It really is a pain in the butt to get a WiFi signal down here. Luckily, Cha Cha is able to create a Hotspot with her phone so we can get internet.It is 1249 now and the sun is shining bright. It is 56 degrees here and Cha Cha, Splenda and I just came in from the hot tub. We went for breakfast this morning and are just hanging-out right now. We did LOTS of shopping yesterday for Splenda's birthday. I was pretty-much alone by most of the time which I do not mind. I am probably the only person who can stand being with me for a great amount of time.
I blogged yesterday about our drive down and Cha Cha and I talked just about the entire way down. We mostly reminisced about the days when we would drive down here to Southern Illinois University on a regular basis. While I was down here, before she transferred here, I would drive six hours north every Friday afternoon and six hours back here every Sunday so I would be back for classes on Monday. I am surprised I didn't turn-out being a long-haul trucker with all the experience I have driving. On the drive down we passed MATToon, Illinois. We talked about how that is where we first really got to know each other. We were staying at the Holiday Holidome there because we had come down for a college journalism convention. She said we were all hanging-out in a hotel room and, out of the blue, I turned to her and asked, "so, what's your claim to fame?" Pretty smooth pick-up line, huh? It must have worked if that is what it was.
She also told me a story that I did not remember. She was the producer for the campus television station and I knew her a little because I operated camera for some of the shows. She had decided to add a short news segment to the end of her shows but she could not find anybody who wanted to do that kind of work. Everybody just wanted to be on-camera or run a camera or mix sound or work the lights... But nobody wanted to write the scripts. She had an idea to use stories from the college newspaper. Guess who was the News Editor (and later Associate Editor)? Yes, that was me. So, she stole my stories and apparently I gave her a bit of a hard time about it. I would say things like, "so, what story of mine are you stealing from me this week?" She said I would say them in good fun but another of the writers for the paper, Mark J., was really mad that she used some of his stories and he gave her a lot of poop about it. I did not remember any of that.
We also talked about how we were supposed to go on a double-date one time to a Cubs game. She was going to go with the aforementioned Mark J. (they were both taller and it seemed like a good match) and I was going to go with her best friend MADYM. For some reason Mark and MADYM couldn't or decided not to go that day and Cha Cha and I decided to go out anyway. We ended-up just going Mother's Day shopping, ironically, in the town where we live today (neither of us lived in the town but we must have been drawn to it). Several years later MADYM was our Maid of Honor (maybe Matron I don't care to know the difference but one is married and one is single).
Between here and home there is a place called Lions Den Adult Superstore. I have never been there but I am pretty sure I know what it is. The billboards say it was for both men and women. You cannot see it from the highway but I picture it as an IKEA and Sam's Club where there are forklifts getting giant skids of dildos and vibrators and Vaseline and stuff off of shelves 30 feet in the air. Every time I see the signs for the place I always crack-up because Splenda one time asked why they have it in Marion, IL and not a bit north in Dix? Can you tell her major is a marketing-based major? Maybe it's in Marion because of the United States Federal Penitentiary. Marion is where several of the people who planned the World Trade Center 911 bombing are being held. Head of the Gambino crime family, John Gotti, was held there. Pete Rose was in Marion. Russian arms dealers, hijackers, mafia enforcers... have all been and are all here. I have heard that when Alcatraz was closed to inmates many of them were transferred here. Maybe Lions Den is here because it is close to the university? Both are probably good reasons not to move to Dix.
I was actually in The United States Penitentiary, Marion (the official name) too. I knew a guy who was doing a story on the prison while I was in college down here. I had a car and he needed a ride the 20 miles or so to the prison so he could meet with the warden or whoever he was meeting with. It was really weird driving out there in my bright orange Ford Pinto (see yesterday's blog for photo). The prison was WAYYYYYYY out in the MIDDLE of nowhere. As we got close there were all of the towers that looked like air traffic control towers with guards holding M-16's and machine guns watching us drive in. When we got to the parking lot we went inside and were greeted. I was shown a seat near a door that looked like any 20 feet tall steel vault doors you might imagine while he went inside (I was just the get-away driver). He was in for an hour or so and, when he came out, we were both taken on on a tour of the minimum security area and were shown the place where Pete Rose would one day reside. Charlie Hustle got to walk in my footsteps.It is now 1344 and I don't want to spend the rest of my full-day in nearly 60 degree weather not enjoying the day even though I am blogging on the patio overlooking a small lake in our backyard. I do have to put the dishes in the dishwasher away. even on vacation I am doing dishes and washing clothes. Thank you for checking-out what I am up to. You make me continue to find interesting things to do so I don't sound boring. I do not think I am going to check the blog for grammar/spelling/punctuation... (believe it or not sometimes I do). Have a great Saturday and Saturnight. I will probably will not blog tomorrow and it is a travel day and a work night. Tomorrow is going to be the day/night I pay for all of the fun. TTTMonday...MITM (out) TA!
No comments:
Post a Comment