OBFT XXV

The 25th Annual Outer Banks Fishing Trip is in the books, another fantastic one-- thanks Whit!-- here are some of the things that happened:

1) we spent Wednesday night at Whitney's mom's place in Norfolk-- he is living there now-- and his mom and step-dad had just rolled into to town from Florida, but were sleeping elsewhere because we had a house full of fishermen, and so they were showing up in the morning and Whitney's step-dad said he needed to do some work on the house, out back in the little courtyard connected to the garage, so when I woke up at 7:30 AM and heard some banging I figured he was doing aforementioned work, but I also heard the TV, and I figured I would go downstairs and and say hello and help with whatever was going on-- I turned in early and no one else was awake so I went downstairs and the TV was on and no one was watching and the banging was coming from the back door-- it was Johnny G. who yelled "Dave! My savior!" when I opened the door-- he went out for a cigarette at 3 AM and Whitney had just locked the door-- so Johnny was locked out and had to sleep in the car in the garage . . . shades of the McGrant incident at the Weeping Radish;

2) many of us ate salad with a slab of rare tuna on it at Tortuga's and it was good;

3) Hookey was a popular new addition to the usual array of games-- you throw rubber rings at hooks on a circular piece of wood that is hung on the wall and then do lots of math to figure out who wins (and many people, including myself, said the line, "I was told there would be no math," which is paraphrasing, and though I said it, I had no idea where it was from . . . here's the actual origin)

4) the water was NOT good . . . cold and rough;

5) Bruce painted a picture (or commissioned someone to paint a picture-- same difference)

6) Jon (Yes-man) showed up, after a twenty-three year hiatus (he attended the first trip and never came back until this year) and Billy interrogated him as to why;

7) Jon (Lunkhead) attended for the first time ever;

8) Charlie brought back the cooking-- we had fish one night and a tenderloin the next-- there were also some bacon wrapped scallops . . . the long and short of it was it was easy to avoid carbs (and vegetables) because there weren't any;

9) Johnny woke up Friday morning and couldn't find his pants or his wallet;

10) the debut of the pantsless griffin;

11) Rob slept next to his mattress on the back porch;

12) Marls brought his tennis racket but I did not;

13) Scott and I played some guitar together . . . he's really good so I kicked Whitney out of the band;

14) Bruce told a joke and I reciprocated with the Willie Nelson joke (which I also apparently told last year . . . these things are really starting to blur);

15) we all made playlists but I don't think anyone played their playlist;

16) Whitney was a fabulous host for the 25th year in a row . . . already looking forward to XXVI.