As I went home on Monday night as drunk as drunk could be
I saw a horse outside the door where my old horse should be
Well, I called me wife and I said to her: Will you kindly tell to me
Who owns that horse outside the door where my old horse should be?
- traditonal

You wake up in the morning feeling oddly out of sorts. You’re stomach feels as if it’s holding a large stone. You can’t turn your gaze quickly. You know you’d had quite a large volume of liquid refreshment the night before but other than that you can’t really pull thoughts together. You get back into the clothing you wore the night before and drag your corpse out into the bright sun. And then it starts; Lots of people are smiling at you. They ask things like, “How are you feeling this morning?” or say, ” I heard you had quite a night”. Ok, now the dread sets in! What the heck did I do? You know that bit right?

Well, after playing comic relief to JB’s Sunday morning navigation class (sorry JB. .), and about 4 gallons of water. Large sections of the night before started returning to focus.

So at some point Saturday evening I joined JB and Dick up in their room for a night cap. We needed to taste test my Jameson right up against JB’s Bushnell. I mean, if you have two bottles of whiskey, you HAVE to taste test, right? Test and repeat. So we were off to the races. Soon in the warm glow of a whiskey haze, Dick told stories while JB & I snickered and grinned through half open eyes. I remember a joke in there somewhere about a doctor teaching students to taste test urine samples. Dick is an encyclopedia of doctor Jokes! Ah, but it was getting late. I had to get up in the morning. It was time for me to head back to my room.

While wandering through the hotel feeling like a wobbly, alien, gelatin creature, I saw a door. I realized I was feeling like there was no air inside these oddly dark, florescent bulb lit halls. So I went outside. As I opened the door and the air rushed in, I could hear all sorts of commotion down by the big bonfire. This could only mean one thing. . . The REPS were still up!! One thing you learn quickly at symposiums is that it’s the REPs who keep the late night parties going. If you want to find fun entertainment at 2 am you just go looking for those guys! Soon I was walking into the circle and with a bit of a well meaning but hodgepodge story I pulled out the rest of the Jameson from a plastic Reed Chillcheater bag and passed it around. I remember conversations about the BCU with Kelly Blades, Telling Mark, an instructor from Cleveland what a really good instructor I thought he was. (and I do. . even sober. , I cornered Jeff from Rutabaga and tried again to get him to give me the chance to work with him on his roll. You know, we’re supposed to get a free dinner out of it, but really I just want to see him do it. He can keep the “Spam-n-Eggs”. On and on went the night until at some point in the evening Mark and I were picking up garbage and putting out the fire. Then I was doing my best Peter O’Tool swagger back off to my room. Which was locked. And for which I did not have a key. Of course when you’re 3 sheets to the wind, you’re happy to go sleep under a tree and I may have done just that if it hadn’t been for the fact that Mary had come looking for me and caught my sad, sorry self in a hallway. Which it seems leads me right back to the the smiling faces asking me, “So how are you feeling today?”

Well, the fact that everyone asking the questions was smiling or laughing is a good thing. Back in my younger days whiskey would leave me with mornings where I was in fear of what I had done the night before, or where I was waking up for that matter! Times change. Yet, even today I still feel that fear a bit. I don’t think I’m in a hurry to drink unlimited quantities of whiskey again any time soon. But the smiles and teasing were somehow comforting. It reminded me that sure I can still get a bit wild sometimes, but I’m also not the royal jack*ss I used to be.

- over the next few days I’ll have some interesting stories & lots of pictures from Door County. Including a story of why we now call Alex Pak, “Alex the Impaler”. This story will leave Simon feeling lucky Alex only broke his paddle!