by Kent Sterling
A little hard to see, but a vomitous drunken lout from Saskatoon is wheeled from the pool area after fouling the pool, cement surrounding the pool, and a deck chair. She was rinsed with buckets of freezing cold water, and delivered to her room. This was the last we saw of both her and her miserable boyfriend who knocked her into the pool shortly before she began belching bile.
There are many reasons to avoid embarking on a six day adventure with old friends – sans wives and kids. The wife and kids among the very best reasons. Spending time with those we like at the expense of those we love seems silly and capricious. There are other reasons, most related to money – the expense and the lost hours that could have been used to create more wealth.
What we miss in our daily lives is the time to think, to ponder, to waste, to create, and to communicate. We often talk about the college days we reveled in, and the thing that made for the most memorable and rewarding moments were those expanses of time when nothing at all happened. Our solution to the tedium was to find creative way to make the down time less tedious. That was when the magic a bonding happened and friendships were born.
This trip was all about deepening the bonds that fuse our lives together. We are not family, but these relationships are important to us as well. One of the guys on the trip, Paulie Balst, a friend of 27 years, speaks often of contentment he felt in college. We get so busy pursuing what we are told by Esquire magazine passes for success that we forget to take a breath, do nothing, and then allow our camaraderie fill the time. It takes us where we no longer allow ourselves to go.
Life in whatever we call this decade is filled with to-do lists and chasing the dream of family and financial success. It’s not self-indulgent to step back, fly to Mexico, hit the pause button, and allow ourselves to wander a bit.
Six days to reconnect, forget about what the typical day is, and find new adventures is not self-indulgent fun but super food for the soul. It will make us better people, husbands, dad, friends, employees, and sons. It reminds us that laughing is good, and that given the opportunity, we still have a few tricks to show folks.
Not yet 50, our combination of experience and relative youth can be occasionally combustable. And educational.
At Cabo Wabo Cantina on Friday night, the place was little more than a bunch of tourists waiting for something to happen in a supposedly cool place owned by Sammy Hagar. Music played and people drank overpriced tequila and underpriced beer. Normal people would have left because there was nothing special happening.
Todd Limell saw potential in the tedium. There is a wide ledge above the seats in the bar for dancing that no one used until Limell took it upon himself to make sure they did. He climbed up, danced, and pull people from the crowd to join him, which they did. Five people on the ledge quickly became 30, and suddenly there was a little life in the cantina. Sometimes people need permission to enjoy themselves and Limell gave them that. The people who wondered why they showed up that night were energized and lively all because a guy with more than a little ambition made it so. He did it by paying attention to them, not sweating his personal needs. It was a simple act, but a great reminder that changing an environment is a hell of a lot more productive than whining about it. ”This sucks,” is not in Limell’s vocabulary.
Kids in college would have learned something much more useful in that hour at Cabo Wabo than in an entire year in business school. It was all in the name of fun, but sometimes lessons just happen.
We were in Cabo to celebrate the recovery of a friend, and to merge into one another’s lives for another brief time, but the constant hilarity and overriding joy of the trip was just as meaningful. New friends were welcomed, sometimes for the good, sometimes not. All were enjoyable for different reasons, but some made the process of extracting anything positive from a conversation a bit of a chore. Bizarre women from Michigan with rampant cystic growths that were only rivaled in their outrageousness by the dullness and repetition of their chatter made day two unending tedium.
Some of our new friends made worthwhile contributions and others were horrifyingly blunt about what they wanted from their new friends. Some were saved, and others were lost. Some made us laugh, and others reminded us that happiness can be an elusive quarry.
Fortunately, our group of nine were relentlessly happy and curious about others. Some bore the brunt of the celebration better than others, but all are taking home with them six days of memories and laughs.
We spoke of building a circus where only vaguely odd people would be showcased. A Canadian (and there seem to be more Canadians in Mexico than in Canada) who wears size 28 waist shorts despite having a 42 inch gut would leadoff, followed by a woman from San Diego with the foulest mouth and crudest intentions, and finally a blond from Saskatoon would vomit in a pool and then on herself after being shoved into the water by a boyfriend who had simply had enough. A resort employee would rinse her off with a bucket before leading her away in a wheelchair.
There are always bad business ideas that are discussed by this group. What else is there to do but laugh at this circus?
The reasons to say no to going on a trip like this are many, and the reasons to pick up and fly thousands of miles without a clear purpose are harder to find.
A trip like this damn near saved my soul three years ago. I was being strangled by the pressures of a big job, the terminal diagnosis of my boss and friend, and a lack of any real direction after my son left for college 18 months prior. As Balst told me, “You’re all done.”
He meant that I was finished with the responsibility of fatherhood, but he was right. My life had no joy. I thought that by working my ass off, and pushing that rock up the hill each day, I had purpose. I mistook activity for purpose, and being in the proximity of my wife as being there for her.
The best part of these trips is the enhanced perspective I leave with. Whether it’s the hearty laughter of our non Hodgkin’s Lymphoma Cancer Survivor, or the overtly aggressive but sincerely friendly advances of another friend that leads to our meeting a series of mostly odd but harmless people searching for a few laughs, these trips are toxin rinses for behavior.
Some chose to be with their families, and I can’t blame anyone for that. It’s a choice I made dozens of times. The last thing I wanted to do was miss one of Ryan’s basketball games, or a simple night with Julie and Ryan, but the result of that unending dutifulness was a stagnant soul that knew little joy outside of fulfilling the responsibilities of a reasonable adulthood.
We need to get dumb for a few days every year or so. Watching others make decisions and interact with others is a joy, as is spending time with friends.
To Balst, Limell, Steve David, Spanky Franchello, Tres Slim Sam, Jim “Rain” White, “Sham” Krubman, and P. J. Rebeim, this past week has been memorable, and showed that we are never incapable of being surprised. There is still mystery out there, and we haven’t yet reached that point in life that we aren’t fascinated by it.
To the countless and myriad folks we came across on that journey, I hope you return safely without any malice toward us. We meant no harm. And to the two drunk broads from “The Office”, I hope you find what you are looking for. As aggressively as you pursued it, I’m certain you will.
See you next year.
Indiana Pacers
