Dinty Rides Again and Other Tales From The County

Good evening Gentlemen. I am now safely within the borders of Aroostook County after an arduous journey from the Finger Lakes region. What's left of Athena A fills 3 totes in the entryway to my house. I did get to some adventures though on the drive up. Took my brother to New York City for pizza and Bo Burnham. Saw my Alfred friends in Connecticut. Also met up with the one and the only Sir Ton Ton of Nuzzles. Oh sorry, I meant to say Graduated Sir Ton Ton of Nuzzles.

That reminds me actually. Tony, I got an update on that Colby bus. For Ian's sake allow me to first explain that while Graduated Tony and Graduated Tyler celebrated their Graduatedness in the Old Port, we were not alone. Colby had the good grace to send it's senior class to Portland to celebrate with the assorted spirits and festivities the Old Port has to offer on a Monday night. Thus the streets were filled with these Colby people who were all any number of sheets to the proverbial wind. After I left you Mr. Nuzzo, my brother invited me to join him at the local Denny's, for milkshakes and other late night goodies. When we got there, we found a wait staff braced for a storm. They had been called and told that a bus full of drunk Colby kids was bearing down on them. They asked if I'd seen them in town and I told them the truth, it going to be a total shit show.

Well I enjoyed my meal of biscuits and gravy and wouldn't you know the lush bus never arrived. We brought it up with one of the staffers while we payed for our food and he explained to us that the bus driver had cancelled the food stop. Apparently the illustrious Colby scholars had made the decision to use every seat in the bus as their puke bucket. A sort of chain reaction of one person covering another in vomit making them puke on another person and pretty soon things are getting out of hand. We'll go ahead and refer to it as Liquor Dominoes. Anywho, the bus driver informed the Denny's that they would not be stopping and also that they would have to pressure wash the bus in the morning.

Now that I'm done filling your minds with terrifying imagery, let's move on to County matters. The Havu's arrived in the County on Friday night in order to attend this years MSSM graduation. They stayed at Sharon's so I stopped by and stayed up until 3 AM having some brews with the Jimmy James Havu who is apparently an avid reader of our fine blog. I don't know why that surprised me, of course he'd already found us. Hello James, nice to have you hear. How's your mum?

Anywho we went to MSSM graduation which is just so much better than University graduation by a lot. I really hated Alfred's graduation ceremony (I'll rant about that later). Their keynote speaker was Dale Dintaman by popular request of the Senior Class. Believe it or not he went ahead and delivered the finest graduation speech I've ever had the pleasure to sit through. My favorite bit, paraphrased I admit:

"I was asked to do this speech in February, so I've had several months to prepare it. After so many years here at the MSSM, watching all of you work so hard on all of your assignments, I wanted to show this speech the same level of seriousness and commitment that any of you would show on your McCartney papers. So I wrote it last night, with two cans of Redbull and a Mountain Dew"

The entire Alumni section gave a standing ovation right there. It was awesome. Then they handed out the diplomas, so Dan and I looked up how to clap the morse code for M S S M.  Then we headed to the reception where I almost immediately spilled an entire cup of steaming hot coffee on Mr. Berz. He didn't seem to mind. A shotgun of random Alums were there, it was awesome to see all of them. I talked to McCartney about Alfred Boffer Club. Exchanged game ideas. Luke Shorty talked to all of us about planning a big Alumni reunion in Limestone next summer. Could be interesting.

Dan made me take this picture. I'm glad he did.

Then I went across the border because Liz and James had to say hi to Karl and Theresa at the Lakeside Lodge. Then we headed back to the Gerrish abode, making sure to pick up a bunch of Chinese food and beer. Then I stayed up until 2 AM drinking beers and enjoying good company. I've been doing these graduations every year except one since our own graduation. It's always kind of surreal, because for a couple days I'm steeped in MSSM everything, people/culture/politics. Then Sunday comes and I remember I graduated 4 years ago and everyone lives all over the goddamned place.

Well now I got to figure out how to live in the County again. Going to start the summer job hunt this week. See how that goes. Good night Gents.