The weekend was a blast!
It was great being being back in Lock Haven for the weekend, and better still was seeing the few people who could make it.
Bruce was unable to make it because his wife had recently been hobbled by ankle surgery; coupled with having an infant in the house meant he was not able to make it with us. I managed to swing through New Jersey to have lunch with him just the same. It was great seeing you Bruce!
As a friendly reminder of how much we can trust our best friends, this is what they do with your camera when you step out to use the restroom:
After arriving in "the haven" and sharing a few beers with Ed Chatterton and Howie Congdon (great seeing you, Howie, sorry I was running late and didn't get to visit with you longer), I hooked up with Danno. Now this is an interesting story, but requires some preface.
Our last weekend in school, about a dozen people piled into various cars and went to a small (perhaps five acre) part about two miles away from our fraternity house. In Danno's car we piled a quarter keg. Now, this is quite illegal. But we weren't going to be roudy and obnoxious, just going to drink a few beers and leave.
Well, as we all sat hovered over the keg, in pulls the local police. Danno, thinking quickly, untaps the keg and hides the tap. The cop is generally friendly, but suspecting what is going on still taps Danno with an open container ticket and a fine. Oh well, better than the fine he'd have received for having a tapped keg.
So on this night, literally twenty years later, Danno and I load up a cooler with some beer, grab cheese steaks sandwiches from the local OIP, and head out for a quiet place to catch up. After driving around for some time, we end up at that same park. It's dark. No one is around. We're safe. We open a couple beers, sit down at the park bench and start eating and ... well, drinking.
As I sat there, looking up at the road to which the entrance to the park is attached, I see a strange colored car. It's like a wierd mix of blue and white. As I look at it through my dry contacts, I said to Danno, "I think the cops are coming." His reply, "What? Oh, don't say that!" Then I see the car's turn signal; he's turning into the park. Quick! Ditch the beers!
Just what we need to celebrate twenty years from graduation!
Fortune was with us! It was a cop, but he pulled in, drove slowly by us as we sat eating our food, turned around and left. We quickly finished what we were doing and left also, figuring that if we were there in thirty minutes when the cop returned (we suspect he would return) then we'd be harrassed. Our preference was to avoid that.
So the next day, after a hearty breakfast, we headed up to see Ed Chatterton. Ed is a college professor and great friend! He has a beautiful log house in a quiet, fairly remote and very private area. Absolutely beautiful setting! We ruined his day... or made his day, depending on how you look at it! Either way, it was great seeing you Ed:
From left: Ed Chatterton, Danno, myself
We left Ed and hooked up with Wally and spent the rest of the day geocaching! This was a blast!
Danno had heard of geocaching, and in fact had set up an ID on geocaching.com several months earlier, but didn’t fully understand what to do or how to do it. Wally had never heard of it so it was a total new introduction. I brought a few hundred caches to choose from and we headed out to find a bunch of remote ones.
Our favorite was a cache called “The Wall”. I a little ways out from Lock Haven, in a pretty remote area, we found Danno and Wally’s first cache ever. Of the five we did that day, it was the best one and our favorite.
From left: myself, Danno, Wally
(The cache is just behind Wally right foot.)
It was great seeing you guys! Sorry that we had some communications breakdowns with Grossie and he missed us. You would have enjoyed it Grossie! And sorry that Bruce could not make it. Next time, both of you!
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