LIFE GOES ON... and on... (Part 171u)

LIFE GOES ON… and on… (Part 171u)

The celebration went on so long they had to get Security to get us off the grounds. That should give you an idea of how I felt when it was time for church in the morning. The one thing I thought I remembered was that the team members, giddy with the fact that we’d won, deciding to go on a “road trip” to race up in Connecticut on Friday night. Thinking about it in daylight, I questioned it. We’d won enough money to pretty much guarantee that we’d be able to race for a few more weeks and this excursion might put a ‘dent’ in that. With my head already hurting that thought certainly didn’t help it any. However the day did get better. By the time the church service was over my head had pretty much cleared. The ‘other Elle’, the lady from North Carolina who’s mother was a member of the church, was there again. She’d taken a leave of absence from her work and come North to take care of her mother and would be there until at least the fourth of July. I liked her and was pleased to know she’d be around. When here the previous time she’d expressed the desire to “spruce up” the grounds around the church and had made an effort to do so. Seeing me that morning she asked about where she could get some flowering plants. I told her I knew a place and would get back to her. I knew that Bob and Phyl, part of the “group” from when we first moved to town, had opened a nursery and were selling their plants to garden shops but not on a retail basis. I thought I might be able to get them to donate some plants and I’d offer to help the lady prepare the areas for planting them. I looked forward to that and working with her… but I didn’t know when.

Back at home, with Elle now up and about, she told me I’d gotten a phone call the previous afternoon from a college roommate who had moved from upstate and had just started a business close to where the bank’s branch was located. He wanted me to call as soon as I could. It had been a couple of years since I’d heard from him and I wondered if, with his new business, he wasn’t looking for me to invest in it. If that was what he wanted… I wanted no part of it… but I did have to call him. I put it off until after lunch. He went by a nickname… Wick… and it came from when we were in college. He was a “party animal” and one of his advisors had warned him that the was “burning the candle (wick) at both ends”. After graduation he cleaned up his act but the nickname stuck. Fully expecting a ‘pitch’ for investment money I remember shaking my head when I heard him ask if I was going back to our college for the 10 year reunion. I’d gotten besieged by the school for months to register and I’d thrown the material away and pretty much put it out of my mind. I’d not kept in touch with many of my classmates and saw no reason to waste time and money by attending. The first question I had for him wasn’t to find out about his recent move and new business. It was to ask why he wanted to go back. It took him about ten minutes to explain.

A little background here… Wick and I joined the same fraternity and roomed together for our sophomore year. During that time we gravitated to a group of guys who tended not to march to the same drummer as the majority. There were four classmates who chose to room in the basement of the frat house and called themselves “The cellar dwellers”. As time passed they invited others to join their group including some upperclassmen who were ‘leaning’ in the same direction as we were. They had a name for themselves that pretty much matched our philosophy… “The black hole”, and to emphasize it, their room was painted black. Over my sophomore and junior years I participated in a lot of less than sterling behavior with them. Actually, by the time the older guys graduated (most of them), we had a campus wide reputation. Getting married for my senior year pretty much took me out of circulation. However, on the few occasions I happened to run across one or more of them they would talk about reprising the group at our tenth reunion. I just ignored that talk but, one of the guys, “Gerb” (it was a shortened version for gerbil… and I have no memory of how that was placed on him) kept it alive. At graduation, his father, an importer, gave him one of his small businesses to run. And run it he did. It was an Italian wine import business and he made it a very large and successful company.

The story Wick was feeding me was that “Gerb” was sponsoring a mini wine festival to correspond with the reunion. He rented a dozen rooms at a run down hotel about five or six miles South of the campus as well as some of the grounds around it. According to Wick he’d convinced about eight of the original “cellar dwellers” to come and was trying to get those guys to convince more to come. I didn’t say much of anything while Wick was in the “sell” mode, just sat there remembering some of the stunts we’d pulled. It was when he told me who was coming that I started to give it a thought. He did mention his new business at that point saying he really couldn’t afford to take all the time that the reunion had scheduled so was going to drive up on Friday night, do the festival and class reunion dinner on Saturday and return Sunday morning. I remember my conscience telling me “No!” and I also remember not responding at first to his now somewhat pleading voice. The event was to take place Memorial Day weekend and that was always a big deal at the racetrack and for the kids so I finally told him I just couldn’t do it. He did make me promise to keep it in mind and if there was a change in my thoughts to give him a call.

Talk about planting a seed! I sat at the phone reminiscing about those days until Elle came up and asked if I was OK. I didn’t go into detail but gave her an overview of the conversation I had with Wick. Naturally, Elle knew him from our college days and asked about his wife and family. I had to laugh at the question because at no time did they come up during the call. The real surprise was when she asked if I was going to do it. Aside from everything I had on my ‘plate’, going back for a reunion without Elle was out of the question and her even hinting that it would be possible for me to go was ludicrous. When I told her “No” she replied “Why not? I think it would be good for you to do something like that.” I do remember shaking my head from side to side listing off some reasons why after hearing it. Not the least of them was the race car and the big race on Memorial Day weekend. To that, it was now her turn to shake her head.

After that I headed off to see if I could persuade our friends, Bob and Phyl, to let me have some flowering plants for the church. With the two of them just starting their new business I pretty much figured they’d be working at the business even though it was Sunday. I was right but as soon as I made my request Bob came back with the plea for me to run for the school board. Tired of being badgered I gave him a flat out “NO!” and headed back to my car. He called out, apologized and I was able to get them to donate a couple of ‘flats’ of petunias and marigolds. Back at home I had to call the ‘other Elle’ to let her know and to work out when we could get together to get them planted.

To be continued…