OK

So Dave calls me up this afternoon around 1pm. I just got finished helping my Dad stain the deck, we’ve been at it for 3 hours, and I’m beat.

“What the fuck, dude? What’s up? Are we playing golf this afternoon, or what?”

Hell yes, I’m thinking. Is that even a question? So Dave shows up around 4pm and we hit it, hard.

First, we go to the bar and buy a 6-pack of hooch. OK, we’re set. We put our clubs in the cart and set out.

It takes us FOREVER. The 4 guys in front of us are garbage, hitting 4 balls each and they’re all over the course. Needless to say, it takes us forever to finish a round.

Now, Dave and I are alike, in that we HATE to wait. Both of us are very impatient. 3 hours later and we’re steaming and ready to booze. We skip, entirely, the 8th hole and half the 9th.

Time to booze.

3 hours later we’re in the bar, yucking it up with a couple d00ds and getting sloshed. We’re drinking MAS pints of hooch and doing shots of Jack. We’re FUCKED up, to put it mildly.

Next thing you know, it’s 11pm.

Oh shit.

Dave was supposed to be home by 10pm. The way it looks now, he’s ain’t gonna be home until after midnight.

“Dave, can you drive?”

“Oh yeah, man, I’m cool. Just gimme some water and something to eat and I’ll make it.”

I’m not so sure.

In any case, I feed him, water him, and send him on his way. Then I get to thinking. My Mom’s still up, so I go to talk to her.

“Whassup Mom? So, uh, is it my fault, or what?”

I know what’s she’s thinking. Tom and Walt, all over again (my Dad and his best friend).

I know what’s going to happen. To get the heat off ’em, Dave is going to blame everything on me. So the next time I see his wife, I’m gonna get some stink-eye. But is it really my fault?

“You should be the more mature one, and get Dave home on time,” my Mom says to me.

Should I? I dunno. It’s not like I’m holding a gun to Dave’s head and forcing him to drink, right?

Is it my fault?

I make myself a burrito and head to my room. I can hear my Mom saying, “You men never learn…”

Oh yeah, and we saw Melanie Carrol tonight. She’s married, and teaches 5th grade in Lompoc. And our 15-year reunion is in June. Crazy, huh?

Last Thursday through Sunday was rough. Four days of booze and goodbyes and I’m still hurting.

Monday I packed all my belongings and moved back to Haytown. I must say that the weather here is exponentially better. Today the temperature is a whopping 72 degrees. In Chico it’s over 100.

So I’m in culture shock and all. I miss the small-town feel of Chico and my friends. I think my final days deserve a good write up, just not right now. I’ve still to set up my office (I’m writing this entry on my old wireless laptop).

Well, The Silver Fox made his final trip to Chico yesterday.

I was hoping he’d stay another night–Saturday night is always the best party night in Chico. We would have gone to LaSalle’s. But, as my father is quite fond of saying, sometimes you have to do things you don’t want to do. The Silver Fox left not too long ago.

He showed up around 6:30pm yesterday. We drank beer out of the ice-cold icechest and BBQ’ed some tri-tip. We left my house around 9:30pm and went straight to the U bar. A few pitchers of beer later we stumbled over to Duffy’s, where we spent the rest of the night. We never made it to Joe’s.

Back at my apartment we drank the rest of the beer and had a dip of Copenhagen. We played some old-school country tunes and stayed up until 4am or so. I don’t remember much after that.

Around noon I cracked open a crusty eye and got out of bed. The Silver Fox was rushing to get ready to leave.  He had to get going. I wanted him to stay, but I understood that he had to leave. As The Silver Fox pulled out of the parking lot and drove away I couldn’t help but think to myself, “…the end of an era…”

So we didn’t do anything too crazy. At least we blacked out though, that has to count for something, right?