He Can Drive Now.

Having newly returned to real 'work', a hard day really wears me out.  I left my client today and drove home tonight bone weary, tired, worn out.  The whole way home, I looked forward to a good meal, and a nice glass of wine.  I had some very nice ribeye steaks, and some asparagus.

I had no more than walked through the door at home when I became aware that all was not to be as I had so eagerly anticipated.  Landi had choir practice and Catfish had work.  She's a soprano, and he's a life guard.  She can drive herself to choir practice, and I have to....wait....HOT DAMN!  He's 17!!!  He can drive!!!

I cooked the steaks, and asparagi, and we all enjoyed a wonderful meal.  Landi smiled, waved and drove off.  Catfish smiled, waved and drove off.

I watched him drive down the icy road, and I smiled, remembering when I first got my driver's license.   My birthday is Oct. 9th, and on Oct. 9th 1973 Jonesboro High School had it's bon fire for Homecoming.  Boo, Tick, Bat and I were running late to the bon fire.  On my 16th birthday, I got a speeding ticket for going 45 in a 20.

I took a deep breath.  I could still see his brake lights at the end of the road.  I remembered that in November of 1973, I borrowed my father's Ford LTD, and together with Boo, Winston, and Mitzi, got it so buried up in mud out in Quail Hollow that it took 3 wreckers to get it out.

My heart started racing as I saw his brake lights as he turned onto Maple Ave.  It was in late November of 1973 while duck hunting, that I learned that while a Volkswagen Bug will float, a 1969 Datsun 510 will not.

I was hyperventalating now.  He was out of sight.  I remembered December....of 1973.  It really seemed like a good idea to drive out to Black Oak to steal the population sigh, but it wasn't.  A $25 dollar fine later ( I got to keep the sign) I was driving back to Jonesboro.

He was gone now....out of sight.In the spring, I met a girl.  I break a cold sweat.  For some insane reason, my 16 year old brain thought it would be a great idea to buy this girl a giant (5 foot tall) stuffed bunny rabbit for Easter.  I thought it would be funny to drive around town with the bunny in the drivers seat, and me in the passenger seat, pressing the gas peddle with tmy left foot, and steering with my left hand.  The police officer did not see the humor.

All manner of memories flooded back.  Getting Mom's stationwagon stuck off Woodsprings Road....taking Dad's Lincoln fishing....the prom....driving around drinking beer and shooting snakes....My head was spinning and I felt faint.  Oh..damn.

Years ago, when Dad was visiting and Catfish was just a 18 month old baby, I spent some time telling dad some of the absurd things that Catfish had done.  After relating to Dad how Catfish had recently walked a window ledge around an entire room, Dad smiled.  He smiled as only he could smile.  His eyes twinkled.  He gave me that 'look'.

"Son", he said, "Has he burned the house down yet?"

"No, sir.  He hasn't."  I replied.

"Well". he said with his blue eyes smiling, "I'm one up on you."

I am so very, very scared right now.

A Free Man

Long ago and far away, well, actually a couple of weeks ago, and right here, we prepared for our Christmas trek to Arkansas, with a follow up journey to New Orleans for Jordans engagment party.  While a Ford Expedition is a large vehicle, it becomes somewhat clausterphobic when you stuff gifts for three generations of Garners, and 4 human beings along with all their baggage into it.  Fortunately, as you will recall, I purchased a SUV Top Carrier last spring, so we were able to wedge our gifts, our luggage, and our selves into the Beast for the journey.

No journey is complete without a mishap of some sort.  Several years ago, you may recall my report that, on a biterly cold and very wet and windy day, my bride slamed the car door, trapping my hand.  That was just as pleasent as it sounds.   A year after that, you might recall that on another journey,  in the pre-dawn darkness as I tried to quietly leave the hotel room for morning coffee, I discovered the ironing board had been laid down, creating a barrier so our dog could not get to the door to bark.  I tripped over the ironing board, and slammed both shins on to the metal edge of the ironing board.  That's a pain that will take your breath away.  Have you ever crossed the Huey P. Long Bridge in New Orleans?  Try it in a Conversion Van.  The two lane highway was added to the damn bridge as an afterthought, and is held up by hope and prayer.  Because the van sets so high, it completely obscures your view of the incredibly low 'guard rails'.  I hyperventilate just thinking about going over that bridge again.  We drove 50 miles our of our way to avoid crossing it again.  One of my favourite trips was when we stayed in a hotel with the glass elevator that goes through the roof and climbs up the outside of the damn hotel.  I nearly wet my pants.  No summary of trips is complete without mentioning ice storms and dead conversion vans in Virginia.

So, I get nervous when we prepare to travel.  I know something is going to happen.  I know it's going to involve me, and it will either hurt like hell or scare the bejesus out of me.  In either case, my immediate family always finds great humor in what ever it is that befalls me.

The friday before we were scheduled to leave for Arkansas, I decided to have the Beast cleaned.   There is a car wash across South Plainfied that I usually go to, so after dropping the kids off at school, I worked my way across town.  The traffic was heavy because of school.  I drove slowly and weaved through.  One block from the car wash, a small Nissan car darted in front of me.  I was going slow anyway because I knew this was a place where cars dart.  I almost got the beast stopped.  When the collision became inevitable, I braced and closed my eyes.  In my mind, I was thinking "Ok...this is where the damn airbag punches me in the face, breaks my nose, and gives me two black eyes just in time for Christmas".  Because things were now moving in slow motion, I had time for a second thought.  It occurred to me that we were going to have to rent a car to go to Jonesboro and New Orleans because this one was going to be laid up.  Damn Damn Damn.  However, because I was going slow, and reacted quickly with the brakes, I thought I might get the Beast stopped before contact.  It was going to be close.  It was 'close',  but not quite.

Finally the collision came....."CRUNCH"...without an exclamation point.

No Airbag deployment!   Wahoooo!!!!!  No airbag, no punch in the face, no black eyes, no dust and powder all through the car.

I got out of the car and inspected the damage.  Plastic was cracked and bent and torn, but nothing leaking, and no hissing sounds.  I called 911 to report the accident.

Less than an hour later, the cop was finished with the accident report and I was on my way.  As I drove away from the scene of the crash, I realized that I was going to have a wonderful trip to Arkansas.    My new friend driving the Nissan, however, wasn't quite as happy as me.  He 'no hablias anglais', and he "no have the driving license".  Bad things were just starting to happen to him, but me?  My "bad thing" was done.  It was history!  No pain, no fear!  I was a free man!  I was now free to enjoy the trip to Arkansas and New Orleans without wondering what horrible thing was going to happen to me.

Merry Christmas to all and a very Happy New Year!

The Journey to Boston

In little more than 4 weeks, we will be visiting Jonesboro, my home town.  As has been my habit since dad died, when in town, I will go out to the cemetery with some bourbon, and have a drink with dad.  Mom is there now, as are Coachie and Miss Dot.  This will be a tough visit.  Dad's been gone for 13 years, Mom for 3, Miss Dot for 11, and Coachie for 2.  I have to have a drink with each, and stop and visit with Dr. Mckee too.  Scott's mom and Frank are near Coachie and Miss Dot, so we share a drink too.  Usually, when I visit, I am meloncoly.  I miss them all so very, very much, and I have to have a designated driver for the visit.

On this visit, I'm not going to be depressed.  I have good news to share.

On May 17th, 1986, in St. Bernards hospital, a little girl was born.  She screamed bloody murder, and began a journey.  None of us are are born the person we will be.  We are all the product of our mentors, our experiences, our decisions, and our determination.   She left everything she knew in Wynne Arkansas for Australia when she was a junior in high school.  On her return from Austraila, she moved to New Jersey.  After spending half a year studying beer and wine in Austrailia, she dropped mid year into a pointy headed intellectual school in New Jersey, and took up Soccer.  She excelled.  With each challenge she found, she found greater strength, and more resolve.  Daddy Doc would have been so proud.

She was accepted into Mount Holyoke.  It's a womens Ivy League school.  Two generations from the cotton fields in Mississippi, this girl is Ivy.  She's Ivy not because she's a legacy.  She's not Ivy because of a big donation or ethinic advantage.  She's Ivy because someone on the Admissions committee said 'holy shit, look at this kid'.

So, as with every kid, there was a idealistic streak that had to be massaged via a year teaching Spanish in an inner city school in New Orleans.  She left New Orleans still idealistic, just a more worldly and knowledgable idealist, and began Law School.

She went to law school at night, and worked as a cheese monger first, and later as para-legal by day.  She played Rugby on weekends, and tormented both her sister and her brother at every opportunity.  Buckwheat loved her more than can be said, but that true also for Dixie, Chaunti and especially for Tony Perez....and for most folks who have known her.  Landi and I count ourselves as being lucky to know many of her friends, some dating back to high school.  One, a doctor in the making, is like another daughter to us, and her father is one of the few people on this earth in whom I have absolute trust.  She has just a good a taste in friends as she does in dogs.

Tomorrow, my journey to Boston will be a short one.  South Plainfield to Boston isn't long or hard.  It's 4 lane all the way.  Her journey began in the rice fields of Arkansas.  It went through Australia, Jamica, Spain, and Bolivia.  It was a journey of academic and self discovery.  She has triumphs that only the birds saw, and failures that only she percieved, struggles where no one knew, and success. 

Strenght isn't succeeding when everyone cheers for you.  Strength is when you prevail when no one knows you are struggling.  She made every thing look easy.

She get's her license to practice law in Massachutsetts tomorrow.

If you cross her, give you soul to Jesus because your ass his hers.

My Bachelor's Party

Come April 30, I will have been married for 20 years.  It's been an interesting 20 years.   Landi and I lived in sin for about 9 months before we married because we just didn't see the reason to have two apartments.  Unfortunately, the preacher at the church we were being married in saw fit to preach an entire sermon at me about the evils of shacking up.  He did everything but point at me during the sermon.  Little did I know this would be but the first preacher I was going to have issues with.  I did get the last laugh, though.  About 3 weeks after our wedding, the preacher was arrested for soliciting a prostitute in Allentown.

So, as we begin the countdown to the 20th celebration, my thoughts go back to those days in 1994 when we were preparing for our wedding.   Landi was working out daily on a stepper and getting in pretty good shape.  That was the winter of 17 snowstorms, and I spent the winter drinking beer and shoveling snow from around the cars of every woman in the condo complex.   Everytime I would see a snowflake, I would get depressed.  We had 17 snowstorms of over 6 inches.  As we skidded out of winter and into spring, I noticed that Landi was looking very, very shapely.  I didn't want people to wonder why this beautiful young woman was marrying a fat slob, so I started working out and running.  In just a few weeks, I was running 5 miles a day, was down to a 30 inch waist, and feeling good about the big day.  It was looking good right up until my bachelor's party.

In those days, I still programmed.  I wrote code for an application called Cimpro which was a MRPII system for process manufacturing.  Yeah...blah blah blah.  Anyway, I hung out with about 3 other guys who were likewise 'Cimpro' guys.  We were the dream team of process manufacturing.   Jeff weighed about 400 lbs, and was the erstwhile leader of the group.  Frank had spent too much time in Texas to ever be comfortable or happy in Jersey again.  Snoopy was a brilliant coder and a high functioning manic depressive given to frequent disappearances.

Jeff arranged the bachelors party.  We all collected at Jeff's house, and piled into his car.  It was a small car, but we all wedged in and took off for the bar.  When I asked where we were going, Jeff's answer was evasive.  I was concerned that we were going to a titty bar.  I don't have anything against titty bars, but we are in Jersey and Jersey titty bars are not very good.  I grew up near Memphis.  Memphis has great titty bars.  Jersy, not so much.  If we were going to a Jersey titty bar, I didn't want to waste my time.  Anyway, finally, Jeff said we were going to a biker bar. 

I looked around the car.  It was me, a 36 year old computer geek.  Jeff, a 400 lbs nerd who talked like Hulk Hogan.  Frank who was lanky and could piss off a statue, and Snoopy, who who might disappear at any moment.  We were going to a biker bar. Oh shit.

No, I'm not going to a biker bar with this crowd, I insisted.  I pointed out that either Frank or Jeff was going to piss someone off, Snoopy was going to wig out, Jeff would have a heart attack and I was going to wind up in jail.  Nope, not going, I insisted.

I was wrong.  Despite all my protestations, we went to the biker bar.  Jeff led the way and we entered.  I expected the worst.  It was better lit that I expected, and I looked around.  My eyes stopped at the bar.  Standing at the bar, looking at us, were the bikers.  They were a filthy bunch.  Apparently they had just finished their ride.  Standing there in their stretch shorts, wearing their funny little hats, about a dozen bikers stood there stared at us staring at them.  No one blinked, but I may have snickered.  I realized that when Jeff said 'biker', he ment ten speed bike, as opposed to me, when I said 'biker' I ment Harley.

I was relieved.  We were clearly the roughest bunch in the bar.  We claimed a table, ordered drinks and began having a good time.  That's 'code' for getting drunk and talking computer crap.  Jeff was a very good programmer, but Snoopy was an amazing programmer.  He was probably the finest coder I have ever met.  We all drank beer, and discussed our on going projects.  Someone order tequila shots, and we continued to talk tech stuff because thats what nerds do when we get drunk.  More beer, and more tequila, and Jeff and Snoopy began to argue over the most efficient way to recalcualate a multi-demensial array without having to resort to 'cheap programming tricks'.  The argument got heated when they disagreed as to what actually constituted a 'cheap programming trick' as opposed to a really cool technique, and Frank and I just watched.  More tequila was ordered.  The waitress,when she brought the shots over and placed them on the table, cautioned Jeff to lower his voice and to quit refereing to Snoopy as 'Dickless' .  As she was walking away, Frank lit his cigarette and tossed the lit match towards the ash tray in the center of the table.  At that moment, Snoopy, having become frusterated with Jeff's argument, slams his fist on the table and shouts something which I can't remember, spashing tequila all over the table, and into the ash tray and onto the lit match.

The entire table burst into flames.  The bikes all froze in shock.  The bar tender grabbed a fire extinguisher, rushed over, and extinguished the blaze.  Frank took the brunt of the extuinguisher, and was pretty heavily covered in the 'powder' from the fire extinguisher.  Jeff and Snoopy looked at Frank as if this were a result of something he had done.  I was already wondering if Landi would bail me out of jail, and I had come to the conclusion that I would be spending the night in jail.

The bartender slowly looked around the table and made deliberate and angry eye contact with each of us.  "Set the table on fire one more time, and you guys are out of here!", he snarled.

We ordered more tequila.  The night was young.

How to Make Gumbo

First, go to the store and get a few big ole yellow onions, a some of bell peppers, a goodly amount of celery, and some red wine. Chop them up, and put them in a pot big enough for the gumbo you are making. Put some cooking oil in there, add salt and pepper to your pleasure and saute those suckers till everything is soft. While that is going on, take your chicken, and cut him up into pieces like you would if you were gonna fry him. Season him a little with salt and pepper, and then in your big iron skillet, brown him up a little. Keep and eye on the trinity (onions, peppers and celery) while you do this. As the chicken browns up, put it in the gumbo pot. Yep, that's a lot of chicken. Chunk it in.

Now, cut your smoked sausage into pieces about an inch or so long, and chunk it into the gumbo pot. Good sausage makes good gumbo, great sausage makes great gumbo. Pour in the batch of chicken broth you made last night from left over chicken backs you've been saving for a month. Remember, to take out the fat that rose to the top and hardened overnight in the refrigerator. Take your okra, and add it to the gumbo pot. Whole or chopped, it doesn't matter. Even if you think you don't like okra, put the okra in. It is going to cook away and be the thickening agent. The gumbo is just funky chicken soup with out the okra. If you like good gumbo, put the damn okra in. You just can't make good gumbo without it, and since you like good gumbo (or you wouldn't be reading this), you like okra, so shut up and put the damn okra in the damn pot.

Now, make your roux. Since I came down with the Sillyass disease, I can't eat anything with wheat gluten or I'll get the screaming sh*ts for a couple of days, which means a traditional flour based roux is right out. Nowadays, I use white rice flour. So, put enough white rice flout in the frying pan you fried the chicken in to make a nice roux. Keep it moving, and don't let it burn. It will be difficult to get the rice roux to the right color, but it will darken some. When it is about as dark as its gonna get, add it to the gumbo pot, and stir. Now, take the wine glass you've been drinking out of all morning, and fill it with red wine. Don't drink this one, pour the red wine, yes..pour the red wine in the gumbo, and stir. See the nice color? Who needs stinking wheat flour for a dark gumbo? Let that cook till the chicken is falling off the bone, then fish the chicken out and remove the bones. Return the meat to the gumbo pot. Reduce the heat till it's not too hot, and let it cook till the chicken falls apart.

Serve this over white rice (not minute rice) with Tabasco.

That's how to cook gumbo.

The Importance of Reading Instructions

Recently, my wonderful wife and I have been experiencing the joy of trying to teach teenagers to read instructions that accompany new things. Some things are complicated to operate, and kids tend to ignore the instructions and just begin messing with the 'thing' until they either break it, or it works. With Ipads and the like, it's not a problem. These things work intuitively. With other things, like watches, they are not intuitive, but more like a Rubic's Cube that tells time. My bride was somewhat more frustrated than me, and so I felt obliged to remind her how I learned to read the instructions.

When I was 50 years old, I helped coach Catfish's soccer team, The Storm. The Storm was made up of about 15, 10 year old boys who had an abundance of energy and enthusiasm and an utter absence of game sense and skill. As boys will do, they played hard, and had a hell of a good time as they slowly began to understand the game of soccer, and build the skills necessary.

As the season progressed, certain kids started to emerge as distinct skill sets. One kid, we called him Bigfoot, was an amazing athlete who slowly matured into and outstanding soccer player. The two smallest kids on the team were the back defenders, and we called them the 'Hornets' because they just swarmed to the ball and became the best back defenders in the league. We were lucky in that we had two goal keepers, and a set of hispanic kids who were the finest forwards in the league. The Storm became an awesome team. The other coaches and I often ran with them as the scrimmaged and acted as opposing players. It was an amazing experience running with 10 year old boys as they passed the ball around and behind wheezing, sweating middle-aged men.

One day at practice, we were scrimmaging, and the kids were really doing well. They burned one coach after another with quick passes, and juke moves. As the oldest coach, and the fattest, and the only one who had never played soccer, the little rats came to me frequently because I was the easiest to burn. Even at 50, competitive juices still flow. A little rat bastard with the ball broke toward me. I could see he thought he was going to put on over on me. I knew what he was gonna do. He was gonna toe the ball, spin it, jump over it and then whack it with his other foot and pass it to another little bastard with was trailing him. “Not this time”, I thought. He came closer. I broke down like a linebacker meeting Barry Sanders would. Head up, feet spread apart, knees bent, weight over the balls of my feet, arms spread wide. He came even closer, keeping the ball close to his feet, looking me in the eye. “I've got you you little bastard!”, I thought.

I was wrong. A hint of a head fake had me lurching to the left as Speedy Gonzolas burnt me to the right. I spun around and drove off my right leg to try to recover, and I heard what sounded like a gun shot, and suddenly blinding pain ignited in my right knee. I hit the ground, clutching my knee. I did my best to refrain from cussing, and for the most part was successful. The whole team gathered around and stood silently as I rolled in the dust. Finally Bigfoot spoke, “I think he's having a heart attack.”

What does this have to do with reading instructions, you must be thinking. Here's the scoop. I blew my ACL, tore my meniscus, and broke my tibia...brain bending, mind numbing, soul searing pain. Pain that you don't forget. Not knowing the tibia was split for a week was unfortunate because if you don't know your leg is broken, you might be temped to just suck it up and carry your 14 year old Labrador Retriever (Buckwheat) who has become deathly ill out to the car to take him to the Vet where you find out that you have to put Buckwheat down. Yeah. Carrying a 95 lbs dog out to the car on a wiggly, broken leg is painful. Putting the dog down is worse.

So, I had to have my ACL rebuilt. They did this 'orthoscopically'. The big advantage to this is that they only have to make three little holes, and one incision to accomplish the reconstruction. It is an amazing procedure. They take the center 1/3 of your petalar tendon, and use it to create a new ACL. The anesthesiologist knocks you out. The OrthoMagician does his stuff, and voila, a new knee.

The fog of anesthesia lifts slowly. I woke expecting the worst, but hey....no pain. My knee is in a huge brace, and wrapped up in bandages. The doc is explaining things to me, but I'm not listening much. I still have the foggy brain, but Landi is listening to every word. So we go home, and with crutches and Landi's assistance, I make it up the stairs to our bedroom, and go to bed. I wondered how hard it was going to be to get down the stairs to the spare bedroom tomorrow morning so I could use the passive motion device which would bend my knee 5 degrees for the prescribed 6 hours.

I awoke to a new hell. The pain medication from surgery had worn off and it felt like rabid gophers had eaten away my knee. Remember the center 1/3 of the petelar tendon, well, that sucker hurts. Sunlight from the skylight falling on my knee burned like fire. Landi, my angle of mercy, appeared with percocets, and insisted that I come down stairs and begin the passive motion therapy.

Reluctantly, I locked the hinges on each side of my knee brace. This was to pervent my knee from moving, which the doctor had said would be incredibly painful for a time, while I used my crutches to get down the stairs. I swung my leg off the bed to begin getting out of bed, and the cutting pain from the petalar tendon took my breath away. I asked Landi for another percocet because obviously the last one was not working. She called me a 'wimp', and said “Just get up and go down the stairs. The doctor said you have to.” Slowly, and with incredibly searing pain, I managed to get up and support myself on my good leg, and the crutches while my repaired leg dangled. Merely touching the floor with a toe made my stomach queazy. The pain was so strong and crippling that I was light headed as I approached the stairs. Each step down the stairs was a study in focused determination not to pass out because I knew for sure I did not want to fall down the stairs. Finally, after an eternity, I made it to the guest bed room where the passive motion device was located.

The bed in the guest room was a tall, brass bed with the passive motion device set up on it. I had to sit on the bed, swing my leg up on the bed, then position my leg in the passive motion device. I attempted to lift my leg, but the pain was searing. Landi commented that 'You don't look good.', and offered to help. Just her touching my leg took my breath away. Finally after 10 minutes of trying to find a way to lift my leg up onto the bed, I had to just grit my teeth, grasp my leg by my big toe and lift it on to the bed. I almost fainted, but I got it done. I was sweating, but I only had to get my leg into the passive motion device and then I would be done. I took a deep breath, and worked my leg into the device and secured the velcro straps that locked my leg in the device. I unlocked the joints on the knee brace so the knee would be able to bend.

Again, you must be wondering, so what's up with reading the instructions. You're thinking something terrible is going to happen with the passive motion device. Yeah, it was painful, but it worked like it was supposed to....once I unlocked the hinges.

If I had read the instructions on the knee brace, I would have known the 'lock' position from the 'unlocked' position. What I thought was 'locked' was actually “unlocked”. My whole painful and torturous journey from upstairs to the guest bedroom bed had been made with the brace in the unlocked position.

The other set of instructions that you should read is the ones that come with the percocets.   Suffice it to say that 4 days after surgery, I gave birth to a piece of firewood.

That is how I learned to read the instructions.

Do You Like My Hat?

On Saturday, June 8^th, after a grueling day of intense competition, South Plainfield's very own competition barbeque team, The Memphis Barbeque Company, walked away from the 3^rd Annual Mt. Bethel Fire Department Barbeque Contest as Grand Champions, having won first place for barbequed ribs and barbequed chicken. The contest was organized and run by the Mt. Bethel Fire Department under a modified version of the Kansas City Barbeque Society rules. Though a relative new comer to the world of competition barbeque, the Mt. Bethel Fire Department Barbeque Contest is quickly gaining favor among competitors as one of the premier one day barbeque events in the state.

Mark “The Monster” Johnson and I worked with the focused intensity of a tag team locked in a Texas Chainsaw Caged Death match throughout the day. 

Early on things looked grim. The team struggled and suffered a catastrophic tent failure. A back up tent was procured, but this did not go unnoticed by several of the competitors who eyed the guys like vultures sensing weakness. However, the team soon recovered, and successfully prepared the ribs and chicken for the smoker. A second crisis confronted the team when they ran low on bourbon at about 11:30 in the morning.  Again the vultures eyed the team, but soon an additional source of bourbon was identifed and again the vultures sulked away.

Four hours later, having been careful to avoid dehydration and having let the magic of hickory smoke do it's thing, the ribs and chicken emerged transformed into culinary Nirvana.

A little known aspect of competitive barbeque is that the real key to winning is in the presentation.  At these contests, it's all good barbeque.  You won't have bad barbeque there.  These guys are all good and in many cases, the difference between winning and being 8th is presentation.  Our secret weapon is Landi.  The only thing she has not been able to dress up enough for us to win something in is brisket.  Most of my briskets have been about as chewy as a brick, and every bit as tastey.  Landi dressed our ribs and chicken for success.
As has been known to happen, the post event celebration was conducted at Garner Lake, and as usual, most of the team swam, or were pushed into the icy waters.  Were it not for the copious amounts of bourbon that had been consumed, the icy waters of the lake may have cause hyperthermia.  Most of the neighborhood was pleased when the celebration terminated at midnight.