1) Remember, this was before I joined the church. Back in my “wild” days. But, one thing I remember is I used to go out bar-hopping with my friends. I really didn’t drink. I couldn’t stand the taste of beer, never did get used to it. So, I would order a mixed drink, a gin or vodka and nurse that one drink all night long. I was always the designated driver. I was always the one who was sober when the night ended. I have a vivid memory of me holding John Bachman as he threw up in the toilet in our room. He was there for quite some time until his stomach was empty and he could fall asleep. He felt really bad the next day. And we were instructors. We weren’t officers, but we were still expected to set an example for the students. Some of us didn’t always live up to the image.
2) I remember one Friday night. It’s about 10 P.M. and we’re sitting around in one of the guys room and everybody is wondering what we should do. We had the whole weekend ahead of us. Someone said, “Let’s go to Daytona” and we all said “Great”. So, I think there were four of us. We piled into someone’s car and we drove to Daytona for the weekend. That’s on the Florida east coast. We had no money – just enough to buy gas and a little food. Nothing for motels or anything special. I ended up sleeping on the beach on the open sand for at least one night, maybe two before we went back to Biloxi. You do crazy stuff when you’re a kid.
3) One of the things I liked to do was to go home whenever I could. One weekend, a buddy (not John – can’t remember his name even though I can picture his face) and I decided to drive to Michigan one weekend. He wanted to meet my cousin Sharon who I have already told you about. We left on Friday right after work and drove all night. There were no interstates in those days and the drive was all on 2-way road. We traveled up through Alabama and across Tennessee and across Kentucky and then the full length of Indiana before coming into Michigan. It took about 24 hours to make the trip. So we got there on Saturday afternoon and then had to leave Sunday morning to come back in order to get back to work on Monday morning. We were totally nuts to try something like that in a weekend.
More tomorrow….
Dad