Road Trip...Laotto, Indiana

A day off, this Wednesday 12/12/12, won't be another of these in my lifetime, actually there won't be another day, year, and month combo until 10/10/10 in the next century, unless you want to count 01/01/01 of 3001...but what the Hell do I know?  Anyway, mindless thoughts and rambling for the mindless....but much better than thinking about politics, Obama, and the Mayan Calendar.  Speaking of our Dictator Wannabee, one Barack Insane Obama, does anybody really believe that America and this corrupt administration is worried about that Square Pants  Bob looking little clown in North Korea and his countries "testing" of Nukes?  Hell no they aren't...it's a shell game designed to divert his freeloading numbskulled supporters thoughts from the failing economy and his Administration's efforts, which appear successful, to move this Republic towards economic Armageddon and collapse....it will happen, while 51% of the country is clueless or actually support this Kenyan Bastard's every move.

Road Trip_____

I had not heard from my old buddy Rick for a month or so.....Rick and I have been best friends since our high school days in Celina.  We don't see each other but a couple of times per year, usually on New Years Day, and the annual May Mushroom Hunt in Michigan, and maybe a time or two other than those....this past year, I wrecked on the way to the New Year get together, and missed that, and the Mushroom Hunt occurred on one of my District Tournament weekends, and missed that as well....Rick did stop by Lima, and along with Patricia, saw me through my Carotid Surgery.  He stopped by the house this past summer, but then he began to have his own health issues.

Back in September he had a spell that almost caused him to drop to the floor....Vertigo, it appeared, much like the spell Sam had around the same time...since that time he has had other issues which the doctors cannot pin point, as well as issues with his rotator cuff being torn....so Rick is entering the "Golden Years"....which I have found out, are not really so "Golden" at times.

Rick and I have known each other since my Junior year at Celina High, he was a Sophomore, we both worked at Marsh Super Markets back then....we both ended up at Military Cops, Rick in the Army, me with the Air Force.  After our Military years, we both ended up at Athens, Ohio, Rick and I lived in side by side rooms at the College Inn at Ohio University...after returning to Celina, Rick went with Patricia and I to Wisconsin at served as my best man, that was 12/18/1976, 36 years next week....I returnee the favor a handful of years later, when Rick and his wife Toni were married in northern Indiana.  We helped each other move...he helped me move back from Dodge City in 1980, with a side road trip we took along the Shelf Road between Canon City and Cripple Creek, Colorado...and I helped move them out of Fort Wayne, to the country back in the early part of that decade a few years later....

So today I figured....Rick has been there for me for many years, I best drive the 75 miles or so to Laotto, and see how he is doing....probably taking the back roads, since the sun is shining, and make a day of it....

back later>>>>

Photos-December 1976...Rick(right) and me on the day of Patricia and my wedding in Oconomowoc, Wisconsin,....Prom Night in 1966 bottom Rick and the late Wade Miesse, top Me and Paul Andrews, and finally 2008 Mushroom Hunt in Messick, Michigan, Rick, Clint Thompson, and me...finally, 3 of the "old" guys  from our days at the College Inn at Ohio University.