I’ve written before about how blessed
I’ve been in my life as far as the friend department. That was validated
yesterday with another return to my home town. The stated reason was a reconnaissance
of the first bar of the upcoming birthday pub crawl. The real reason as that
after mowing the lawn to insure my leaf removal system was operational I knew the
empty house was not where I wanted to spend the rest of my weekend. My Favorite
Panamanian was continuing her Maine sojourn with her fellow musquetera. Keene Friend
agreed to host me and accompany me on my reconnaissance.
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| The First Bunch |
The recon was needed because Penuche’s
Ale House, the first bar on the birthday pub crawl, was recently sold and
closed for over a month for renovations. I had to confirm this old hometown haunt was still available
for the crawl. I know I could I have done that with a simple phone call but you
can never overestimate the importance of actual boots on the ground reconnaissance,
and yes, beer was involved. So were my friends. Keene Friend and I arrived and
were shortly joined by a couple of high school classmates. The Connecticut
River Boat Captain (whose birthday it was) as well as my best buddy from
kindergarten. It was somewhat nostalgic that I could look out the window of
Penuche’s and see that kindergarten (there’s nothing like going home). We were
kind of mystified about what the renovations had been since it looked virtually
the same but it had been significantly cleaned up which was welcome since the level
of effort in that area might have required explosives. Forty years of beer
drinking excess does build up a certain level of grime (to be absolutely clear I’m
talking about Penuche’s). We accomplished one of our trademark semi-inebriated calls to the Pittsburgh College Roommate.
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| Later Joined by Keene Freind 2 |
It was a great afternoon as our ranks were
swelled with the arrival of another high school classmate - Keene Friend 2. His
wife is also out of town (Argentina, don’t cry!) so he was free to join us for
some post-Penuche’s football at Keene Friend’s nearby home. I fielded a call
from the FBR who was a little confused by my exotic location. It was a great
evening of football and baseball as we got to root against the Yankees. I saw
most of the games although some time was spent inspecting the underside of my
eyelids (there had been a lot of beer sent downrange earlier). Both Keene
Friends eventually retired as I stayed up to hopefully watch the end of the
Yankee’s season. It was almost midnight as I saw the Yankees tie the game in the
9th inning. I was so pissed I headed upstairs to bed and only
learned this morning their season did in fact end a half inning later. So I
consider yesterday a complete win, mostly because of the excellent friends I got
to spend time with.
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RECURRING
CHARACTERS
BRS
- Blog Reader the Sequel
- second granddaughter; FBR - First Blog
Reader - first granddaughter, ABFA –
Amazing Best Family Athlete = my daughter in law; Wingman – my son in law; Keene
Friends 1 & 2 – friends since high school from my home town of Keene,
NH; Soxfather - my brother in law; Great Aunt = my elder sister; Cantankerous Friend – friend since grade
school who likes to argue about everything, poses as radical leftist to attract
women; Pittsburgh College Roommate –
high school friend, also a “Minor Celebrity” in Pittsburgh; Deckzilla – our backyard deck which
grew to monstrous dimensions once my wife got involved in planning; Maine and Virginia Musqueteras – two
close friends of my wife – her US sisters, my wife is the 3rd musquetera
(musketeer); Riggins - also known as
the Grandpuppy, son's dog, surrogate grandchild while awaiting arrival of the
BRS; PanaGals – female
relatives/friends of my wife from Panama; Panamanian/Latin
Mafia – inevitable group of Latino friends my wife accumulates wherever we
have lived & their spouses; Neighborhood
Mafioso - wife's close friend and Panamanian mafia member, Favorite Panamanian - the wife (of
course); First Friday – celebrations
to mark the First Friday of the Week; Deckzilla
Dude – senior citizen carpenter/contractor; Voices of Inappropriate Worth - members of public who come to every
Worcester public meeting to complain, all are on public assistance along with
demeanor issues
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