Wednesday, June 4, 2008

Golf, guitar, a support beam and a piece of Styrofoam.

As I get older, (and I admit, at the ripe old age of 26 I am still young but none the less, I have started my decline) I enjoy sitting and doing nothing with a few close friends. No plans to go out, no cell phones ringing, no worries about work…Nothing. I used to be the party guru who wanted to go out and party all weekend long. And not that I don't enjoy that from time to time, I just can't recover like I used to. The few hour hang over has turned into a few days. So, I myself leaning towards doing nothing. As the summer kicks in to full gear Emily and I find ourselves with no free weekend until August 23rd, the weekend before our wedding. So, I knew a few months ago that if I wanted a do nothing guys weekend, I better get it planned. Luck would have it Pat has a lake house and was planning this type of weekend.
He invited 20 people, which we all knew that only 5 or 6 of us would show up. It takes a special kind of person to sit on a dock for 7 hours doing nothing. I knew that Bear, myself and Pat would all go and have the time of our lives. We convinced Ben to come along and we proceeded to dream about the do nothing weekend.
(Follow this link and click on wedding party on the left hand side. You can meet Ben, Pat and Bear.

The Tuesday before we are set to go, Pat tells us that his folks sold the Lake house and we need a plan B. We had all 4 already taken off work, so come hell or high water, we were doing something. So, after a day on the phone, I found a nice little house on the lake with a private dock. . The private dock was the key, and the hardest thing to find. Most houses with a private dock will sleep 15 people and cost $300 a night and that was out of our price range. The plan was to stay at Mom’s on Friday, have a bon fire and enjoy the guitar playing of Pat.
We head down Friday morning so we could golf.
Ben was supposed to ride down with Bear and the week of says that he has to work that day and he will head down after he got off work on Friday, which he has said many times before and never showed up. The three of us prepare for the weekend without Ben.
After golf my uncle Mike calls and tells us about an all you can eat king crab leg buffet. Most of you don’t care what we had for dinner, but this was one of the best buffets we have ever had. $21 for all you can seafood buffet and all the king crab legs you can handle. If you ever find yourself in Greenview, MO on a Friday night make sure you go to Tupelo Honey's, I promise it will be worth it.
Much to our delight, Ben calls during dinner and says he has made it. Ben had called our bluff and actually showed up, we are proud of you Ben! Friday night went just as planned: golfed, ate dinner, drank some beer, and sat around the bon fire listening to Pat and Uncle Mike play guitar. We did this until 3:00 am.


We woke up Saturday and headed to the house and planted our fat asses on the dock and didn’t move for the next 7 hours.
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Pat and I on the dock

When we finally did get the energy to get up and eat some food, we found out that Bear had drank just a little too much. Heading up the stairs he falls backwards off a four-foot drop off into a support beam. Now, Bear used to be a very large man, 330 pounds. He has lost 110 pounds this past year, but still is a big boy. The support beam apparently was not doing a good job supporting, because as soon as Bear hit that beam, it went shooting off a few feet. This would be the last we saw of Bear…he sleep the rest of the night. Before Bear went down for the night, he had the great idea to put a chair on a piece of Styrofoam and float out.

Bear on the S.S. Styrofoam in his now lost at sea Chiefs Chair


Luckily, he was too drunk to realize he had no way back, so I had to swim out and get him.
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After dinner, Pat, Ben and myself really like the idea of sitting on the Styrofoam. So, we found a hose (no, there was no rope) and tied it to the dock and grabbed a cooler and pushed off. For the next 3 hours we floated in the middle of the cove…doing nothing, all while Bear was sound asleep in the house 100 yards away. The Styrofoam did end up floating away, with Bear’s Chiefs chair firming planted. The next morning we ate breakfast at Miller’s Landing, a restaurant in the same cover as us. We jokingly asked the waitress if she saw a large piece of Styrofoam floating away, and she said she did. Whether she was lying or not, we still like to believe that the S.S. Styrofoam is bringing joy to someone else!
Thanks to Ben, Pat and Bear for one of the best weekends I have had in quite some time. Next stop...Bachelor party part II

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