We sat at
the Hard Rock Cafe in Buenos Aires (where we went to buy my father in law a
tshirt), watching the music videos from the late 80’s and early 90’s, and I saw
the impetus for the amazing style in this 1st world city. Each video brought back memories of the
times.
A “Metallica” video
reminded me of my buddy Kyle who is getting married in a few months. Kyle is the rare personal trainer who
actually takes his diet seriously, and loves to make fun of fat personal
trainers. I always feel a little
uncomfortable when he does this, because I can’t exactly see my abs, and I
think Kyle has close to a twelve pack.
He lets me off the hook, because my sport required strength, not
aesthetics. I think that is one reason I
miss Strongman so much, having an excuse for my gluttony. Kyle
and I would hang out about once a month, which seems like a perfect balance of
community to me. We would go to the
Skellig in Waltham. We would drink
Guinness and work our way down the beer list, and we would look at the women
and be silent. The more attractive the
woman, the less we spoke. We would make
fun of the less attractive ones, especially the Baggins. Girls that looked like Bilbo Baggins.
We would go back and listen to the
band. It was always the same band, with
the tall skinny lead singer that thought he was Mick Jagger, and the Bassist
that looked like Bill Clinton had a baby with Jay Leno. We would stand near the speaker, and scream
funny things into each others ears. We
would lose our voices laughing, and with a break in the action, we would smile
and give the band a thumbs up, we would nod and tell them “you
suck!”.
As I listened to “Nothing else
matters…” I thought of trucks. I
thought of my brother’s white Ford Pick-up, which we would ride in to the gym
and blast “Metallica”. My
brother has been in the Air Force for a long time, and his stint in Germany has
brought him back to God. He is a nurse
and spent 6 months patching up the wounded from the debacle in the desert. Now he is playing his guitar in the worship
band in his church in Ohio, and he sends me encouraging emails and updates on
how much his dogs, dumb and dumber are doing, and how much they are
pooping. Dumb is a four year old boxer
named Loki, and dumber is his two year old great dane, named Shadow. Our big retard, Sequoia loves her cousins,
and we even had spaz, the ADHD!!!! weimareiner named Haley, and her parents, my
sister and her husband all posed for a picture this past thanksgiving, which I
stare at every day because I keep it in my bible.
I also like to look at the picture
of my nephew Mikey, who has a really cool mohawk and is trying to learn to be
aggressive on the soccer field. I guess
I’ll give a shout to all the nieces and nephews, not just Mikey and the
dogs. Tyler, my younger sister’s boy,
who is going to be 7 in November and is a total maniac on the trampoline. Lyndsey, the smartest 9 year old I have ever
met. Megan and Hannah, the twins, who I
believe are as different as night and day, but both fun to tickle until they
are completely helpless. And Zach, who
swings a mean bat and is in to leather.
That boy can play some ball.
Jake, Zach’s little brother, who we had fun watching learn to talk, and
I think might have a future as a full back.
A “Stone Temple Pilots”
video brought me back to my 1986 black and gold Ford Bronco, with the tinted
windows, the 351 cubic inch engine and four barrel carburetor. My mom almost had a heart attack when she
learned how much I had spent on the sound system in there. I had it professionally installed, over 1000
watts going to 8 speakers, and an isobaric box with two 12-inch subwoofers. That truck rocked. On rainy Saturdays we would cruise around
listening to STP and Counting Crows, smoke cigars, and talk about who we would
be dating later.
It was in that truck that we
listened to Nate Dogg and Warren G, and sang along with ‘Regulators’. We called ourselves the ‘Regulators’ (give me
a break, we were 19 and southern baptist to boot), and as far as I know,
Liberty University still has groups by that name, playing intramurals, 15 years
later.
Bessy, my bronco, met her demise on
a twisty mountain in Lynchburg Virginia, when my brother borrowed her to take
his girl out.
