Afterglow 2009 - Day 5 Wednesday

Home

There were only a select few that I could count on to wear sombreros all day, every day. And two of those people were kind enough to wear them tonight. I don't ask a lot of Brian and Kevin, but on this night they did everything that I asked of them and more.

Dark time means campfire time, so like the good little kids we are, we went down there to sing songs and party. When I got there, I saw that my buddy Nate McLouth was already there, so I settled down next to him to talk baseball. He must have had something else on his mind, or didn't want to talk about baseball on his off day, because he completely ignored me. I tried unsuccessfully several times to get his autograph, by he declined every time. I tried for a picture, but he wouldn't look. So I settled on this one, which is eerily similar to my Bernie Mac one...

The campfire wood was free, most likely because it is meant to be enjoyed and used by all people instead of personally in the cabins. So we loaded up the campfire with wood so that we wouldn't have to do it back in the cabins. Then Uncle Rick started making jokes like, "I'm gonna put another $5 of logs on the fire. Don't tell Pete. Huh huh huh huh huh." Then he'd obnoxiously stack the fire. My Uncle Rick is so cool. And then he'd sit back, light up a stogie, and watch his creation burn.

When the musicians go towards the campfire, the people follow just like the mice following the pied piper. The people know that they about to see a show that will literally blow their mind. And I have the recordings to back that up. We really do rock. We rock hard.

The kids really love the campfire at night because they like burning things, singing songs and laughing about memories past. All of these things are abundant down here, which is why we gather here nightly before going up to rage it on the KK.

There's a section in the Redbook that says if you want to burn wood in the fireplace of your cabin, you have to buy bundles of wood from Pete for $5 a piece. We thought this was ridiculous, because we're surrounded by trees. They should be free.

A family picture is almost always taken when all of the members of that particular family are occupying the same space at the same time. Case in point - Uncle Rick, Aunt Maria and Susie were all sitting on the same bench. When Tommy wandered up behind them the Moms (and me) yelled, "wait!" And then took pictures.

Although you probably loved our dock family picture (where Tim and I were doing Revolution) my Mom wasn't a big fan of it. Of all the versions we took and all of the different cameras that were used, none of the pictures were deemed acceptable to my Mom. Thankfully she does like this one. And I happen to like it too.

The Reck / Kurtuz cousins (plus a McKissick and a Werner if you wanna get technical) always hang out together, but we decided to get all up around this one bench so that the Moms could take a big group shot. Like almost every other family picture, they made us do a serious shot before we could do a silly one. Only I don't know what is so silly about Starting the Revolution. If Uncle Greg were to find out that his Wife or Sister were to classify his movement as "silly", he might just lose it and start attacking cities like the Godzilla monster. That would rule.