Octopodial Chrome

While at Cellarman’s Pub, I’d the chance to take a photo of my plaque. There’s an interesting story behind it: you see, I had been a member of the Mug Club (24 oz. mug filled for the 16 oz. price) for a few years, but had never heard of the around-the-world club. One merely had to drink every beer they offered, and then the owner would erect a plaque in one’s honour above the bar. Unfortunately, there were 99 beers and I had just three weeks left in college. I wanted to show my plaque to my folks, and it would take a week to make; this left me two weeks to drink 99 beers—7 per day. Not really very doable.

So I struck a deal with the owner: he knew I was once of his best customers, and he knew that I’m an honest man; so he let me strike off the names of those beers I’d already had at his fine establishment. That managed to eliminate a great number of them. I forget now how many were left, but almost every day after class (I still had to worry about finishing my senior year!) I’d head on down to Cellarman’s to do my homework and try to strike a few more beers from the list. Finally, after the hardest two weeks in recorded history, I finished my labour in what I hoped might be time enough for the plaque to arrive and be installed. Unfortunately, it didn’t arrive until after graduation, and so my family was never able to see it.

But this year I took a photo, and while blurry it is proof before the entire world of my feat:

Marvel before me, all ye nations.

During the past several days I’ve run into many gals I used to know: some I had chased; some I had never cared for. It was odd to see how my reactions differed in each case: for quite a few it was relief (there but for the grace of God go I); for most, just a profound neutrality; and in one notable case the sneaking suspicion that she was the one that got away. It just goes to show that it’s deucedly impossible to predict the future. The girl who seems so pleasant and lovely today may be quite the opposite in a few years. This is among the advantages of bachelorhood: dealing with known quantities.

Well, I must say that our five-year reunion was more than a little disappointing. Not nearly as many folks showed up as I had expected (or had registered, apparently). I’ve no official figures, but there probably weren’t more than 32 or so. Out of a graduating class of approx. 250, that’s pretty damned disappointing. One factor may have been that the party was held at the house of the fellow who had headed up Student Life during our tenure—in other words, the Gestapo chief. He’s actually a decent enough fellow now, but we spent four long years evading his minions (smuggling girls & drinks into the dorms, mostly). I was fairly certain that someone would drop a fish in one of his hot-air registers, or take a leak in his flowerpots, but so far as I could tell nought like that happened.

But quite a few folks said that they knew of many who had gone elsewhere rather than attend a party at his house. Surely our reunion committee should have arranged for an off-campus venue, a DJ and such. I guess that can go into the Lessons Learnt for our 10 year reunion.

The big problem, of course, is that this was the reunion most likely to be well-attended (heck, one gal flew in with her husband from Baiku, Azerbaijan for that very reason): most of us are still relatively unattached, with no kids or other hindrances; those children which do exist are so young that they are not in school, and so small that they can be taken most anywhere. But given another five years that will no longer be the case; additionally, many of us will have much more demanding schedules, and will have moved on in the world and emotionally: there will be more reasons to stay at home and fewer to return to Austin College. It’s a real shame that this reunion wasn’t better run. Perhaps next time I’ll have to take charge.

I mentioned earlier how much like home AC felt on my arrival; it felt just as much like leaving home to depart. I spent the day on campus, touring the hallowed halls and walking the greens. This past evening in the full moonlight I retraced a path I trod many an evening, from Baker Hall (my dorm of three years) to Clyce Hall (the dorm many of the gals I knew lived in)—only now there was no girl to walk to the door; no Baker room to return to; no future, but only past.

I drove by the house I once lived in—a terrible, run-down place now, but dear to me then. I went through downtown Sherman, that den of land agents and lawyers—the downtown I used to walk to that wondrous summer. I saw professors, now older and greyer; I saw friends and acquaintances, also older and greyer. I saw the empty lot where a once-great hall stood, another empty lot which had been a cafeteria and gathering-place, and yet another lot which was the site of many a fine party. The accumulated memories of the four best years of my life returned in force.

There is a photo in the Tri-Gam 1996–1997 album which shows a young man smiling with his friends. He’s hardly more than a boy (just beginning to grow the traces of a beard), with limitless options and nothing but bright expectations. He’s happy and cheerful; the very world itself lay at his feet. He died five years ago.

I was able to revisit Cellarman's Pub yesterday. It is an absolutely wonderful place; before it was built, Sherman was a sad place for a beer lover, but now it is home to a pub which outshines every bar in Dallas and all but one bar in Denver (the one superior bar is, of course, the Falling Rock Taphouse). I actually have my name on a plaque above the bar, commemorating the fact that I drank at least one of every single beer they offered at the time (the hardest two weeks of my life, getting that done in time for graduation). The bartender/owner still remembered me, which was very nice.

They’ve expanded, again, which is great news. One always worries that a good place will shut down—particularly a place that nice in a town as sad as Sherman. But business seemed to be booming, and I believe that I can anticipate many happy homecoming weekends spent in the warm embrace of that fine pub.

So I’m up at AC’s homecoming carnival getting a cotton candy when the young lady serving them calls me sir. I laughingly tell her, Oh, I’m not a sir and she replies, Sorry, it’s a dad thing. I’m only 27, for Pete’s sake! You know, this dad business is getting really old. As, apparently, am I.

I went to my first Tri-Gam party in four years last night—it was a blast. The guys this year are a wonderful lot. One even invited me to sing their song with them, although I had to refuse (that honour is only for real Tri-Gams, not for mere hangers-on). One of my great regrets in life is never having tried to pledge Gamma Gamma Gamma; it was a great frat and most of my good friends were there. It’s not the things one does that one regrets nearly so much as the things one doesn’t do.

They say that you can never go back home—but they’re wrong. Yesterday I drove on up to Sherman, Tx. for my homecoming (apt name) and five-year reunion, and when I got to Sherman and stood on the Austin College campus, it was as though I’d never left. Yes, the campus has changed; yes, many excellent buildings were torn down by the ravenous administration—but despite all that, it feels as though I’d never left, and as though I could still be living there.

You can go back, and it’s worth it.