By Brandt Danals.. But please.. Call me B
Early this summer when I decided to start jotting down exciting moments in my life, via my blog, mostly inspired by the kids of the Summer Camp that I worked at, I went about my writing much differently. I wasn’t nearly as philosophical, warm hearted or sentimental as I have tended to be lately. To spell it out for you, I was an asshole. Now, not to argue that I ever really changed much, I’ve always been a self-admitted asshole, but my writing really did take a turn. I decided to begin taking risks and going out in search of the perfect story to write about in my blog. To be completely honest, that worked out great, and I will probably continue to do so. However, have you ever gotten that feeling where you were digging through your closet looking for an outfit to wear, and you find your favorite old t-shirt. You know.. the shirt that is old as fuck that you’ve been wearing since you were in middle school. The shirt, that when you go in public your girlfriend feels the need to sit two seats away at the movies, but you’re so in love with the shirt that you don’t care and wear it out anyway. Well that is the feeling I got with this situation in my life. I’ve come to the conclusion that humor is best created naturally. Yes, someone can create a funny situation and we can all sit around and laugh our asses off about it, but the funniest moments in life come when you just take a situation that is already bound to be humorous, and run with it. My blog originally started on another page and I went about writing them completely different. I didn’t go through the day listing times or simply telling a story. I wrote about the people in my life at the time, and told the story through my experiences I had with them along the way. The blog you are about to read is going to be a combination of my past writing, and current style. I know what you’re thinking.. “I have an erection already.”.. Well relax, it probably won’t be THAT good, but I really do think you’ll enjoy.
**Warning: The weekend you are about to read about is 100% true. It is told through my interpretation of the weekend, cloudy as that may be. The following is a depiction of Homecoming Weekend in Ashland and my hometown. In the words of Terrell Owens, “Get your popcorn ready!”
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Mom and Dad.. So I suppose my weekend started on Friday night with my visit to my house. I know what you’re thinking, “Why the fuck would you go home to start your college’s Homecoming Weekend?” Well there are two good reasons. (1) Ashland is generally about as exciting as watching one of those God Forsaken Gospel Church shows they have on TV on Sunday mornings. You know, the ones where the “minister” is on stage saying how he has the power of Jesus in his hands and he touches some loser who magically appears to have regained the power to walk?!.. Yeah.. THAT EXCITING! And (2) This was the week of the Loudonville Fair (I’ll describes it’s importance in a bit.) But anyways, back to Mom and Dad. For those of you that know my parents, they are actually super chill, and let me get away with more growing up than any rational parents should have. Partly because they were relaxed and easy going, but mostly because they figured I was a lost cause by then anyway. My Friday night started by my parents and I walking down to the fair. For those who you reading this, the Loudonville Fair is nothing like fairs you are probably thinking about. It’s on one little street, by little I mean the street consumes our whole town, and is nothing of great magnitude. So.. five minutes later, we complete the lap of the fair, and my Dad, god bless him, suggests we go to the bar to have a “few” drinks. Now, knowing my Dad, I know that when he says a few drinks, it means that we are going to be at the bar for a “few” hours, and that I am going to get more than a “few” free beers out of him. So naturally, I convince my Mom into making the trip with us. My Dad did not disappoint, and kept a cold beer in my hand over the next two and a half hours while telling his often inappropriate and crude, yet always hysterical jokes to myself and my friends. When my Dad starts to tell his jokes, roughly ten beers into the evening, I can tell my “Friday” is going to be out of control.
In walk.. Travis and Mike.. Travis and Mike are the next two people in my evening, and probably my two best friends from home. At one point, before I moved to Pennsylvania, we had a streak of 27 straight weekends drinking together; I think currently Travis and Mike are in the 40’s. It seems strange to me that this is the first time these two have been included in my blog, because every time we get together we seem to have a moment that is “blog” worthy.. I’ll have to write about some of those in later editions. To fully grasp how our night went you need to get the idea of just who Mike and Travis are. I’ll start with Mike. Mike was always the crazy one growing up through school. He’s the kid from school who mooned the entire student section at a basketball game, seems crazy, but he actually got kicked off the basketball team for this. He also is the only one of my friends who currently has a job and financially supports his own alcoholism, the rest of us are still pulling every last ounce we can out of our parents before we head into the real world. However, Mike never disappoints. He always comes ready to be the life of the party, and usually by the time he leaves, he’s ready to be the life of whatever couch we have to drag him to. Travis on the other hand is the complete opposite. Ultra-conservative and always had a girlfriend while we were growing up. Actually the stories of these girlfriends are what make Travis who he is. His relationship mishaps, that often provide the humor for Mike and I during our drinking nights, will never cease to be funny. Travis, despite is extremely long streak of weekends consuming alcohol still is, and will always be the “lightweight” of the group. Not only can he be completely hammered after four beers, but if you talk him into chugging the fifth one, you are going to need to find yourself a mop and bucket to clean up the mess. This also usually results into a lot of humor for Mike and I, as we always encourage him to drink more than he can handle. I can assure you, this Friday was no different.
Kari, Ashley, and Sammie (Or as they prefer S.A.K).. Well, it is beyond me why any three girls in their right minds would want to be referred to as a SAK, but you can take that for what its worth. As with Travis and Mike, I’ll tell you about these three lovely ladies before I get into the night we all had together. I suppose I’ll start with Kari (ahh.. the one that got away) Actually I’m partly kidding, okay no I’m not. She broke my heart my freshman year of high school, but nonetheless we remained friends. Kari is slightly older than me, yet she has been dying to be included in my blog, so naturally seeing me out at the bar was her chance to harass me for her “shoutout.” How can you possibly say no to a pretty girl holding a beer? Then there is Ashley (ahh.. the other one that got away) Actually I’m partly kidding, okay no I’m not. Ashley and I have been friends for years, though our relationship got slightly rocky when I came up behind her little sister and screamed “snake” and she decided to swan dive off a ten foot bridge into six inches of water. Girls…I’ll never understand them, clearly snakes can’t yell, why would you even be scared? And then there is Sammie. My best friend for the better part of two decades, my next door neighbor for a short time, and recently one of my better drinking buddies.
The Reason for the Voyage Home.. The Triangle.. As I previously told you this “Friday” was particularly special in my hometown because of the fair. But that isn’t the only reason it is special. Along with the fair comes the once a year tradition, known as the Triangle. You see, while Loudonville is a small town, it still has its fair share of bars. The Triangle is a fair time tradition that states you have to visit all three of the bars, and still be able to walk out of all three of them when you leave. While on paper this doesn’t sound too terribly difficult, I dare you to try, it’s harder than it may appear. Once you get into a bar that you can barely move in, you don’t really want to move. So what do you do? You order more drinks, then you order more drinks, then after a short while you order a few more drinks. Then a few hours into it, you realize.. Fuck.. I’m still at the first bar. Then you repeat the entire process for the other two. Now, call me biased, but the best part of the Triangle is Beano’s Buckeye Ballroom. Arguably one of the best bars in Ohio, it is one of the reasons that Loudonville is full of alcoholics who still reminisce on the glory days of “when our football team used to be good.” I suppose this makes my town sound like a town full of losers, but I can proudly say I wouldn’t want to be from anywhere else. Drinking with all of these guys, especially if you ever have the privilege to make it to the Triangle, or better yet an Ohio State Game at Beano’s, is truly a time you will never forget, and I say that for all the right reasons.
Okay so I suppose you are saying to yourself, that my Friday sounded like it had to have turned out pretty decent, and I can assure you I did, as it took me roughly 45 minutes to stumble the four short blocks to my house upon completion of the Triangle. However, I’m sure most of you chose to read my blog so that you could find out about the title, “Homecoming Weekend”. Well, don’t change the channel yet, you won’t be disappointed.
Saturday started as normal… Tyler.. As most of you know, Tyler is just about as much of a main character in most of my blogs as I am, this one was no different. This might have been the craziest I have seen Tyler get in my time at college. Let it be known, that for his last Homecoming at Ashland, he definitely did not disappoint.. Even if he did drop my John Elway-esque touchdown passes during our tailgate party. From the time we woke up, near 9am, (much earlier for me, due to my drive back to Ashland) when we forced the girl that Tyler had stay over to cook us eggs, to the time we went to sleep, when the same girl rudely walked in on something she clearly wasn’t invited to, (ha, I’m gonna get murdered for including this) Tyler went harder than I’ve ever seen him go before. I mean, lets be honest, he didn’t drink near the amount of volume of liquids that I did, but for Tyler, he definitely took his partying to a whole new level.
Katy, Nikki, and Oh.. Jen too.. Besides my friend Clare, these three are probably the best friends I’ve had at school that lack penises. Katy and Nikki, both of whom no longer attend this fine institution decided that they could no longer live without me in their lives and came to see just how wild we could get together for Homecoming. To say the least, I was intrigued by the thought. Katy came to town sporting her two newest additions, coming by the way of surgery. May I add, should any of you ever run into her surgeon, please, stop, kiss him on the cheek, and just say thank you. Even though she came to town much more top heavy than her last visit, Katy still brought with her, her undeniable ability to be able to be the life of the party. Nikki.. Of whom I had previously thought fell off the face of the planet, due to my lack of contact with her over the last year or so, pulled up in the same car as Katy. Both of them came to down ready to party, and for that I thank them, they made the weekend that much more enjoyable. Jen is just that girl that I love to hate. We truly have that relationship that you can describe as a love hate relationship. Normally we love each other, however when I’m beating Jen at beer pong, she tends to hate me and throw beers across her living room, because apparently you aren’t allowed to bounce five balls in a row into the cup at her apartment.. Who Knew?!
The OTHER Rosenberger.. and Friend.. Yeah.. as crazy as that sounds.. Tyler does have a brother.. a younger one. Kyle and his friend Jake made the journey to Ashland to also participate in the Homecoming festivities. Kyle and Jake, go to Bowling Green State University (More commonly known in Ohio as STDU), and they had the audacity to think they could compete with Tyler and I when it came to drinking. Just let it be known, that Tyler and I definitely represented for the small schools of the world.
The Dare at Casa Fiesta(Or whatever it’s called now).. Casa Fiesta, even though it is named something different now (I refuse to recognize the name change) is a Mexican Restaurant in Ashland. While struggling, partly due to the economy and mostly due to the deportation of fifteen of its illegal immigrant workers, it is still one of the better places to eat in Ashland. Following the football game, the group of us, all those mentioned above from my “Saturday” decided that we needed to go get some tacos and margaritas. Naturally, we all order our own pitchers of frozen margaritas, and the fiesta begins. This is where the dare comes. By this time, as you’ll find out in a second, I was preeetttty drunk. Tyler’s brother Kyle and I got into an argument about who was crazier. So I dared him to take ten drops of habanera sauce, straight on his tongue. Fuuuck.. He actually did it. Naturally I had to top him. So we went to the table to find something I could do that would top his task.. They decided to make me snort a line of salt off the table. I can assure you, this was no small line of salt, in what seemed to be to be about half a salt shaker, I proceeded to put a straw to my nose and take all of the salt through my right nostril. Never in my life have I felt that type of burn, my nose felt like it was on fire, and soon started to bleed. Never in my life will I ever inhale anything else up my nose. However, I did exit Casa Fiesta as Challenge Champion!
The WAVE.. The Most Famous Event of the Weekend.. All of the famous stadiums in the world, The Ohio Stadium, Yankee Stadium Wrigley Field, Citizens Bank Park, the Rose Bowl, and as much as I hate to say it, Fenway Park, are all sports venues, that at sometime in their existence have had the wave run through them. But as you look back on that history, how many of those places can name one person, as the guy who started the wave for the first time within their walls. Well, at Jack Miller Stadium, the 23 million dollar football stadium at my campus, I can proudly say I started the wave for the first time. I walked into the stadium probably drunker than I have been all school year, and everyone in the stands could tell, as I fell walking up the steps to my seat, that I was going to be in rare form. I did not disappoint. Not only did I lead the entire student section in chants for the duration of the game, but midway through the second quarter I made my way down to the field to “organize”. I went the length of the field telling everyone the plan then back to the beginning and took off running. To my surprise, on the very first try, the Wave took off! It went down and back, down and back, down and back, and we all witnessed the first Wave in Ashland University history. I later heard from my grandma, that she saw my demonstration of school spirit on FoxSports Ohio. Needless to say, I’m a celebrity. Now, every time I walk around campus on game day, people ask if the Wave is going to happen.
**Well basically that is an account of the entire weekend, I would tell you about my Saturday night, but to be completely honest I can’t account for much of the details due to my state of inebriation. I hope that you all enjoyed the story of Ashland’s Homecoming Weekend.
More blogs to come in the future, and until then..
Much Love,
B
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Dont forget Jen throwing the sparks at the ceiling!!!
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