The Mini-Class Reunion

It was all good.

But for the life of me, a person knows when they're getting old when they are completely sore from playing the "golf-ball game," or "ladder-ball." My legs, my ass, my shoulders -- abso-fuckin'-lutely are killing me. I don't know if it was the bed I slept on at my parent's house or what, but it's borderline ridiculous.

The weekend started off beautiful, with the chance of rain later on in the day (Saturday). I didn't think much of it, but later the weather would become a huge factor. I rolled back into the hometown around 12:15 p.m. that afternoon, hooking up with Mike and Lacey at their house, then proceeded to head to Robb and Jen's place. Lucky for them, they live on one of the busiest streets in GF, so the parade route went right by their house.

Once we got there, the drinking commenced. After a while, the clouds were beginning to look pretty gray, thinking, "Oh, shit...", but we forged on. It was your typical Midwestern parade, complete with fire engines, over-60 bands, and farm machinery. And lots of candy.

The Miller Lites were going down pretty well, then all of a sudden, I lost all taste. Remember those Miller Lite commericials that basically told you to drink Miller Lite for the flavor? Well, I wasn't tasting my Miller Lite -- which usually isn't a good thing. If beer's going down like water -- ooh, yeah.

After my brother's old drumline passed, the weather turned for the worse. The rain came down in sheets, so we made way for the garage in the backyard. More drinking commenced.

"Sippin' Hennesey and we be bubblin' ya'll..."

The highlight of the day was when Robb's cousin Jim showed up. Right when he came into the garage, there was a huge, bright lightning flash, quickly followed a bad-ass clap of thunder. Obviously, it came pretty close, which gave us all quite the jumps. As it turned out, the lightning struck a tree just a couple of blocks away, knocking out power and blowing a window out.

Ah, but wait! I guess a person couldn't say that was the ultimate highlight of the day. It all came when the clouds parted and we all decided to play a little "ladder-ball."

Mike and I were teamed up, and right off the bat, we didn't play to well. Don't get us wrong, we were quite competitive, but we just could not finish out our games. But then, what turned to be a simple game between the boys, ended up in being the "series of series."

Mike & Tony

v.

Robb & Bot

Mike and I dropped the first two games, always challenging them to a rematch. We used the old-school excuse (from The Owl Garden days), "okay, let's do the best of seven..." and thus, it was on.

Then all of a sudden, we won a game. We also won Game 5. Sometime during this period, there was a small rain delay (along with a supper break), and then we proceeded to win Game 6. The tension was high, Robb & Bot were getting nervous (I could tell, since Bot had some rotten ass). After Robb & Bot pumped each other up in the garage, Mike and I were ready. Game 7 was going to decide it all.

I don't know if it was good chuckin' on our part, or a New York Yankee-like choke in the hands of the Boston Red Sox, but Mike and I ran the score up quickly, taking an "early" 17-0 lead. Robb and Bot came back with 6 straight points, but I managed to land two 2-point throws and held it -- final score: 21-6.

It's a series that will go down in the annals of sport -- an underdog team who were three games down to win the next four. Ah -- good ol' yard games.

After losing the taste of beer completely, I switched back to an old-school drink, Smirnoff Ice, which wasn't any better. Later on I would suffer from one of the worst headaches ever.

But I tell ya, one hell of a night. A mini-Class Reunion, of sorts. As it ends up, only 18 people showed up to the real Class Reunion -- and Robb wins $500. That's a lot of beer to buy with that, buddy!