This weekend in Iron Mountain, Michigan one of my buddies from high school is getting married. Dan is a part of phase four of my role playing/video gaming life before I channelled all of that energy into improv. Phase four took place from 1992-1995. Phase one began in 1980 to give you some scope.
When I visit Wisconsin, there is usually a LAN party thrown. Dan’s wife has been a smash on the online game scene with him. Dan is about 6′, spindly, and prone to making weird noises and tangents. He’s a printer by trade who is a main pressman for the Milwaukee Journal/Sentinel. Dan and I used to be the class clowns in Fr. Hudson’s geometry class back in 1986. We made that priest laugh so hard and long one class that he just grabbed his coat and hat and laughed all the way out the door. He left and didn’t come back until the next day. Fr. Hudson had MS, and he had a proclivity for picking up change off the floor and remarking about it. I feel terrible about this now, but we used to entertain ourselves by seeding the floor with change while he wrote on the board by lobbing pennies and nickels up by the blackboard where he would write (and turn and spot change). To this day, Fr. Hudson was one person who I felt was a holy man. He always had a joyful glow about him like he knew something and was giggling waiting to tell you.
My longest friend, Mike, will be housing me and chauffering me throughout the weekend. I’ve known Mike since 1977, and we’ve been friends since 1982. He’s got the frame of a giant norseman. 6’4″, blond, green-eyed, stocky fella, but clean cut wearing L.L. Bean apparel. Mike has been the constant companion through all four phases of my gaming life. Ironically, he almost always plays dwarves in games. We have watched Conan the Barbarian together about 9 times (of the 62 that I’ve seen it). He and his now wife hooked up at a week long party I had at my parents’ house called “Fuckfest”. We even had a banner that we made on the back of a Warsteiner promo. FYI: the picture for this post is one of Mike’s MANY hand-painted miniature figures.
I’ll send another report later, but I figured I’d introduce some main characters before the mayhem unfolds.
Next time: Joe, Chachi, the Jims, and Dan’s mother in The Well-Liquored, Totally-Stoned Midwesterners an anthropological study of weddings and de-evolution.
Brad Fortier 