There weren’t many clubs in San Angelo, but this one played house music and we liked to go there to dance and meet girls.  I don’t remember the name of the club, but I remember that the guy at the door let us in even though we weren’t 21. We just had to show our military ID’s and he would stamp our hands. I have many stories about this club so for future reference I’ll refer to it as “Club House.”

On this particular night, like most night when we were out drinking, I was pretty well hammered.  I remember my friends wanting to go to some country bar or something and I was feeling sick.  I just wanted to go home and sleep it off. They left me there because I was being a bigtime ass-hat about something, probably whining like a little girl about wanting to sleep or something.  My roommate was there trying to pick up some college girl and I was bugging him about giving me a ride back to the barracks because I was sick.  I don’t remember much about the night other than I was relentless about wanting to go back to the barracks so I could try and sleep off the damage that to many beers had done. After an hour or so of cock blocking he gave in and offered to drive me back to the barracks. I waited outside for him for a while and he finally came out to take me home.  He was pretty annoyed to have to take me back to the room instead of going with this girl.  I was apologizing, and he kept saying “No problem, man.  That’s what friends do.”

He was lying.  He did have a problem with it, because he drove home like a manic.  I kept telling him to slow down.  I didn’t like him taking the corners too fast because I was going to get sick all over his car.  He assured me that he wasn’t driving out of the ordinary. To be honest, he probably wasn’t. Jimmy always drove like he was in a high speed chase, but when your drunk and bug your roommate for a ride home you tend not to remember little details about their driving style. By the time we got up to the base and were going through the checkpoint I had had enough. I ended up vomiting out of the window of his Geo Metro hatchback.  Of course I happened to vomit while we were at the gate right in front of the SP’s (Air Force cops).  They probably should have brought me in for underage drinking, but I guess the humiliation of puking my guts out in front of them was enough because I woke up in my own bed. To this day, I think my roommate told them about the drive home and they probably thought that was punishment enough.

Jimmy was about as good of a roommate as one could have. On more than one occasion he made sure that I got home ok and he always made sure that I got out of my smoke smelling, vomit crusted, piss dribbled, cheap perfume smelling party clothes before I crawled into my nice clean sheets. As homo-erotic as that sounds, I don’t think Jimmy liked helping square me away before bed time, but he did it anyway, like a good roommate. Despite the rough ride home I’m thankful that I didn’t have to wash my sheets the next day.

I apologized the next morning.  He responded with the usual, “no problem, man”.  We never said another word about it.

Note: Good room mates are hard to find.  Jimmy was a pretty good guy, but he was extremely weird.  Stay tuned for future stories about his “movie career”, his stripper girlfriend, his weird bedtime ritual and his hair piece.

I picked her up in my 1971 Nova, which to this day is one of the greatest cars I’ve ever owned. We drive 50 miles to the busting metropolis of St. Louis to one of the downtown hotels (I can’t recall which one) and enter into into some kind of alternate reality. I don’t know if you’ve every been to a Sci-Fi or comic book convention, but it is a truly unique experience. It is the only place where you can walk around and see Starfleet Officers, Klingon’s, Vulcans, Storm Troopers, Jedi, Predators, Aliens (from the Alien movies) Terminators and various superheros in the same place. I was (and still am) amazed at the amount of grown people who dress up like fictional non-human creatures and pretend. Most of the folks I met that day actually had jobs during the day, but when they weren’t at work being Joe Snuffy they were dressed up like Glarxkx the Klingon Warlord or whatever. I admire them because I don’t have the emotional strength to be two people, especially if one has ridges on his head and is an intergalactic killing machine.

Lenord Nimoy was the featured speaker that day we I decided to make Joey sit through his talk. It was actually pretty interesting. He talked about directing Star Trek IV, you know the crappy one with the whales. He also talked in great length about his pet project. It was a movie about Siamese Twins. I know the politically correct term is Conjoined Twins, but the dudes in the story were actually Siamese, so Siamese Twins is technically correct. He seemed real authentic and quite an interesting person. I especially liked a story he told about leaving the set one day and going to his other job (I don’t remember what it was, but it was some kind of food service or hotel worker or something). He talked about people staring at him because he forgot to take off the Spock ears. This was well before Star Trek was a global phenomenon. If he drove around with Spock ears today people would probably think he is just a Spock look alike going to perform at a birthday party. Ahh, what a difference a couple decades and thousands of rabid fans can do.

While it was interesting to hear him speak, but it wasn’t really exciting. Kind of like how I imagine Capt. Kirk must have felt when ever Spock was droning on about flux capacitors or dilithim crystals or some logical crap. After he got done we walked around a bit more. We’d already seen tons of Stormtroopers, a couple Red Sonija’s, a Superman, a Spiderman, a few Robocops, etc. and we had grown pretty bored with it all. We decided that for some reason it would be cool to find the service elevator and ride to the top floor. Really we just wanted to make out in the elevator and we figured that there would be less Sand People in the service elevator (Star Wars reference for all of you fans). We find the service elevator and ride to the top. Of course service elavators are boring so we natrually start making out (our plan all along anyway if you remember). When we reach the top floor the doors open and to our suprise there stands Mr. Nimoy and a couple other guys (obviously his body guards). He clears his throat which brings us out of the passionate embrace and into reality. We break apart from each other and stand there for a minute. Joey straightens her shirt and smiles that big grin of hers and asks, “going down?”

Spock and his body guards look at us. I could tell they were wondering if we were there with the convention or just two kids making out in an elevator. Since Joey wasn’t dressed like Wonder Woman and I wasn’t a Jedi Knight he probably figured the latter. After a moment he gives a nod and says something like “its ok guys” and gets on the elevator. We start heading down and a few seconds pass.

Joey: “Hey aren’t you the guy we say talking earlier about the whale movie and the twins?”

You see, Joey was never shy and she had no filter. She was kind of a stereotypical bubbly blonde. She wasn’t dumb, but her outgoing personality and her ear to ear grin made her appear like an airhead. Anyway, Spock turns around and says in his deep voice:

Nimoy: “Yes I am…are you enjoying the convention?”

Before I could intervene, Joey chimes in with:

Joey: “Oh, I’m not a Sci-fi geek, my boyfriend got some free tickets so we figured we’d come check it out. You know you look a lot like the guy who plays Spock only older.”

Nimoy (smiles): “I get that a lot.”

So we ride all the way down to the parking garage with Commander Spock and his two red shirt tough guys (a geek Star Trek reference for ya). There was some small talk made between Mr. Nimoy and his dudes. Joey probably asked some crazy questions or said some other weird stuff. That was kind of her thing talking to people like they had been friends forever. People didn’t seem to mind much because she was cute and seemed harmless. I on the other hand rode in utter silence. I coun’t think of a single cool thing to say. Looking back I wish I would have taken the opportunity to ask him a question or at least told him my name. Of course this was waaaay before cellphones and thus I wasn’t able to get the cheezy cellphone camera pic of me and Spock in a service elevator. I didn’t even bring a camera to the convention so photographic evidence of this whole transaction does not exist. That is a shame because nothing would be better than a picture of me, and Joey with a freaked out Lenord Nimoy. The elevator stops at the parking garage and the door opens. The body guards step out and Mr. Nimoy follows. As he is exiting the elevator he turns back and looks at me and Joey.

Nimoy: “Nice to meet you. I hope you enjoy the rest of the convention.”

He gives us a wink and then walks on. The doors close and immediatly Joey jumps on me and starts back into our makeout section like nothing happened. On the way home I explained to her who the guy was and his significance to the Sci-Fi community and she just giggles. She probably knew the whole time who he was. That’s typcial Joey. She liked to play into the dumb blond sterotype. I think it was fun for her.

So that’s how I met Lenord Nimoy.

Note: don’t turn down a chance to doing something out of the ordinary. You’ll never know who you’ll meet. Also, young chicks like to make out in adventurous places like elevators. Also also, always have a camera on you if you go to a Sci-Fi convention. You may not get trapped in an elevator with a famous alien, but you may never get another chance to take a picture of Darth Vader standing next to a Starfleet Officer again in your entire life.

There is a camping spot along Dinky Creek that we have frequented in the past. It is a quiet place to go spend a week in the woods away from civilization. Actually it is the kind of spot that if Bigfoot does exist he would probably want to live there. It is a beautiful place.

On this one particular night a few years ago (summer of 2004 I believe) we were up at that spot camping. My brother-in-law Dustin had his toy hauler camping trailer up there with his family. I took my boys up to join them for the weekend and there were various other family members there off and on throughout the week. We spent our days fishing, riding dirt bikes, taking the Jeep through the woods, hiking and relaxing around camp. We spent our evenings around the campfire joking, telling stories, laughing and just enjoying hanging out with family and friends.

One night after everyone else had gone to bed, Dustin, Kenny (Dustin’s dad) and I were sitting around the fire. We weren’t saying much, just a bit of idle chatter. Mostly we were enjoying the fire and the nice summer night. It was getting late, I’m not sure what time it was, but it was well past dark. Kenny had just told some joke or a funny story. I don’t remember what Kenny had been talking about, but I remember us laughing when we heard “the sound.”

Have you ever had all the joy and laughter of a moment suddenly choked off? Not sucked out of you, not gradually fade away, but abruptly stopped. It was as if “the sound” didn’t want to compete with other noise and magically destroyed all other sound waves instantly.

After hearing it, I looked over at Kenny and his eyes were big as saucers and he had a weird grin on his face. I’m guessing he had the laughter choked out of him like I did when we heard “the sound”. He looked at Dustin, then at me. “I’m going to bed” was all he said as he got up and disappeared into the camper. Dustin and I kicked some dirt on the fire and I went to my tent, but I didn’t sleep. I was way too nervous and more than a bit curious about that sound.

I can’t possibly describe the sound too you, but I’ll try. Close your eyes…wait you can’t read with your eyes closed, so finish reading then, then close your eyes and……

Imagine Bigfoot. Picture him walking around the woods in the middle of the night. Picture him being huge and hairy and pissed about something. Maybe Ms. Bigfoot made him go get some fish from the creek because she had a midnight craving for trout, maybe he forgot his butt wiping stick when he was out picking berries. Maybe he was just in a bad mood. Now imagine that he was walking around in the woods in the middle of the night, all big and hairy and pissed off AND he jams his big toe into a tree stump. He was already pissed about something and now he breaks his toe on an effing tree. Got the image in your head? Good, now imagine the sound that pissed off Sasquatch lets out when he stubs his toe in the middle of the night.

Did it scare you? Well, whatever strange sound your imagination conjured up is nothing like what we heard that night. That moment in time is one of the weirdest moments of my life (and those of you who know me understand that I’ve had some weird moments in my life.) I told you it is indescribable. What we heard was far more strange and interesting than anything my story could help you conjure up in your mind.

When I talk about this, most people think I’m crazy. Most people think I heard a bear or wolf or some other kind of animal. I guess if you know Kenny or Dustin you can ask them how they remember the sound and see if their recollection is the same as mine. Maybe I’m remembering it different than it actually happened. Let me be totally clear when I say I have never heard a sound like it. I’m not saying that what we heard was bigfoot. I’ve spent hours and hours searching bigfoot sites on the Internet, watching tv shows about bigfoot, etc. I’ve scoured the internet trying to find bear calls, or wild animal sounds so I could say, “we heard a (insert real animal here) that night”. As a kid I spent a lot of time in the woods camping. Nothing I’ve seen, heard, or read about matches the sound we heard that night. I found something close on an internet site claiming to be a recording of Sasquatch, but it wasn’t quite the same. Maybe it was a bad recording and maybe hearing the sound in the middle of the night in the woods somehow makes it seem scarier than it really is. I have found nothing that comes close to what I remember.

Looking back, I was frightened, but I was never really afraid that whatever made that noise was a threat. To be honest, the sound wasn’t one of rage. It was more of a frustrated expression of unexpected discomfort. Whatever made that sound and whatever the reason, I certainly didn’t want any part of it that night.

Note:  I never believed in Bigfoot, but after that night I’m open to the possibility that he’s chillin’ at Dinky Creek.�

One particular time we were in San Angelo.  We were both stationed at Ft. Hood, TX but for some reason or another decided to spend the weekend in San Angelo.  The night in question we had gotten a ground level hotel room at some nondescript chain type hotel and were sitting in the room when there was a knock on the door.  I opened it.  Or maybe Rich did, I don’t really recall, but I do recall the drunk guy starting at us.  I don’t remember the exact wording of the converstation but it went something like this.

Drunk guy: (Slurred speech) “Hey”

Me: “Hey”

Drunk Guy: (Pointing in Rich’s direction) “Your that guy aren’t you”

Me: “Um, he’s a guy, but probably not the one your thinking of.”

Drunk Guy: “Yeah, froom tha one mobie” (yes I’m trying to type like the drunk guy might have sounded…its all speculation though)

He hold’s his imaginary radio up in the air and starts belting out “In Your Eyes”.  Rich and I decide to go with it and mess with this drunk dude.  Again, I have to point out that what transpires next isn’t anything like the actual events that took place, but rather a tribute from my heart as to the spirit of the moment in question.

Me (grabbing for the guys arms): “Dude…don’t do that.  We don’t want anyone to know we are here.”

Drunk guy: “Oh…I won’t say anything…get it.” (drunken guy laughs)

Me:  “Yeah funny…if he gives you an autograph will you leave?”

Drunk guy: “sure…sweet.” (takes a pull from his Pabst Blue Ribbon.)

Rich:  (Signing his real name to a napkin) “Here you go, man.  Nice to meet you.”

Drunk guy: (Salutes, shakes Rich’s hand) “Your secret is save with me.”

He turns to walk away and yells to his friend.

Drunk guy: “Lloyd Dobler just signed my mapkin…yohoo!!!”

We closed the door and laughed about it.  I do remember telling Rich that he did sometime resemble John Cusack and we should try to get free drinks by him pretending to be Mr. Cusack.  Of course Rich would never have been truly comfortable lying to get free stuff, although secretly I think he would have gotten a kick out of trying.

Note: If you have a friend who resembles a famous person, never miss an opportunity to mess with drunk guys.  It is super fun even if 15 years later you can’t remember much of what happened.

Edit: Feb 10th 2009…Upon talking to my brother-in-law via cellphone today he informed me that he doesn’t remember saying exactly what I wrote here. I’ll admit that I did take some creative liberty with the dialog in the story. I don’t remember what he said but I got the general feeling across. The moral center of the story is that neither of us really wanted to jump off, but neither of us wanted to look like a chicken either.

Anyway, my brother-in-law and I were out by the log pile.  I think we were splitting wood for a camping trip or something.  I was stupid enough to be wearing shorts that day (hey it was summer time in Fresno, it gets hot there) and we found a salamandar.  My oldest son and my nephew were with us and we tried to catch it.  We spooked it and it ended up running up my leg and into my shorts.  I’m not kidding!  The damn thing ran up into my shorts.  Now I’m spooked because I have a lizard in my pants so I’m dancing around freaking out.  I don’t know if the thing is going to crawl up my ass, bite my “lizard” (probably out of jealousy), or what ever lizards do when they run up people’s shorts.

I’m dancing around like a crazy person spinning in circles, batting at my shorts trying to dislodge the thing.  My brother-in-law is laughing, my nephew and son are laughing.  They all think I am making it up that the lizard went into my shorts.  They think I’m just being silly and putting on a show.  After a few moments my brother-in-law is laughing so hard he can’t talk.  I finally come to the realization that I must have shaken the lizard out of my shorts because I don’t feel him moving around so I calm down.

“What the hell are you doing?” asks my brother-in-law.

“That lizard went up my shorts!”  I tell him. 

Of course he doesn’t believe me.  “No it didn’t.”  He’s laughing now. “You just think it did.  Man, your freaking out because it ran across your foot or something. Your acting like a baby.”  He’s really laughing now.  “you know your one of the goofiest people I’ve ever met.”  He turns to his son, my nephew, “isn’t Uncle Dude silly crazy?”  (Yes, my nephew calls me Uncle Dude.  Yes it is because I say ‘dude’ a lot.)

Now he’s got me thinking that I imagined the whole thing, so I drop my shorts and look for the lizard.  He starts laughing again because I’m standing in the middle of the field with my pants around my ankles looking for a lizard that crawled up my leg and into my shorts.  Of course I don’t find the lizard.  Now I feel like a fool.  I was dancing around carrying on about a lizard in my pants and it turns out he didn’t even go up there.

We decided to walk back to the house.  We join up with everyone on the pool deck and my brother-in-law starts telling everyone about me freaking out over an imaginary lizard that crawled up my shorts.  He’s imitating my dance moves, everyone is laughing about me freaking out.  It is basically pick on Funk for being a big baby.

So while everyone is making fun of me, I’m still feeling creeped out.  In my mind that lizard did go up my shorts.  I’m standing there getting laughed at wondering if he crapped on me, or laid eggs in my butt crack or something.  So I start adjusting my shorts and getting all wriggly.  What do you know, out falls a deal lizard.  He falls right next to my foot.  My sister-in-law sees it, screams and points.  Now everyone is laughing again because the realize that the lizard did crawl up my shorts and that while I was dancing around I must have crushed him.  He must have gotten stuck in my waistband or something and gotten smoothered.

Now I feel vindicated.  All the jokes and teasing didn’t seem so bad after all a lizard did actually crawl up my shorts.  At the same time I felt sad and creeped out.  After all a lizard crawled up my shorts and died.  Was I responsible for his death?  Maybe if I hadn’t freaked out he wouldn’t have been crushed or smothered.  Of course my freaking out may have saved me from having a lizard crawl up my ass or bite my “Johnson”.  I guess we’ll never really know, huh?

Note: don’t wear shorts in salamandar country.  If you do and one happens to crawl up your leg, I suggest you dance and flail about.  Its better than having a lizard bite your penis.

Mike simply smiled his “this is going to be fun…but not really” smile and stated rather simply, “Time to go.”  I volunteered to get Ricky and we hustled out the door.  By the time we left the bar was getting violent and the police were pulling into the parking lot as we were leaving it. (I normally don’t find that art imitates life, but just like in the movies,  every bar fight I every witnessed in person started as an argument between two people and seemed to escalate into a full on bar clearing brawl.  I just always accepted it as a sure thing…maybe I just hung out in seedy places and the patrons were prone to violence.)
 We took Ricky out of the bar and he didn’t seem to be even the least bit affected by the pool stick hitting him, the bar fight, or the blood gushing from his head wound.  He wasn’t even mad.  He claimed to be friends with the guy and it was a misunderstanding of some sort.  He was pretty drunk. We took him to the ER at the hospital on Ft. Hood.  He ended up getting something like 17 staples in his head to close the wound.  The Dr. was amazed that Ricky was walking around and laughing about it.  Ricky is one of the toughest guys I ever met, but the entire time we were at the hospital he was worried that his wife would be mad at him.  He wanted us to lie to her but he couldn’t come up with a convincing story to teller.  We didn’t want to lie to her because we liked her…and we were afraid she would be mad at us if she found out the truth.  I think we ended up telling her a modified version of the truth.  We just happened to be at the same bar as Ricky (true) and saw him get hit in the head (true) by some guy for no reason (partial lie).  I think that some part of her knows there was more to the story and she asked me about it many times.  Unfortunately Ricky was too drunk to remember what he said and we honestly didn’t know what it was all about. Note:  As soon as a fight breaks out in a bar, leave.  Don’t finish your beer; just grab your buddies and leave.  You don’t want to stick around for the cops and you surely don’t need 17 staples in your head. ����

�

There were some girls with us who were some how associated with my Uncle’s friend, maybe niece’s or daughter’s of a friend.  I was about 14 when this happened so I was well aware of girls.  I wanted to act cool, so when it was my turn on the tube I didn’t do the standard lay down like superman thing.  That would have been safe and boring.  I decided to try to stand up on the tube and “surf” it.  As we started going, I realized standing up wasn’t going to happen, so I just sat with my butt in the inner tube hole and lounged like it was an easy chair.  I was going for the look of effortless comfort while being pulled at 30 miles an hour on an old inner tube across the lake.  This didn’t last long as it was very difficult to keep my butt from slamming on the water and possible pull me into the tube.  I decided to move into the boring superman position.  I was getting tired of trying to look cool…it was hard work fighting the inner tube.

As I moved around I ended up on my knees and sure enough my knees fell into the inner tube hole, just as my Uncle’s friend warned me.  I fought to get my knees out of the hole, but couldn’t.  So I waved to my Uncle’s friend to stop the boat and started shouting to slow down so I could reposition.  To my suprise, he didn’t slow down.  He started going faster.  The girls in the boat were giggling and waving.  I was struggling not to fall into the inner tube hole and get sucked through by the force of the water hitting my thighs.  I kept waving and the boat kept going faster (just like he promised).

Finally I succumbed to my lack of strength and my knees fell through one last time.  The force of the water started to drag me into a v shape and I got worried I would get stuck.  I decided that I would simply get my feet down enough to slip into the hole and let my entire legs dangle in the water.  It would hurt a bit, but we were heading back to shore, so I wouldn’t have to endure it for long.  The moment I got my feet through the hole my legs shot behind me.  The back of the tube came out of the water.  I now had a giant inner tube belt and the back half of it was sticking up in the air.  Seconds later my worst nightmare came to life.

My swim shorts were sucked from my teenage body by the force of the water.  I didn’t know what to do.  I was already embarrased because my attempt to be cool had reveiled that I was really a big dork.  I could live with being thought of as a dork, but to be served the humiliation of being branded as “the naked dork” was just too much.  I managed to keep the lowe half of my body in the water so that no one could see that I was in my birthday suit.  The girls kept waving a giggling at me and I just gave a weak smile and tried to be cool about the whole thing.  Then I started thinking “hat was I going to do when we got to shore?”  I couldn’t just walk out of the water?  I had no shorts!

As we pulled close to shore everyone was remarking on how funny it was watching me squirm around on the tube.  It was a big laugh for them.  I just kind of mulled around in the water for a few minutes.

“Hey, come on up and get something to eat.” My Uncle beckonded.  “I’m sure your hungry after that show.”

I was stuck.  Naked in the water.  Nothing to do but relay the truth to everyone.  I meekly said, “I lost my shorts.”

“Yeah, you almost did.  I’m suprized you still have them after falling into the tube.”  My Uncle’s friend was laughing.  “You just kept waving for me to go faster.”

“No.  I was waving for you to stop.  I lost my shorts.”  I was embarassed.  “I’m naked.”

Silence for two seconds.  Uncontrolable laughfter for two minutes.  Embarassment for the two days left in our camping trip.

Note: Don’t every try to impress girls with an inner tube, because if you end up naked, you’ll just look like a tool.

We worked out that one of us would shoot into the air and the other would try to catch the arrow on the way down.  The trick was to stand a bit to the side and grab the arrow right before it hit the ground.  I know that this will seem unlikely at best, but we were surprisingly good at catching arrows.  I can only recall playing this particular game once.  We might have attempted to play it again, but a neighbor saw us and called Blair’s dad.  I remember him coming out of the house in a state of rage.  He had to get up in the middle of his “night” because we were outside “acting like a couple of retards”.  Of course we lied and said that we weren’t shooting arrows into the air and catching them.  We would have gotten away with the lie had there not been an arrow sticking up from the roof of the house from a stray shot. 

Note: Occasionally I’ll have a shot or three of tequila or bourbon or maybe a beer, but I don’t drink anymore.  I do however make it a point to remember my wife’s name when I do.