A Pretty Good Time

Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.
-Helen Keller

Twenty-five years ago today

April 26, 1986
Saturday

I woke up early (6:30AM). I was washing my car by 7AM. I drove to the gas station and the bank. I returned home and decided to give Mark Landreth a call. I woke him up.
Mark answered the phone groggily.
“Did I wake you up?”
“Yeah—why don’t you come by at 9AM?”
“Okay, I’ll be there,” I said as I hung up the phone excitedly.

I drove to mom and dad’s house for a couple of bananas and a glass of milk. Before I knew it I was at Mark’s house in San Lorenzo. We arrived in Santa Cruz rather quickly because of the early start. Mark and I ‘laid out’ in our lounge chairs on the beach.
Shari shouted from the distance, “Michael!”
And so, Mark and I got up and went over to join Shari and Natalie which was the wrong thing to do. It tied us down for the rest of the day. Shari and I went on a roller coaster ride at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk together (Ugh). Mark went with Natalie and her little kid for a walking tour of the amusement park. It was as if they were their own little family.
I laughed ‘to myself’ at the sight of them walking together.
I learned later that Mark laughed ‘to himself’ when he saw Shari (Ms. Porker) walking along with me.
Oh well, it’s only one of many forthcoming Saturdays.

Mark and I drove home by 4PM and I was in Alameda at my place by 5:30PM.
I telephoned Mark again and we confirmed arrangements about meeting at Baxter’s in Concord.
While I was waiting at Baxter’s with Amy I was surprised to see Mark walk in with Cindy Ostergren (of Alameda) instead of Lana. The four of us all sat at a table upstairs. We tried to talk together over the loud Rock n’ Roll band. It was so loud and very difficult to communicate. We mutually decided to leave and go to Fat Fanny’s in Danville instead.

Mark and I were both ‘sort of’ ditching Amy and Cindy as we scoped the scene inside Fat Fanny’s. It made it more fun for the two of us to be mischievous. Mark agreed. Eventually we all sat together at a table and drank and made small talk. We were having a pretty good time. Cindy was cute and I liked the question she asked.
Cindy said, “Just you and Mark went to Santa Cruz today?”
“Yes, we were lying on the beach,” I said with a smile.
“I wish I’d have seen that!”
I simply laughed it off.

Amy felt I was ignoring her.
Amy whispered, “You aren’t the same fellow you were last Saturday.”
Perhaps I wasn’t in the same mood or frame of mind but I was the same fellow!
While I was driving her home she suddenly said, “What’s with us?”
Amy continued on with a sort of lecture before I dropped her off. It made me leery and scared of our relationship.
Yikes!
I was happy to drop her off.


"...it does not mean I am not smiling inside my brain."
-as heard while watching
MARY AND MAX, 2009 Australian motion-picture