ago, and therefore must be bad. Thereby skewing the faithfull into a fight of not what is just and good, but who is right and who is wrong.

Life is not about punishing others for being different from you. This is the cause of division in the country right now. Everyone is focused on religion and it's hold on the political structue.

What the religious leaders need to remember is that this country is free for all. Not just free for the faithfull. And though they may feel right in their faith about something, it does not make it right for all. This country and it's rights are for all that dwell upon it's lands. Faith is there to give us guidance for a peacefull life and to lead us to a place of serenity. It is not to be used as a weapon against those that do not believe. It would benefit the religions of the world to remember their cause. Sticking to their rigid unwavering structure weakens their longeveity, causes unrest, and eventually provides no growth of the soul in terms of present day reality. Their primary responsibilty is to mind and care for the human soul and give us spiritual guidance. The laws of man (as has been so often misused by members of both religions and politicians) should have nothing to do with the tending to the soul and spirit of a person, and so too, those who tend to the souls of mankind should not be allowed to write the laws.

Can we take the lessons of the book. Can we put into practice the parts that would bring about peace and not just pay them lip service by preaching about them. Society has skewed into a negative reality. The focus has become the different, the bad and the wicked. The miracles, the great works go unnoticed in this our age of misdirection and spin.

It is time now, for a great new dawn in America. Let us stop from the petty fights, and turn our attention to the bigger pictures. Humanity is suffering everywhere. We have the knowledge and the where with all to fix these problems for good. We could erradicate hunger and famine. The human race has come to that point... Where we can come close to truly curing some of the longest problems mankind has ever faced. Let us stop with the in-fighting. Let us now, finally, get to work on the good and the just.

among the destitute

My fellow blogger and dear friend CHADFOX recently wrote a post about one of the local homeless that meander the streets of the city named Freddy. It is a sad testament to our struggling humanity that we can exist with so much in the midst of those with so little.

I know these people. Once upon a time, I was these people.

When I was nineteen I was a troubled non-directional wanderer. I didnt want to leave home, I didnt want a job. I wanted to sit home, eat, watch tv and go out with my friends. Not even something so interesting as playing video games. If I did leave the house it was to go to bars or cruising down at the gay beach at night... many nights, if I came home at all, it would be after both my parents had left for work.

My parents tolerated my laziness and patying for as long as any hippy parents could, which I'm sure to say is quite a bit longer than most parents. Several times they threatened to throw me out and let me sink or swim on my own. Any time they did this I would disappear to one of my friends homes, just so my parents would know what they were missing when I was gone.

I would come home days later and the subject would drop... for about a week or so. So imagine my parents going through this same cycle every week for the better part of a year, all the while footing my bill. The year of buildup led to a knock down drag out with my dad and brother. After going out of his way to come and pick me up somewhere, I said something really ugly to my dad when we turned onto our street, and in a moment of stunned disbelief and anger he reached across the seat and slapped me right across the face. And quite deservedly so.

We pulled into the driveway and I bolted from the van, ran into the house and grabbed the portable phone. Pushing my brother out of my way I bolted down the hallway to my room screaming and crying. My dad walked calmly into the house and to my door. He told me to give him the phone and the responding stream of explatives issed from my mouth would have prompted the same O shaped breathless shock on the most hardened of criminals.

I have always had really great legs. And whenever I am complimented on them, I say thank you, its from years of keeping my brother and father out of my room. Really, it was just that one day. I wedged my back against that door and held it shut with my legs as my dad boomed away on the other side. My brother thinking himself clever, came around the house and started climing in my window. He came over to me and tried to take the phone from me (it and the phone call to the police was all but forgotten in the melee). I always refer to this as the moment that my brother realized that he was no longer my bigger brother.

I grabbed him by the throat and while my legs kept my dad from bursting in with a wedge, I held him against the wall until all he could do was call out to dad that I was choking him as he started to black out. All those years of brotherly brawls in which I was the loser boiled up in me and as he started to slip away I yelled at him "YEAH, PAYBACKS A BITCH, ISNT IT"

I dont know what broke that moment apart. What I remember next is barreling out into the hallway after dad and knocking the glasses off his face. We then fought on the ground like dogs rolling over each other and punching at the ribs. We slammed into the front right leg of mom's grand piano, and the ensuing creak of splintering wood tore us apart in an instant and we were both up and holding the bottom of the piano so it wouldnt fall.

That night, as my parents sat in the living room trying to figure out what to do with me, I packed a bag, took what was important to me, and climed out my window and ran away.

My friend Bob from church let me stay with him those first couple nights, but when he kept insisting that I go home and mend things, I decided to move on. A friend of a friend had moved in with his girlfriend, but had paid the last three months on his empty apartment, so he let me move in there. There was no electricity, and no furniture, and I lived by candlelight and canned food for three months.

When the lease was finally up I ended up couch surfing with random friends and strangers until I had over stayed my welcome or as in one case, I was just too terrified to stay. I slept in train stations, on beaches, in backyards, in drughouses, in hotels and in bathhouses. I snuck into the mall twice in the dead on night... And yes, on one or two occasions I even went home with people just so I could be inside and maybe get a shower.

I know what it is to be that low. To have your life so precariously balanced that one thing going the wrong way can change everything. I was lucky. The balance fell the other way for me. My parents let me come home. I went to vocational school, and when I got out and still couldnt find a job, I wouldnt allow myself to fall that hard again. So, I found a job where they couldnt fire me.

When people ask me about my military experience, I usually say two things. First: I wouldnt do it again, but I also wouldnt undo it. Second: I got out of it exactly what I went in looking for, dicipline and organization.

For the last year and a half I spent my work week with these people. Talking to them, feeding them and listening to their stories. A lot of the people that ate at the soup kitchen were just one or two things going wrong away from being like the rest of us. How many times the phrase "if that had just worked out for me..." has brushed past my ears. I know these people are human. I know that even though I cant afford to give them money and I no longer feed them, they are still human and as the animal is want to do, they still crave the attention.

With that I will leave you with my best "homeless guy" memory. A couple years ago, the castro burned. No, not all of it, hell, not even most of it... A guy driving down Castro and crossing Market street started having a heart attack. His vehicle careened across the road and ran straight into a line of motorcycles before colliding with the first car in a line of parked cars next to the castro theatre. The owner of that first car had just gotten in and turned on his car when he was hit. And suddenly there was another car on top of him, and both cars burst into flames. Sparking a chain reaction of explosions as each parked car's gas tank lit up all the way down the block.

Across the street in front of Daddy's there was a Sister Of Perpetual Indulgence and one of the local homeless guys. If you've ever been here, you've seen him. He is tall and lanky and has a tuft of dirty blond hair and usually stands at the castro theatre parking lot entrance tossing off witty bon mots to passers by. These two were the first into action. They bolted across the street, and as the crowds began to fill the sidewalks, you could see them, the drag nun and the crazy homeless guy pulling the drivers from the burning wreckage.

All I'm saying is this, next time you walk past a person like that, just remember, you should at least extend to them the common courtesy of human interaction.

Donde Esta a Key?

I have this strange new hobby...

When I was running the Jon Sims Center, there was this big jar of keys. It was every key that the space had collected over it's 30 year run. Every time the locks were changed, every key that was returned by a tenant, and every key that was ever forgotten and never claimed.

Well, when we closed the doors, I decided to take the keys home. I thought I might be able to make something with them... this is what has come out so far... and for those of you that are going to ask... yeah, I still have a bunch more. But I am always looking for more... so if you have some, or find some, hand 'em over, I'll make art out of them.

Title: THREE

Title: Spring Flower

Title: The Bridge

Title: Dragon Sunrise

The best key that came into my possession by way of the Jon Sims Center, hanging on my wall, so that every single one of my guests can go home and say that while here, they held in their hands the Key to San Francisco...

Birthdaversarry

Friday was my 33rd birthday. And with the way the my new year started, I am guessing that this next year is going to be really weird... but good?

Danny and my birthdays are two days apart, his on the 13th and mine on the 15th. Being that I tend not to remember when our first date was, or when we decided to officially be boyfriends, I tend to look at the day we met, as our anniversary. We met on the Sunday of lazybear last year, which was August the 4th. So, with both birthdays and our one year anniversary looming, we thought it would be nice to have a small intimate get together with some friends.

It began like any other day (with the exception of my parents calling at ungodly hours). Around 7:30 my alarm starts going off and I grudgingly take the next thirty minutes to get out of bed. That task is made even harder due to a certain significant other not letting go... and my complete unwillingness to let go first... finally with a mighty huff and pout, and a face that almost made me call in sick, I made it out of bed and headed in to work.

Work was a pretty easy and happy day. Not too much for me to do, and lots of happy people getting ready for the weekend. Somehow I found a temp job at the one and only law firm where the employees (including the attorneys) would rather be out living than behind a desk working. So it fits.

As I was killing time at the reception desk waiting for the phone that never rings to do so, I started reading the news on CNN.com. The first two stories I read, set the tone for the upcoming year. First, in New York, a pregnant police officer was bumped by a van and wound up fatally injured underneath a transit bus. When it happened, there were about ten people on the street that immediatly ran out to try and save her.

Ten people trying to lift a five ton bus are never going to have very successfull results. So after unsuccessfully trying to lift the bus off the police woman, another ten people ran out onto the street to help. Here is where it gets weird/good. Twenty or so New Yorkers, arguably the most jaded and immoveable among us Americans, lifted a five ton bus and pulled the police woman out, and though they could not save her life, they did save the life of her baby.

The other story that I read was this. Friday afternoon in Palo Alto, CA. two men, one a police officer on medical leave and his friend a former corrections officer, held a press conference at which they announced that on their last camping trip in the north Georgia forest, they discovered the body of what can only be called Bigfoot.


They have turned the 7'7", 500lb, fur covered body over to Tom Biscardi (one of the nations foremost Bigfoot hunters), who is conveining a group of scientists to examine the body.

"I want to get to the bottom of it," Biscardi said. "I'll tell you what I've seen and what I've touched and what I've felt, what I've prodded was not a mask sewed onto a bear hide, OK?"

While hauling the body out of the mountains, the men noticed that they were being shadowed by at least three other Sasquach. One of whom they captured in a blurry picture. The sasquach must have known to keep a distance and to not get too close, because that pic is blurry, but the pic of the body they found and kept in an outdoor freezer is perfectly focused, even if it does not show everything clearly.


So, you can see why this year is off to a weird start.

Friday night, I get home and run through the house cleaning everything in my path. By 7:30 I finally sit down and breathe. At 8:00pm, people start showing up. I am not going to take up another two or three paragraphs talking about the party, needless to say, there were around thirty people, they were all really friendly, most knew each other, and those that didnt got to know the rest of us really fast.

Steve-Oh!, my crazy genius, called to say he was on his way, and that he was bringing a new component for my laptop that should solve my problems. He is my resident expert when something is wrong with my computers, and is often checking my computer to fix whatever unwitting thing I did to it. I told him that he could look at my computer, but I didnt want him spending the entire party on the computer trying to fix all my mistakes. When he arrived, he had this in a box under his arm.

I couldnt believe it, and tried not to let him give it to me, but he was so frustrated by my consistently crap computers that he decided it was time that I owned my first brand-new-fresh-from-the-box computer. Steve just wrote a game for the iPhone, and when Apple released the new iPhone last month, his game catapulted to number 13 on the download list. I can understand why he felt he wanted to get me such a lavish gift, I have been behind him pushing from the day he decided to write the game. I even went with him to buy the book to teach him how to do it. But still, this was such a huge gift, and very unexpected. Weird, but GREAT!

The party went into the wee hours of Saturday morning, and somewhere around 3:30 in the morning we finally fell asleep, exhausted. Saturday I gave Danny his birthday wish and never left the bedroom, except to get food and provisions, that is. We were planning on going to another birthday party and then to the two year anniversary party for our favorite bar, but... well... we just didnt leave the room, and that was totally fine for me.

Sunday started out nice and lazy, just the way I like. We woke up and went and had breakfast, yes at one in the afternoon, shuttup, I love my sleep! Our only plan for the day was to go to the Eagle beer bust. The only bar I still consistantly go to, the Eagle is an outdoor patio that fits a few hundred. The music is just barely audible, and the people run the gamut in personality and type, so it is a great place to meet new people and actually hear what they are saying. At the bust, we ran into several friends, and several very very hot men! A fantastic time was had by all.

Six of us left the bust crammed into Adrians 'spensive car, and headed over to his house where we met up with his friend Liam, who I hit it off with immediatly due to a shared military experience (he was on the aircraft carrier that was in my battlegroup). Not really sure what to do for dinner, the seven of us fixed some cocktails while I secretly ordered two pizza's for delivery. The evening was full of laughter, clothes and debate. Adrian is learning sewing, so Danny and he did a mini fashion show for the rest of us. I didnt think it would be possible, but Danny actually looks hot as hell in gold sequins!

Somehow I got into a political and military debate with Liam, covering all sorts of topics from immigration to the middle east solutions. By the end of the night, I had agreed to be his Chief of Staff upon his election to the Presidency of the United States. So, all in all, I would say a pretty damn good weekend. Weird, but good.

Battle Stations: part four

We filed into the gym for our last challenge. In the middle of the floor and somehow covertly and dramatically lit, was our next challenge: a vertical piece of plywood with a circular hole in it. We looked at it dumbfounded for a second. Then DI Delaney walked up to it and told us, we had to get every single one of our team through that hole without touching the red hot sides.

We circled up for a moment and I looked around. For some reason, they were all looking at me. I said “conveyor belt, biggest first, smallest last”? For some reason they leapt into action. Picking me up horizontally and running me toward and then through the hole feet first. As I scrambled up to catch the next guy through the hole we formed a human conveyor belt with our arms and one by one each guy was moved like a centipede through the hole. When only the smallest man was left, the two tallest of us on the other side stuck our arms through the hole and we told him to run and leap, we would pull him through.

That is exactly what happened. And when he stood up our DI stopped the clock with a look of utter disbelief on his face.

“The record time for this exercise in my time here stood at four minutes and twenty one seconds. You men did it in one minute and fifty eight seconds. Kroll, take this marker and write the Division number and time on the board. It’s the new record to beat.”

The rest of that morning went by like a euphoric high. We got to the mess hall at 5:00 am, and finally, got to go in before every other division. And for only us, there was no time limit on how long we ate, and how many times we went back up for seconds. We sat there for the better part of an hour regaling the reunited division of eighty six men on the highs and lows of the previous four hours.

The bond we built that night was perfect humanity. There was no unnecessary thought; there was no debate or want of power. There was no politics or mistrust. We were bonded as human beings by a common goal, and we knew that everything said was to aid each other, and that help could be given without having been asked for or without glory being assigned.

It is important in this society to build a common bond with each other. We have become mistrustful. For all the benefits we reap from our pride in diversity, one has to ask, is the cost of diversity unity?

Battle Stations: part three

By 3:30 am, we were dried off and moving to the fire building. We were tasked with maneuvering through the interior of a ship, with no light at all, just by feeling the walls. We all linked together and I led the way through. I only got us lost once. At the other end we had to don fire equipment and put out three separate fires.

The obstacle course was exactly what you think it was. A lot of slithering on our bellies, getting up and over walls, climbing structures, etc… but the two things you might not think of in your imagination are: The actual-weight human dummy on the life spine board we had to carry with us, or the fact that we were all wearing gasmasks.

The final obstacle was a semi circular fifteen foot slide… and we had to go up it. But if any part of our body could be seen over the lip of the slide we had to come back down and start over. This proved to be unattainable for every single one of us. After spending half an hour giving each guy a chance to try and reach the top, if finally came to my turn. The logic was that because I was the tallest, I would be able to get the furthest up.

This is how I told them to do it. I laid on my side on the slide, then someone grabbed my feet and pushed as hard as they could. I was only half way up the slide when we reached the limit of help that the team could offer me. I put my hands against the side of the slide and wedged my back against the other side, and then I did the same with my knees. I have no idea how long it took me to do that sideways crawl up the slide, wedging myself slowly up inch by inch. At the very moment when I was closest to giving up, I chanced an upward glance.

That one movement had compromised my wedge and I felt myself begin to slip. In a leap of faith, I rolled onto my stomach and shot both my hands up to try and reach the top lip of the slide. I caught it with my left. I heard the gasps below me and in that pregnant pause of silence; I reached up with my right hand and planted both hands within solid grasp of victory.

I lay there on the slide, gasping for breath through the slow filters of the mask, eyes closed, face and mask mashed against the slide. I can feel the sweat on my palms, and I adjust my grip. I take a huge breath; the filters on the mask make a wheezing sound as I strain them. With baited breath, I pull.

I barely move at first, my arms pulling my limp body upward. I remember that I have legs and spread my legs into what can only be describes as frog legs and used my toes to push. As I began to move the forward momentum helped me keep moving. I slithered over the lip of the slide and crashed on the deck. Before my momentum died, I got up and went back to the lip of the slide.

Attached to the stretcher we were carrying was a length of rope. I told them to throw one end up to me. I caught it on the first try and began to haul the body and stretcher up the slide. Once I got the stretcher on the deck I threw the rope back down and hauled one of my shipmates up. Once he was up, I gave him the rope and said “you get the next guy”, then I collapsed. My DI, who had been on the deck through the entire exercise, walked over to where I lay heaving on the ground.

“Drill Instructor, can I please take my gasmask off? I can barely breathe in it.” I pleaded. I don’t need to imagine what a person goes through in an asthma attack, I felt it. He crouched down so we were at the same level, and quietly so only I could hear he said:

“No, Kroll. Wear it for a minute longer. You need to feel this. You need to know how to calm your breathing, and maintain control. Remember, if this was real, and you took off your mask, the first breath you take could kill you.”

After two minutes of the most concentrated breaths I have ever taken, he told me to take off the mask. We moved on to the next challenge rapidly. Jogging back to the main side of base, we sang the cadences we had learned and when those got old we would sing songs from the 60’s. We had two challenges left, the shooting range, and the evacuation hatch. The shooting range went quickly. It was more sitting and waiting your turn than team building. But at that moment, the rest was exactly what was needed.

Battle Stations: part two

At 2:00am the switches are thrown and the battle stations alarm rings through the barracks. Instantly every recruit is awake and at attention in front of their rack. Drill Instructors are fully dressed in battle gear and instruct us to dress the same. Same uniform as before, the only additions are a towel wrapped around the beanie and under the metal helmet and our seabags with a change of clothes.

The division is split into four groups, each is sent in a different direction. Our group numbered twenty one men. Once out of the barracks the need for the uniform became clear, the thermometer was reading -15 degrees. Drill Instructor Delaney started us down the middle of the road at a light jog. Station number one was the practical seamanship test. Believe it or not, there is a room on the base with a life-size midsection and forecastle of a ship. And tonight we had to show that we knew how to steer, control the speed, and yes even moor to a pier.

From there, we went for the long jog to the administrative side of the base, where the fire and water tests would be, all the while singing and chanting at the top of our lungs. The night we arrived at boot camp we were all tired, confused and out of our element stumbling around in the dark, and as we were marched to our barracks wearing nothing but a navy sweat-suit, the more senior divisions did their best to scare the hell out of us while doing their own battle stations. So as we ran past the new recruits in their smurf suits freshly shorn, shivering and scared, we screamed, and cried, and made all kinds of horrors for their benefit.

I am from southern California, so swimming comes naturally to me, but that night in the pool, I came as close as I ever have to drowning. It seemed like a simple and fun test. We changed into the spare set of dungarees we had brought with us, and filed into the pool area. One by one we climbed to the 20 foot diving platform and jumped off. I was one of the first to jump, and when I broke the surface and started swimming toward the side the drill instructor pointed me and the other guys back toward the middle of the pool.

When all twenty one of us were in the water, he started the clock. Ten minutes of treading water. The first few minutes seem easy. You take off your pants, tie them into knots at the end. Then by scooping them over your head (dunking yourself in the process) you eventually fill them with enough air to wrap around your neck and use to float on. This takes your mind off the burn momentarily, but it eventually takes more energy than you can muster.

At about five minutes you start to really wonder if you can do it. Already your legs are fire and your arms are beginning to tire. You try just floating on your back on top of the water, but after about a minute of constantly having to kick and then kick some more to readjust for kicking too much, all the while flailing your wrists, elbows and shoulders, you just keep moving trying to find the easiest way to keep even the lips airbound.

At about nine minutes, I was pretty sure I was done for. My legs were putty, my arms were infernos, and I was starting to see the shadow of panic in the corner of my eye. At that very moment, an arm grabbed me under the shoulder and started to pull me. I turned in the water and saw that several of my shipmates had linked arms in the water to help keep each other afloat.

When the ten minutes was up our drill instructor pointed to the far end of the pool, where he had pushed into the water a tented circular life raft. We swam to it and I immediately grabbed the support rope along the outside. We formed a line in the water and me and a couple other guys formed a sort of human ladder for each other to climb into the raft with. All told I was the last man in the raft, and I wish I could say it was under my own steam. My arms were blown, and they pulled me in.

Battle Stations: part one

Boot Camp: It was before dawn on an October morning in Waukegan, IL. It was as normal as a day can be in below zero temperatures with thousands of people working and marching. We woke up at 4:00am as usual, to the sound of light switches being thrown.

You would think that something as quiet as turning on a few light switches wouldn’t evoke the frenzy and alertness that comes with eighty six men jumping out of their racks. But that was the way it was, starting on that first morning of September 17th, we had begun training ourselves to listen in our sleep.

That morning when our drill instructor flicked the switches for the first time, we learned what would happen if you were not out of bed by the time the last of the ten switches was thrown. If you had trouble getting out of bed, you would be sore all day from the man-killers and eight-count body-builders.

We had 30 minutes to shower, shave and get dressed in the uniform of the day which on this brisk morning consisted of long underwear, sweats, dungaree jeans, t-shirt, sweater, dungaree shirt, wind breaker, raincoat, gloves, beanie cap, utility belt, and two pairs of socks. Mind you, we were only marching the equivalent of two blocks to the mess hall and the school house. That is how truly cold it was.

The day progressed, and Division 506 went on our way, doing the standard seamanship classes and naval history classes, lunch, indoor drills, more classes, dinner, then folding and stowage drills, an hour or two of free time, and then finally at 10:00pm, lights out. We would not be sleeping long that night.