my dad's a pretty not-petty kind of guy, and, i'd assume, so are the people he 'runs' with. i have learned that this is not true.

and i think this story is too ridiculous to not report, being that it involves three 50-something men. (although my dad only tangentially.)

take three men - - - we'll call them gene, tony and pat. these men have been friends since at least high school, and i think before then. let's say they struck up their friendship in 1960. it's 2003. the men are married. they have kids. gene's son (me) works in baseball, broadcasting in the midwest league. pat's son works in baseball, in the sales department of the mighty kane county cougars.

being that andrew's club, the mighty river bandits, have a weekend series at kane county, and being that the pat, gene and tony live within an hour of kane county, it would only be natural that the three men, their wives and their sons would go out for a snack or drinks or something after the saturday night game.

right?

So the time for preparations comes (reference point: Thursday, July 31). And Gene, the spearhead-er, calls Pat. And Pat and wife are in. And Gene calls Tony. And Gene says "Great. And Pat and (insert wife's name here...Andrew can't remember it, because he's a bad son) are in too." And Tony says "I'll believe that when I see it."

Huh?

So the time for final final preparations comes (reference point: Tuesday, August 5). And Gene calls for final confirmation with Pat. And Pat says "Something's suddently come up." (Note my Brady Bunch reference) So Gene calls Tony and asks Tony what's going on. And Tony says something to the effect of "Pat's mad at me for some reason. I don't know why. Let's just go play pinball to make things better. And I'll trade you my Bill Hands for your spoke-damaged Ernie Banks."

And Gene says "That's strange. Ernie rules. Fuck off. I guess it'll just be the four of us, and Andrew."

How wild is that. Petty junior-high relationships among fifty-something men rule!