Thursday, August 02, 2001

I need to clear a few things up for some of our more sensitive friends. My problem with Pat is long gone. It took me a couple of days to shake but I was caught unaware that he had a drinking alter ego. Now I have lived with Cecil ever since I went away to college. In fact Sammy brought Cecil with him to visit me on a couple of occasions. Cecil and I even had a fist fight after he and his traveling companions tipped a port-o-potty over on its door with someone in it. After rescuing the poor party guest, I looked around for my brother and his friends with no luck. I was informed that they went out with “The General” and I knew nothing good could come of that lineup. This was not the best influence on these high school guys and when they got back to the party I was pretty cranked up. I had visions in my head of some drunken liquor store robbery with a side trip out to the bars. It turned out that after being rejected by the drinking establishments and a few near fights in various parking lots they decided to come back to the party. I should mention that this was a charity bash and we were charging admission to the two hundred or so people that were attending. Words were exchanged and Cecil called me out. When we got to the field next to my house he sucker punched me in the mouth and the next thing I remember is climbing off of him with sore hands and I was amazed at the amount of people that followed us into the field. I heard a lot of “that’s his brother” mumbling as we walked back to the party together. Enough Cecil, I need to get back to Pat. I think the thing that bothered me the most was that I read him completely wrong. I consider myself a student of humanity and I pride myself on my correct initial impressions. I always considered Pat as a laidback, liberal, funny guy, that didn’t take much outside of sports too seriously. He has a Buffalo Grove High School number savant thing that still amazes me to this day. Whenever I did see him get bent it was always on the border of a joke. I’m rambling so I’ll stop with an attempt at a summation. I overreacted because I completely missed the little Archie Bunker that was hiding inside of Pat. 12:00:00 AM    says you