Well, that Indiana University basketball coaching search didn’t take long, did it?
3-25-2017: Little Archie Goes To Bloomington
Tom Crean Barely Beats Northwestern
2-25-17: Senior Year in the Sonland Part 5: The Saga of Number 10
Saturday evening in central Indiana. As usual found dealing with Comcast is, well, dealing with Comcast. But I already knew that. Still not fun to deal with dudes or whatever they are on the phone. Safe to say long-term business with said dudes is going down the toilet like, yes, the Pacers’ season. (Had to get that out of the way, now I’m good on the bad pro sports team references. And yes I’ve heard those Paul George trade rumors all week. Led to one man calling himself Trader Joe on the Pacers Digest message board to call Pacer front office honcho Larry Bird a “coward” for how Bird was running the team. The day said Joe tells said Bird that face to face will be the December day that I wake up and see Kate Upton wrapped underneath my Christmas tree. I assume dude is not handling seeing the departure of George Hill too well. Should that be the case, I suggest a good shrink may be in order for said dude.)
Still have Prom Dates and fraternity pledgeship and actually having fun in college (in huge part because college wasn’t in Noblesville, Indiana aka Sonland City) but in order to get that I need to get through discussing senior year at the Sonland (aka Noblesville High School). And in order to deal with that, I need to deal with a topic that I really haven’t dealt with much the last couple of decades because quite frankly thinking about it was the equal of thinking about getting a colon cleansing or vasectomy (or watching this year’s Tom Crean led Indiana basketball squad, which coincidentally will be tipping off an hour from the completing of this sentence.) That topic that I just compared to dealing with bad bowel movements? A continuation of Part 4’s conclusion in dealing with the schoolmate that I simply classify as Number 10. (Link to Part 4 at 2-20-17: Senior Year in the Sonland Part 4: Yearbook, Dick’s Class and Number 10)
Over two decades ago there was a time that I considered said Number 10 to be a best friend, even a brother type figure. But that all would change during the midst of my senior year at the Sonland, and as mentioned before it would lead me to say to myself “getting out of the state of Indiana for school won’t be a bad thing….in fact it will be a $!^@$ good thing.” Proved to be right on that one. In fact if I didn’t go out of state for said college I probably wouldn’t have had a decent life thus far. And I wouldn’t be able to have learned that something that Tony Soprano once said to young son A.J. in the midst of the classic HBO show The Sopranos: “Family: they’re the only ones you can depend on.”
Thanks to Number 10 I found that the fictional Mafia man was one correct individual, and in turn I learned to live by another favorite personal quote of mine: “With friends like (Number 10), then who in the f— needs enemies?”
Which leads us back to Number 10.
Also leads to the need for me to cut the b—s— and get going on why dude could have pointed me towards a lot of self-doubt….. but in turn led me to have perhaps the best four years of my life via finding out there was more to life than being in Sonland City USA and being told I was a piece of s–t because I did not live out by Morse Reservoir in a 1960’s built house suited for the likes of Marsha Brady and the cast of Eight is Enough. Yes, I got in fights over the size of my house. Yes, when it came to topics like intelligence and acutal awareness of the world around them if brains and common sense were dynamite then some of these Sonlanders (like, well, Number 10) would not have been able to blow up a gnat. And yes I can only shake my head that I did not end up pulling a Samuel L. Jackson from the movie Pulp Fiction because quite frankly I would have rather been stuck in an elevator with Roseanne Barr than to dealt with that kind of s–t back then. Hence the mentality of Number 10 was not the mentality I needed for the 1990’s…thought the 1890’s might have welcomed the youngster’s way of thinking. In other words in the time frame of six months dude became an outright (rhymes with DOCK) and someone I loathed. And considering that this would be the dude that I ended up double dating with for PROM.…yes, what could have been a p-ss poor teen drama on the CW Network was luckily avoided thanks in part to me deciding to stand up for myself and not be treated like s–t…oh, and going to a college that I wanted to as opposed to a college where I would have been on the potential eight year plan in Muncie or on the potential three month drop out plan in Bloomington. Or in other words without a degree and probably working at your local sporting goods store while claiming night school was around the corner in another year or five.
But ironically back in September 1990 (my senior year of Sonland), those kind of thoughts weren’t close to being on the horizon. In fact things were quite the opposite.
Going back to the end of Part 4 for quick recap…as mentioned earlier dude was in my fifth hour Spanish class. Dude had called me the evening of Labor Day needing help with Spanish homework. Sailed the 1977 Buick out there, met Cliff and Mrs. Cliff, homework got done, I got to see the tour of the Number 10 family home (bedrooms upstairs, Number 10 having the prerequisite Michael Jordan posters from Nike that all basketball playing Hoosier teens had back in the day)…and that was that. I sailed home and didn’t think much of it. I sure as f— didn’t think I’d be back out there to visit Number 10 anytime soon…..
…..and as established many a time in Part 4, as illustrated by our 45th Chief Executive, I was JUST a bit….
The next day in class Number 10 made it a point to talk to me. That evening after school Number 10 made it a point to call me at home. This became frequent. Even more frequently was me visiting or going over to his home on weekends. Dudes usually crashed at other dudes’ houses back then in part because teenagers needed something to do if not getting d—k or l–d or debating the validity of the upcoming Gulf War. So it got to the point where that fall semester I was over at the home of Number 10 on every Friday and Saturday evening before rolling back to my home on Sunday evening (with the exception of one weekend where Number 10 decided to show his greatness by visiting my house-and note the sarcasm because that’s where business begins to pick up on dude’s ego increase- and a second Saturday where Number 10 joined Young Adams and MC Burkett on a triple date to the Homecoming Dance that as mentioned previously yours truly got stood up to by one Aimee Allison). While CW showrunners would have wanted me and Number 10 to be the equal of what the Kevin and Moose characters were doing in the series premiere of the show Riverdale , thankfully for all of mankind that sure as #!$%$ was not the case. Instead basically dude and I became best friends to where he was calling every evening to shoot the s–t on sports, school and -of course because we were teenage dudes in 1990 Sonland City-women, or if good looking women Hot Sonland Chicks.
For that first semester of my senior year, if anyone wondered where in the blue hell I was at when calling my home they could probably figure out I was. And if someone wondered where Number 10 was at, they could also put two and two together and figure out who he was with whether it be Glendale for the movies, Castleton for wandering the mall, Carmel to buy music or Lafayette Square to buy his new Adidas Artillery sneakers for basketball season (in which for trivia purposes I received $40 in gas money from Cliff for sailing said 1977 Buick to make the purchase, which admittedly beat stocking the shelves at Shoe Carnival) then they usually put two and two together and figured that dude was with with the gent who is typing this sentence. That was how things were. And quite frankly I considered Cliff and Mrs. Cliff to be surrogate parents. In fact at the time I thought the world of them to where I would do stuff with them that I would not even do with my own family like going out to dinner for New Year’s Eve or going to the movies. Today’s me is ashamed I typed that, but Sonland senior year me thought that was acceptable. Meaning Sonland senior year me needed a swift kick in the groin to know better considering what Number 10 related drama I would be dealing with in the spring. (And a baseball bat to the cranium also would have done the trick as well. I simply was not thinking clearly, period.)
In other words I thought the world of Number 10 and considered him to be my closest friend…period.
I also got used to a routine that led me to be in the best shape of my life and kept me at 140 pounds throughout that senior year (as opposed to the 200 I weighed as a Sonland freshman). That routine was late night Fridays, all day Saturdays (when not at movies or the mall) and all day Sundays of either playing football (Number 10’s younger brother was the quarterback/center, and for your additional trivia he would be the Boys Club basketball teammate of future Indiana University hoops great Tom Coverdale with Cliff and Coverdale’s dad as coaches) or going to the before referenced Number 10 family barn from Part 4 that had been converted into a basketball court. We played a lot of one on one hoops, H-O-R-S-E, and so forth…as mentioned before via the photo on the Instagram account (@fitzthoughts) Number 10 was soon to be the only sophomore on the varsity basketball team while I was simply your basketball statistician. So you can figure out how most of the games went. (Though there would be comedy if I actually beat him or blocked his shot because he would get mad and say DER DAT A FOUL NAW WAY U BLOCK MAH SHOT.) While I was generally the Washington Generals to dude’s Harlem Globetrotters, at the same time I was undoubtedly in the best shape of my life. Also beat sacking groceries or stocking shoes for s—-y pay while generally helping me in not being too concerned about most of the seniors that could care less if I breathed or not in my senior-laden classes of that fall like senior comp, math and the ‘Shoe’s Class’ of classic literature where I would often say to myself “I don’t really like most of these m—–f—–s because they treated me like s–t when I was overweight, and I sure as f— give two s—s about what they think about me right now.’ As a result I was not too concerned about missing things like building the senior float or what fictional road trip had taken place.,,,and that was in part to knowing I already was probably hanging out with Number 10 and family to begin with.
While I served as Number 10’s scrimmage ‘competition’ for said basketball, I also in turn helped dude with homework….particularly Spanish and English. I ensured dude got B’s and C’s in the former while ensuring dude got B’s in the latter…..with the latter being ironic because Number 10’s English teacher also happened to be my senior comp teacher, one Carol Devine (which led me to call my comp class ‘Carol’s Class’, and since I had one of the two highest grades in said class I figured I could do as such.) Save for talking to soon the soon to be Homecoming Queen and good friend Danny Davis, the only time I ever had anyone look at me or pay attention to my existence in that fall in Carol’s Class was when Carol read one of my papers out to the entire class since I got said highest grade. It was the only time I remember Candi Streich and Jenni Snelling looking at me that semester (both had grins similar to what one might have if they see their neighbor has a three legged house pet), so obviously it was one of those memories that stands out more often than not.
Ironically enough, in a high comedy moment the same thing happened to Number 10 in his sophomore version of Carol’s Class.
Number 10 had a big composition assignment (IIRC it was his big paper of the semester) to do. Number 10 was as good a writer as I was a dental surgeon. So yours truly had the honor of assisting with said comp. We had to pick a topic that Number 10 was familiar with and could write-or in this case talk-a lot about. You probably figured from earlier sentences that Michael Jordan would be the choice. Thanks to my Sports Illustrated collection (swimsuit issues notwithstanding) and my time in yearbook I got enough information where I would take a couple of Number 10 quotes…include them with Jordan stats ranging from points scored per game to endorsement money…and I, er, we crafted together a fair little writing assignment one evening when not playing pickup basketball. For tribute to said Jordan since Number 10 had enough posters of said Chicago Bull on the walls, here’s one of said posters:
…and better yet, here’s another one:
When it comes to knowing useless information for times like this, I tend to know more than my fair share. Then again you would expect nothing less from a Dilton Doiley clone who remembers-and previously posted-the actual windbreaker jacket he work the night he went out with (said for dramatic effect) the future homecoming queen Trina Byers. (And yes, I still get giddy whenever I type a sentence like that.)
Back on topic….Where father of Number 10 Cliff asked if Number 10 had done any work on the project, I assured Cliff that Number 10 had been there for the writing. (You can read between the lines there.) The result was Number 10 getting a 93 percent (aka he got an ‘A’) from the usually tough grading Carol and thus had the highest grade in HIS class….plus, yes, Number 10 got to have our, er, HIS Jordan composition read out to his entire class. (IIRC Pat Kastner had noted the comedy effect of the situation by saying -paraphrasing-‘We(the non-Carol students) knew he couldn’t have written that, and we figured out it had to be you since you knew your sports.’) While Mrs. Cliff was proud that Young Number 10 got the dap from Carol by getting our, er, his Jordan essay read out loud, I in turn had helped keep dude eligible for his upcoming gig as varsity basketball roster filler and junior varsity basketball star (plus he could play baseball in the spring too without issue). Plus I impressed myself because IIRC I had told Kastner ‘well, since I’ve got her for comp class I know how things go.’ Indeed I did as I proved to be a capable Number 10 clone in the written word. (And to this day that still cracks me up. Plus if someone asks WHY HE ONLY GET 93? my answer is simply that I couldn’t be TOO obvious.)
So I’ve established that fall I helped him with schoolwork, was out there at his place 24-7, drove him around before he got his license, went to movies and the mall when not playing pickup ball and generally talked to him 24-7. I even remember the movies we went to see (for example one Saturday afternoon in October we went to see Rocky V at Glendale, and for New Year’s we saw The Bonfire of the Vanities at Castleton.) And you’re not surprised that if we went to a video store we would end up renting, yes, The Naked Gun. (Dude’s second favorite choice if the OJ Simpson classic was not available was Coming to America starring 1980’s media love child Eddie Murphy. That movie was actually on cable TV a couple of nights ago. You’re not shocked I watched it, and you’re also not shocked who I thought of since I had seen it a dozen times or so in the past.) Also in between hanging out and apparently becoming best friend and confidant of someone who was two years younger and the opposite of me (him being a popular name with his class as their top athlete, me not necessarily being a popular name with my class other than the DO HE LOSE WEIGHT? looks I sometimes got as a not-so-athlete from those who were not prioritizing the life’s work of W. Axl Rose at the moment) I found out three key themes when it came to Number 10. These are kind of important because they in turn set the foundation for the next semester and-in my view, at least-the increased ego of Number 10 that would lead to the end of our friendship:
.* first of all, the backstory on Number 10 is he lived in the Hamilton Southeastern school district but Cliff and Company paid tuition for dude to go to the Sonland for said Sonland sports since at the time Southeastern sports were not iconic. Move was made in junior high, and during that timeframe Number 10 had one steady girlfriend of note (literally as you’ll soon see) that he thought of often. I had mentioned her before because she was one of the Hot Sonland Chicks who had signed my yearbook at Tracy Richardson’s back to school party before I went to college…one Sonland girls soccer star and attractive blonde Catherine Purdy. The polite way to put it: IMO Catherine was basically the female version of Number 10 in being the top female athlete of her class; combine that with their blonde hair colors and they had at least two things in common besides the ability to maintain oxygen. (I was going to post a picture of the then sophomore Catherine to validate her being said Hot Sonland Chick, but no such luck. Which makes perfect sense with what will be typed soon since it won’t be the first time that dealing with her would unknowingly cause some issues for yours truly.). Number 10 talked a lot about Catherine…I know because he talked to ME a lot about Catherine. I knew that he kept ALL of his notes that Catherine had wrote to him during said junior high romance due to the fact that I SAW all of said notes and got to read them. And when Number 10 decided that he wanted to try to socialize for the first time after school hours with the now high school Catherine, I know that he wanted to call her. I know this because HE ASKED ME TO MAKE THE CALL FOR HIM. So one weekend evening when Catherine apparently did not have a soccer game yours truly called the Purdy residence in order to see if Catherine wanted to socialize. Catherine responded by nicely telling me (and indirectly Number 10) in a round about way to go find the nearest body of water and submerge myself in it. (Yeah, after that happened I didn’t expect her to sign my yearbook either. So perhaps I called her at the wrong time of the month.) Hence no rekindling for Number 10 on his junior high romance. Also no expectations for me to go to get an invite to the Purdy household unless hell was having a sell on frozen ice.
(EDIT ON 2/26-finally learned how to use the caption stuff on these blogs so you the reader can see the photo of Catherine that shut down my computer for an hour last night. Number 10’s ex in full effect below…)
Now if Catherine had actually not told me in a round about way to go f— myself during that one phone call….let’s just say things could have ended up a lot different for my senior year. As in A HELL OF A LOT. If you’re still reading this, thanks very much for not being too bored about reading about my ghostwriting ability as I refer you to read on to find out how Catherine’s NO would indirectly effect my senior year and subsequent future. (And for your additional SIDENOTE…Catherine would eventually date Number 10’s Carmel counterpart in basketball circles, one Scott Shepherd. And the year after that when Number 10 would eventually be dating the female that you’ll read about at the conclusion of this post, Catherine would move on to date Number 10’s teammate one Brad Coverdale. Which leads to the irony that as of this writing Shepherd’s family insurance firm is now the employer of one ypunger brother of Brad….yes, Tom Coverdale.. Yeah, I have too much free time, but we’ve established that many a time. Hence we shall move on.)
*second thing of note was finding out that Number 10 was not particularly fond of Young Adams. I would get both sides of the story throughout this year, but the short version from the Number 10 side of things was that Young Adams was someone to not regularly hang out with because Young Adams liked to invite himself to other people’s events (hence earning the nickname Sector 15 (shortened to Sector) for supposed tracking skills via locating others’ location via map/ESP/area ‘sectors’ and such) and thus Number 10 apparently thought Young Adams was not of the same ilk. This was news to me in particular because on one October Saturday night that did not involve Homecoming both Number 10 and Young Adams sailed along with yours truly in the 1977 Buick to go see the Charlie Sheen/Emilio Estevez movie Men at Work at the Glendale cinemas. For effect of seeing the Estevez brothers together (and to go along with an Instagram post from earlier last year) here’s the movie poster from said classic cinema piece:
Quite frankly I liked the movie. I also remember Young Adams ordering eight bucks worth of candy and cola, but then again you figured as such. And the Brothers Sheen got our cash at full price. But I should have expected trouble in later months…which in fact would be the case.
However Young Adams was not the only recipient of Number 10’s verbal scorn, and that in turn is where things should I take blame for not taking care of business early on in order to involve the rocky road that would be coming up that spring….
*To be polite and not throw out a lot of expletives….Number 10 was not a big fan of my family or my home. I know because he made fun of my house and would often make fun of my parents. I also know because where I was out there every weekend at his house…he would only come to my house once to spend the weekend (or in this case crash over there on a Saturday night.) In a foreshadowing of what his future girlfriend/main squeeze would do in the spring during the sole time that she visited my home, Number 10 simply hid in my room and would not deal with my parents directly. Afterwards he basically told me he wouldn’t spend another night over there while in turn making it a point to never come by again when my parents were home once he did get his driver’s license. For politeness and a rare case of brevity from yours truly, basically IMO Number 10 considered me and my family to be slightly higher than white trash. As his ego got bigger that spring (which coincidentally came about when he started dating the Hot Sonland Chick I’m getting ready to mention) he also would openly insult my family during class. At first I handled it as him b—s–ting around as he made fun of a lot of people (see the previously mentioned Young Adams). Come springtime you can put two and two together that I eventually got sick of it and would either ignore him or occasionally tell him to shut the f— up (where during one class period that I ignored my so-called ‘best friend’ the before mentioned Kastner one time looked at him and said ‘why would he want to be your friend when all you do is make fun of him and his family?’ Kastner was indeed right. As for Number 10, I would often hear the DER HEH HUR I JUST JOSHIN (‘joshin’ was his term for ‘I’m just messing around’ as opposed to ‘I really think you’re a low class piece of pond scum’ that he was actually trying to communicate, limited as it may be) and then I would just move on to the next day.
It’s been established that as time progressed that year Number 10 was anything but a swell fellow to hang with. Also established that he wasn’t actually getting down on the weekends with Catherine Purdy…yet he would eventually come of age by getting to hang and (use your imagination) with a Hot Sonland Chick two years his elder…aka someone in my class year. Which was courtesy-SURPRISE-of yours truly…and I say that because yours truly was the actual go between/connection/Cupid/whatever you want to call it that set up one Number 10 with his girlfriend/prom date/high school beau whom he’d drive up to see when said girlfriend went to college. Never wrote about it before, but probably a good time to do so since it was kind of a big deal when it came to effecting my senior year…and helping make it easier for me to find college outside the Hoosier State to be a damn fine option to consider.
Said girl has already been mentioned on the blog. And I call it as I see it when I say said girl ended up having a pretty big effect on me as well as preparing me to be ready on how to handle drama once I got to leave the unhallowed halls of Noblesville High that May. (Considering four years later I had a ‘gentlemen’s agreement’ with the dean of students at college number one to not set the school on fire during my final week on campus so I would be able to graduate, then just take my word for it that I’ve had dealt with more ‘unique’ situations than most of my peers.Also take my word that my life story will eventually make for an interesting movie, if not an early to mid 1990s version of Animal House for college number one. )
Said girl: one Tara Lynn Walczak.
Yes, the basketball manager Walczak with the gigantic calculator for keeping track of Pizza Hut tips. The same Walczak who I had probably spoken a combined 100 words to from August to December of that fall semester despite being in the same government class. Usually I associated Walczak’s love life with an on-again off-again relationship that she had with a dude one year older than us by the name of Jason Streeter. And as one can figure out I didn’t exactly talk to said Walczak that often to know whether it was on or off time with said Streeter. During that fall I’d roll into Dick’s Class (4th hour government) and sit on the other side of the room from Miss Tara Lynn…and not expect to deal with her because I still considered myself as being a non-entity in her social circle because, well, she dated older dudes and wasn’t exactly hanging out with me outside of group situations following a handful of basketball games. Plus if one wants me to actually be positive and give some compliments, read this: I considered Tara to be both very attractive as well as pretty damn intelligent (she was in the top 10 percent academically of our Sonland class) and therefore viewed her as someone who I was probably not going to deal with in part because, well, she was smarter than me..she was mature in how she carried herself….and lastly she was a Hot Sonland Chick (aka good looking). So again that fall I didn’t expect her to come up and talk to me unless it was to tell me that my fly was unzipped or that she had lost a bet. I respected Tara, yet I also wasn’t going to count on socializing with her on a regular basis. Like I said before in previous posts, West Harbour (her subdivision) might as well have been West Berlin because I hadn’t hung out with her since she had moved to Sonland City and therefore figured that would remain the case for my last year of being in GTFO mode towards graduation.
As already established throughout Part 4, the continuing theme of being wrong continued here……and admittedly this time it caught me off guard even though at first I handled it with comedy and ‘yes, this should be interesting.’
One day in late December (I’m going with the last week of classes before we got released for Christmas Break) I’m getting ready to roam out of Dick’s Class for the day…and all of a sudden I get stopped by none other than our main chica Miss Tara Lynn. She has a sheepish grin on her face. I have a WHAT THE F— IS THIS AND WHY IS SHE WANTING TO TALK TO ME? look on mine. I am amused as I get to have this conversation with her that starts similar to this:
I HAVE TO ASK YOU SOMETHING?
WHAT IS IT?
DO YOU KNOW NUMBER 10?
(Thinking that this was a Fresh Prince of Bel-Air moment) UH….YES.
With that….Tara told me she liked Number 10 and wondered if Number 10 had a girlfriend. See previously mentioned Catherine Purdy info to compute the answer for that one. I in turn told Tara I would talk to Number 10. And so that night I turn basically told said Number 10 “Dude, you’ve got an older chick who likes you.” Without giving lengthy details I then got to be said go between for the first ‘date’ or social gathering for Number 10 and Tara. Not only that…but I got to go on the date too. Of course I would.
The last week of 1990 after Christmas and before New Year’s….both me and Number 10 get to ride with Tara in (IIRC) Tara’s Pontiac Grand Prix to go to the movies. It had snowed that week, and I remember going down Keystone to the Lowes Theater to see then media favorite Macaulay Culkin get down in the then epic Home Alone. And since I now know how to use captions, your obligatory film poster below:
Afterwards we ate at the nearby Pizza Hut. Exciting as it sounds, with me cracking up the whole time saying to myself DUDE THIS IS COMEDY as Tara showed off her calculator to add up our tip and Number 10 wondered aloud what the f— was going on with said calculator. (Quite frankly I was shocked to be in the same car with Walczak to begin with. I figured I would have had a better chance of winning a date with Debbie Gibson through one of those teen magazines then to spend more than 45 minutes at a Pizza Hut with said Walczak. Either way it made the trip worthwhile as it gave me a night off from watching weeknight mainstays The Fonz and Judge Harold T. Stone on the tube.) I didn’t know what to make of it when that afternoon became evening, but then something that I wasn’t expecting began to happen: I started actually talking to TARA on the phone. And as one can figure out, I got to keep the role of go-between for a bit longer.
Actually, a lot longer.
Ended up not always being a good thing. In fact it would eventually lead me to many a time ask myself what was stated before: with friends like Number 10, then who the blue f— needed enemies?
Because that afternoon of seeing Joe Pesci and Daniel Stern get outsmarted by a pre-teen dude from the Chicago suburbs would turn out -in my view, anyway-to be the beginning towards the end of my friendship with Number 10. It also was the beginning of realizing that even with all the positive changes I had made in my life those last couple of years at the Sonland-the losing of 60 pounds, the being more social, the actually going out in public with Hot Sonland Chicks-there was still a long way to go. Better yet as I was considered a second class citizen in my own hometown-my family’s hometown, damn it-by an individual whom I considered to be my best friend, then it was probably not going to be productive to be in said hometown area much longer with college in the future.
Whether intentional or not, that matinee movie would set the wheels in motion for a friendship to turn into a feud. Fortunately for me, I was able to overcome it and make it through the rest of the year….and then be able to have a much, MUCH better time of things in college. (Plus I went to that prom deal I keep babbling about too. Still need to talk about how The Prom Date came about, and ironically good ol’ Number 10 is involved in that. And those prom proceedings actually have some VERY good comedy to go with it).
How I overcame that while learning a lot about friendship and family (and, well, eventually proms and pledgeship)……I’ll be ready to tackle that full speed ahead with the next post (aka Part 6).
Hey, I admit I wasn’t thinking about writing the sequel to War and Peace, so a big thank you to any and all who have been reading these. My memory’s not too bad after all these years…or I’m just long winded. Or more than likely both.
(Oh….Tom Crean’s sons actually beat Northwestern tonight, too. Now we’ll see if his boy Fred Glass will reward him with another ten year extension. After all if 16 wins a year from your coach is acceptable at a Big 10 school, why wait?)
Good place to stop. Will see if I can get this senior year in the Sonland wrapped up before getting that paper done for class next Saturday. Or if I can at least not wait another four months between posts.
Best wishes to all and thanks again to all who read these.
Jeff
@fitzthoughts on Instagram
fitzthoughtsblog.wordpress.com
fitzthoughtsblog 