Macho stupidity

By the third day of this stall cleaning punishment, anyone who came near me without a whip and a chair was walking a real thin line.  While the other guys were saddle bound, I was stuck in horsecrap and hay. This was not how I envisioned things.  This was not my inner cowboy fantasty.  So when Davey rode in on his mount and made a wisecrack, I let him have it, which, was not a good thing.  I mean, he could toss me around like a basketball if he wanted to, he didn't.  I felt really lousy for jumping down his throat. Before I had a chance to apologize, he'd ridden off.

Sully, on the other hand, what a piece of work.  He blamed me for being stuck in this predicament, and I blamed him.  Everytime he filled his shovel with manure layden hay, he'd mutter something under his breath before tossing it into his wheel barrow.  I tried, okay, like not real hard, to ignore the s.o.b., but it only lasted so long. 

"Hey," I shouted at him, "You got somethin to say, then say it, otherwise shut the fuck up."  I've never been afraid of confrontation or it's consequences.  I'd already tangled with Sully, and knew I could whip him.  We stared off for a few moments, till he backed off.  I went back to shoveling, cursing under my breath, and then it all changed.

With one last toss of horse crap into my wheel barrow, I dropped my shovel and grabbed hold of the wooden handles.  As I picked them up, I heard this whirring sound, then a quick sharp snap, and something hitting me on the back of my Levi jacket.  When I turned, there was Sully with a bullwhip in his hand. 

"What the fuck," was my first reaction.  My second was to flatten him like a pancake.  I never got the chance.  He snapped the bullwhip again, and I covered up. 

So I gotta back-up here a minute.  Truthfully, I've been fascinated with like any kind of whip since I don't know when, but it's something that I kept private, never letting anyone know for fear they'd think I was some kind of freak.  I honestly don't know why this fascination has had such a strangle hold on me. It might be the sound associated with it, the fact that strands of leather strung together can break the sound barrier in itself is astonishing.  Yah, I know, there's always the deviant part, the master and slave crap.  It's something I can't explain; never will be able to explain, so I've learned to accept it.

Growing up, I was a hellion, and my bottom tasted more leather belts than I care to admit to.  That old saying about not being able to sit down for a week, I'm positive my old man came up with it.  So, I knew to what leather can do to a dude's backside.  But a bullwhip? 

Sully stood there, a grin on his face, coiling the eight foot bull. 

"C'mon, man.  Cowboy-up.  Up against the stall wall, and let's see how tough you are," he said.

Backing down was not an option, and even if I wanted to, my macho stupidity overwhelmed my sense of reason, and before I knew it, my hands were gripping the iron bars to a stall at the end of the barn.  Sully toyed with me, although I'm not sure why.  Perhaps it was because he didn't think I'd go through with it or he knew how dangerous a bullwhip can be.  In any event, he cracked the whip a couple of times.  I'll admit it, my knees were shaking.   His hesitation annoyned the shit out of me.

"C'mon, asshole, do it," I yelled.   Whipcrack!  Even though my Levi jacket was on, the bullwhip still had a stinging impact.  Sully was pleased with himself, letting out a yell, and a laugh.  Whatever
posessed me to ask for another shot, I'll never know, but I did.  "Hit me again..."   This time Sully
never hesitated, and the impact was harder. 

"Strip down to your bare back, man, I dare ya," Sully ordered. 

Foolishly, I did.  My heart was racing when I grabbed those iron bars again, and when the bullwhip hit bare skin, holy crap, yet, the pain was kind of delayed.  It's like when you cut yourself.  You see the blood immediately, but for whatever reason the pain is secondary.  When the pain --did-- register, I let out a holler, along with a few expletieves. 

Sully's reaction was the same, only with a louder tinge, accompained with the peverbial 'Yee-Haw'.

"Ready, cowboy?" he asked.  Before I had chance to say or do anything, that whirring sound filled the air.  Whipcrack!  My knees buckled.  My head flew back, and I hollered.  Slowly, I got to my feet.  Sully stood beside me.   "Fuck, man. Christ, I drew blood with that one." 

"That's it," I said, picking up my shirt.   But it wasn't over.  There was a demon flowing through me, and it wasn't satisfied.  It wanted more, and I caved.  I looked at Sully and he looked at me.  "Fuck."
I didn't say anything.  I grabbed the bars and braced myself.  Sully was giddy at the prospect.  Whipcrack!  There was little time for me to even holler this time.  Whipcrack!  The bullwhip struck me on the lower back, just above the waistline of my jeans.  Holy shit.  The next thing I knew, I was rolling on the ground, cringing, moaning, and cursing myself. 

Sully stood over me, laughing, and at the same time asking me if I was all right.  I must have laid there for a good five minutes, even though the pain had subsided.  I guess I was wondering whatever posessed me to go through it the whipping.   When I stood up, Sully turned me around and examined his work.

"I dunno, I don't think you're gonna need stitches or anything, but it's gonna take a day or two for the stripes to go away.  Man, I can't believe you.  Freakin' cool," he said.  

I was sure that Sully was going to tell everyone what happened, and for the next few days, I fully expected to be grilled by the rest of the guys.  I tried to think of some clever things or plausible reason for letting it happen just in case they did, but nothing worked.  How could it?  I wasn't sure myself.  Nothing came of it.  Apparently Sully kept it to himself, and only on occasions did he tease me with his pitiful imitation of a fake whip in his hand.  Davey caught him doing it once, but never asked why.

The stall punishment ended, and my inner cowboy fantasy came to an end, but not before I heard the creak of saddle leather under my ass, and a rope in my hand herding a mess of horses.  Was it worth it?  You bet.  Would I do it all again?  That's something you'll have to decide for yourself.

Bad day at Black Rock...something like that anyway

Sully and I sort of tolerated each other.  I had my opinion of him, and vise versa, so it was kind of hard for me to ask him about a so called night on the town, but I did.  Man, I don't know how I got the words out.  Still one week after I bought up the subject, he and I headed out. 

There was a town, if you can call it that, about thirty miles west of the ranch.  Now, I come from a small town, but this, man, small just doesn't cut it.  There were eight houses, another Exxon station, and a bar. When we walked inside the place, there were like four people.  Three sitting at a table, and one female bartender.  She knew Sully, and it made me wonder if he and her, well, you know.  I mean, she like winked at him, reached for his hand.  What's a dude suppose to think?

We sat at the bar, and after an hour or so, I got sorta disgusted.  Sully and this bar maid were making google eyes at each other.  Me on the other hand, I'd have had a better time lying in my bunk exercising my right hand.  Finally, two couples came in.  One of the ladies was kinda hot looking.  Okay, so I'm a little vain, but I've been known to turn some heads, and I couldn't help but stare at her, and the eyes in the back of my head felt like she was staring back.   Yah, okay, I know where you think this is leading, but you'd be wrong.   It didn't end in any freakin' bar fight.  Why, because the bar maid's girlfriend walked in and sat down right beside me.

She was older than me, and a little on the plump side, sorta cute, and sorta drunk.  Man, at this point, three beers and three shots later, even a tree trunk would look good.  She asked me all the obvious questions, name, rank, and serial number type.  When I stood up and headed to the "cowpokes" room, she planted her open plam on the red tab of my 501's and squeezed.  From the table where those two couples sat, I heard a loud laugh, and when I turned that good looking chick was staring right at me.  I wanted to tip my hat towards her, but thought better of it with the look on her boyfriends face.

What I didn't count on was that laugh provoking a reaction from the lady with her hand on my posterior.  Man, for some reason, it struck her the wrong way.  She was pissed.   She leaped off  that bar stool and the confrontation was on.  Okay, I'll admit it, I got a big head over it, at first anyway.  But when she reached the table with her fists doubled, that changed real quick like.  I ran over, and grabbed her by the waist.  Hauling her away from the table took some doing.  I dragged her outside, and before I knew it, she flung me up against the side of Sully's truck.  Man, she began unsnapping the pearl buttons on my shirt, then let her hands drift down onto my crotch, and wham, shes on her knees about to make me one happy dude.  

My jeans had only been worn a couple times, so the button fly wasn't the easiest to deal with, but did she have any problem, no sir.  Holy crap.  One freakin' button to go, and who walks out of the bar but the two couples.  They stopped to take in the show; started yelling some pretty unflattering stuff, which didn't go over to well, especially with little miss on her knees.  She forgot all about me, and made a bee line towards them.  I was, well, lets say, a somewhat precarious position.  The boyfriend of that good looking chick stepped in.  He got slapped and punched a couple times, but tossed little miss on her knees aside like a rag doll, and the two couples left.   By now, I'll refer to it as the "moment", had passed.  I buttoned up and walked over to this pathetic woman, crying.  She shoved me aside, and just sat there sobbing.  I knelt down beside her.  Then Sully comes running out, and without asking what the hell happened, takes one look at things, and jumps me.

I tried explaning to him what happened, but after a couple good ones to my jaw, I decided the hell with it.  We wrestled around, and I finally got the whip hand on him, pounded him good, until the flashing red lights caught my eye.  The only freaking Sheriff within fifty miles shows up, and arrests us both for being drunk and disorderly.  Talk about a trumped up charge.  The only person who did not find this episode amusing was Hank nor the owner of the ranch.

To say he pinned our ears back, a total understatement.  I was sure he was going to send me packing. I didn't care much what happened to Sully.   But he didn't.  Instead, for the next few days, we had to clean every fricking stall on the place.  I swear, he brought every horse he could find into that barn and let them do what they're best at.  It seemed like we'd no sooner get a stall clean when there was another horse depositing a fresh pile of apples.   Pissed, you damn right I was.  What I wasn't prepared for, was what happened next. 

Fitting in...

As with most things, I learned to adjust, mostly.   The silly notions and fleeting romance of cowboy life, fell by the wayside, and you quickly learn that it's just another way to earn a living.  Yah, it's a hell of a lot better than putting on a suit and neck collar, that's how I refer to a tie.  The hours and long and hard, but what job doesn't have the same pit falls?  You do have to love being outside, a lot. I guess the biggest difference is smell.  Yup, a dude can get pretty ripe by the time the day ends, and you get dirty.  If you don't walk away with mud on your face or a new hole in your jeans, you're doggin' it.  You're also prone to injury if you don't pay attention to what you're doing.   I fell into, well, actually, I backed into that category one time.

I really took a shine to this one horse, a paint.  He and I just seem to fit personality wise.  Once and a while, he'd show his stubborn streak or do what he wanted instead of what you wanted him to do, just like me.  Around twi-light, I was brushing him down in his stall, when he had like a hissy fit for some damn reason and nudged me backward, hard.  The next thing I knew, I felt this twinge of pain in my ass, and when I turned, it freakin' got worse.  I'd caught myself on an errant nail, ripping a hole in my jeans and a nice three inch long gash that started bleeding like some oil gusher. 

I remember feeling real light headed, and that's about it, until I woke up with three dudes looking over me, my jeans down around my ankles, the owners daughter staring at me, and his wife's hands on my ass. I could have like stopped traffic, my face was so red.  She got the bleeding to stop, but told me that I was going to need stitches.  My ears perked up when I heard that.  I don't like needles of any kind, and yah, it's embarrasing to be a baby about it.  I tried to get across to her that I'd be fine, but the look on her face, well, there was no room for argument.   The next morning, there I was, stretched out on the doctors table.  When I finally got back to the ranch, the first thing I did was head for the stall and pounded the crap out of that nail.

I guess you know that you've "fit" in when everyone starts in teasing you, and that's exactly what happened.  Man, every time I turned around, there was (or so it seemed) some smart ass (pardon the pun) comment coming out of the guy's mouths. 

Like the saying goes, all work and no play, well, it began to eat away at me for some reason.  I mean playing cards night after night can only go so far.   A couple times, one of the married dudes, Davey, invited me over to his place for dinner.  He had a pool table, and whipped my ass up one side and down the other.  Thank goodness we weren't playing for money.  I asked him if there was anything to do in town, and he chuckled.

"Richie, we got a Exxon Station and a Subway, that, son, oughta answer your question".   After that, he buried the eight ball and smiled.  "What, you wanna get laid?"  My mouth hit the floor.
"Um, yah, somethin like that," I replied shyly. 
"Well, Sully gets the same itch, and it's been a while for him.  Try talking to him about it," he said.   And so I did. 

The first day...

I follwed the foreman, Hank, out to the ranch.  It was one long ride, and all the way out there,  my stomach was churning.  I came real close to turning around and heading back home.  What the hell did I know about cowboying, other than those late night reruns on TV, where some dude just rides around on a horse all day yelling at cattle.  Could it be that simple?  Something told me it wasn't.

Hank slowed his pick-up and put on his left turn signal.  My last chance to back out of it, but I didn't. Another mile or so, and there it was, my home for the next three months.  I honestly didn't know what to expect.  I had visions of some rundown ranch house straight out of the Texas Chainsaw movies, and others of a mansion with the "quarters" for the hired help "out back".   We crested a hill, and off to my left was a really cool looking house, big windows in the front, it sorta reminded me of one of those lodges I'd seen in Yosemite.  Of course it wasn't that big, but it was nice.  I was hoping that Owen would take a left and tell me this was where I was gonna bunk, but, nah, never happened.

We drove on a little further, and down the road apiece (my first piece of cowboy slang) was the place I'd be calling home for the next few months.  Once again, my stomach was filled with those freakin' butterfiles.  Off to my left was a corral, and beyond that a barn.  To my right were a couple cabin's, I guess, to me that's what they looked like.  In front of one was a bright red pick-up. 
Hank pulled up right beside it, as did I.  My silver Dodge looked kind of puny beside it. 

Before I had a chance to do anything, two guys came walking up to us, and another came out of the bunkhouse.  I knew right away he was Sully.  I knew I was on display, and that first impressions are the ones that usually last, so I took the offensive, introducing myself, extending  my hand, and a grin on my face, hoping they wouldn't see the piss running down my leg.  That never happened, but it makes for good copy.

Right off, they teased me about coming from Minnesota.  Some of them thought it was a foreign country, and was amazed that I spoke such good English.  I knew it was all in fun, so I went along with it, tossing in a 'yah sure, you betch'a, and 'dont'cha know'.  I felt a little more relaxed, until my head hit the pillow that night.  I didn't sleep much.  My mind kept wandering to things I'd seen on television about the "new guy".  What kind of crap did they have in store for me?  Did I have to break my own horse? Would they put a snake in my gear?  What kind of cowboy frat joke would they pull?
I worried for nothing.  It never happened.

What did happen was Sully shaking me the next morning in what I thought was the middle of the night.  When I asked him what time it was, he said 4:15 a.m.  I'm sure my mouth gaped open.  I'm not sure how I dragged my ass out of bed, but I did.  I wasn't sure what to expect, I mean, outside of pulling on my jeans and a shirt, was I suppose to put on my chaps, etc?  So I followed Sully's lead.  Nope, no chaps, just jeans, a shirt, jacket, that's it.  And he pulled out a baseball hat.  A baseball hat? Screw that, I put on my black cowboy hat.

When we walked outside, there was this layer of fog hovering near the ground, really eerie, especially when you walked through it.  After downing a couple cups of coffee and some bread, Sully and I were headed towards the barn.  I figured this was going to be  my first test, working on horseback.  Never happened.  Nope.  Instead, he hitched up a flatbed trailer to a truck, and told me to start loading on bales of hay and some other kind of cattle feed.  In some ways I was disappointed, and others, relieved.  The next thing I knew we were headed out on this trail to feed the cattle.  I learned real quick like that this was to become my daily routine.

Despite the cool weather, by the time we, make that -I- finished tossing off those bales, I was shirtless, and whipped.  I sat on the back of the flatbed, feet dangling over the edge.  When we got back, Sully, got out of the truck cab, and patted me on the back, "nice job, man".  My first reaction was to lay one on his chin, but the more I thought about it, I realized it was a test to see if I could hold my own, so to speak.  And, if they were allowed to make assumptions about me, I could do the same, and my impression of Sully was he was one lazy dude.

With the feeding of the cattle out of the way, we got to eat, and I met the owner of the place, his wife and kids.  They were really nice people, and probably still are.  He had a twelve year old daughter, who conned her father into letting her show me the place.  I made a joke about her being to young to drive, and she says "on horseback, silly."  For some reason, I was disappointed that my first saddle bound experience would be with a twelve year old seeing the sights.  On the other hand, by the time we got back, getting off the saddle was a tad more difficult, and I was freakin sore.

So the first day ended, and that night, I was out like a light before nine.  Two more days passed, with basically the same routine, but toss in cleaning out stalls, brushing down horses, even painting a fence, and what I had expected, just wasn't coming true.  Then again, when I stopped to think about it,  which was somewhat depressing, my expectations were straight out of fiction, black and white old movies, and historial re-creations.  By the time the first week ended, I was, oh, I dunno, disappointed.  I began to wonder if things would change.

They did, some of it was good and some of it, far from it. 

It's kind of amazing, perhaps even a little scarry, that even at a very young age you realize that one fascination will stay or sometimes even haunt you for the rest of your life.

Such is me and the romance of the American cowboy.  Yah, my grammar isn't the best, so get use to it right away.  To this very day, I can remember when I pulled on my first ever pair of jeans, I said out loud, "these are what cowboys wear".  I was hooked.

What made this seem totally odd was the fact that I lived in the city, two blocks away from the freakin' airport no less. The closest I ever came to a horse was the Merry-go-round at the State Fair.  Little did I know that was about to change.

One night at supper, my parents told my older sister and I that we were moving.  To a thirteen year old girl that kind of news is devastating.  To a ten year old boy, it's the beginning of an adventure.  Two months later, we took up residence in a farm house on twenty acres just outside of a sleepy little town in southern Minnesota.  My sister cried for weeks on end.  I quickly made a lot of new friends and got  into more mischief than I care to admit to.   That saying about being taken to the woodshed took on a literal meaning many times over.

My sister never recoverd from this moving business, and put up such a fuss that my parents agreed that she could move back to the city and live with my aunt and uncle in civilization.  Me, on the other hand, I got my first job at a horse boarding place just west of town.   It was nothing more than cleaning out stalls, unloading hay, feeding horses and stuff, and despite only working there on weekends, my imagination viewed it as the first step to becoming a fullfleged cowboy. 

I became good friends with Tyler, a dude who worked there full time.  Ty was eighteen at the time, and never minced his words.  Man, he gave me a real hard time at first, teased me about everything, but eventually I learned how to give it back to him.  One Saturday afternoon, after we finished working, he told me to saddle up a horse and bring it to the corral.  I never gave it any thought, until he told me to "mount up".   My mouth must have hit the ground.  I was both thrilled and nervous.

It was my first riding lesson.  I bounced around like one of those rubber balls attached to a ping-pong paddle.  Tyler could not contain himself, and instead of being helpful, laughed his head off.   I finally shouted some unpleasant words his direction, pulled back on the reins, jumped off the horse, walked up to him, and hit him with a closed right fist to his stomach.   Several seconds later, I found myself airborne, and thumped uncremoniously to the ground.   I got up, and with tears in my eyes, got on my bike and rode home vowing never to go back there. 

The following Monday afternoon, when I got home from school, Tyler's dark blue Mustang was parked in our driveway.  He was leaning against it, in his usual punk like stance, drinking a can of Coke.  I asked him what he wanted.  He told me to get in the car.  Fifteen minutes later, we were back at the boarding stable, and I was on horseback.   It took me several months to really get the hang of riding, but I got real good at it.  So much so that Tyler even bought me my first cowboy hat as a graduation gift. 

Fast forward eight years; childhood innocence lost, relationships injured, the uncertainty of adulthood and life's turmoil at my doorstep.  It all happened so quickly, that it's hard to phathom. One minute you're walking home from school with hardly a care, and the next, your wondering what to do with your life before that last big adventure.  And so it happened.

In those eight years, I had to learn to deal with death, how to get along with a brother-in-law who I hated,  the dwindling relationship between father and son, and all the noise that went along with it.  The only solace I found was still at the boarding stables.  There was no pressure there; no what are you going to do with your life lecture, no confrontational arguments, no anything period.   I wasn't blind to the lectures and arguments, I just got sick of them.

July, one of those hot humid days where you wished it would snow.  I was watching this dude put his horse through it's paces snapping a lunge whip.  For some odd reason everytime it cracked, it felt like it was coming down on my bare back, urging me to do something with my life.   I must have been staring too long or something, but before I knew it, the dude was walking towards me, snapping the whip in my direction.  Out of the blue, he asks me what I was so deep in thought about.  I frowned at first, but came back with the obvious line, "nothin".   To my surprise, he wouldnt let it go.  He introduced himself as Lee Fleming.  He spent sometime in the rodeo, but after a couple injuries, called it quits.

A half hour later, he's buying me a burger and beer.  It was one of the strangest experiences I've ever had, because it was like this guy knew exactly what I was going through.  I mean, at times, I just sat there with my mouth open, knowing exactly what he was going to say next.  There were two things I walked away with that night, one was to live out a dream before it was too late, and the other, well, it's private. I went home that afternoon and scowered the internet, determined to live out that cowboy dream of mine.

I don't know how many sites I visited, until I came across a ranch in Southern Idaho, looking for an experienced ranch hand.  The job was only going to be for three months, starting in September.  Yah, I know, I was far from experienced, but I was not about to let this opportunity pass me by.  If need be, I'd frickin' lie, which is exactly what I did.    

 I'm not sure how I pulled it off, but after talking to the ranch foreman for a couple weeks, he hired me. I let out a wild cowboy yell after I hung up, scaring my dad half to death.  When I told him what I was going to do, he took in a deep breath and with a quizical look on his face, smiled and laid down the law.  In one more lecture, he told me to "get this cowboy crap out of my system once and for all, and when you get back home, you're going to make something of yourself or you can move out".  It soured my mood immediately, and I left. 

 I headed off to Tylers place.  Tyler had much of the same reaction as my old man, but sobered up when his wife, Vicky, hit him on the back of the head.  He asked me if I knew what I had gotten myself into, and brought up several things, I never thought about, like roping, branding, castrating a steer, etc.  My confidence in pulling this off was rapidly disappearing.  "Dude, can't you teach me?", I asked.  After making a bad joke about leaving  his private parts out of it, he told me he knew someone who could help.  Man, I was shocked when I found out who it was.

Two days later, I met up with Tyler at the stables.  The Lee was there going another round with this horse.  "So where is this guy? I wanna get started," I said.  Tyler nodded to the dude in the corral.  "You're kiddin...".   He wasn't.  "So, you wanna be a cowboy," Lee joked walking up to us.  I shook my head and laughed.  It was the last time I did for a while.

From the start, I learned quick like that Lee was a strict task-master, with no time to anykind of levity period.  Those first couple roping lessons were shear hell.  Yelling and screaming at me, like some demented drill instructor.  When I yelled back that he wasn't helping, he was in my face.  Yah, it sorta scared me, but I wasn't about to back down, that's not my nature.

To my surprise, he backed off.   We walked inside his place, and he grabbed two beers. That's when he explained to me that even though a cowboy has to depend on himself, he also has to learn how to take orders, even if he doesn't agree with them.  You can express your opinion, at your own risk, but the foreman always has the last word.  I looked around the place, hey, it's only natural.  He had a lot of expensive stuff, at least it looked that way.  Pictures of his family every place. Unfortunately, I opened my big mouth and found out he was divorced.  Curiously, hanging on his wall was a bullwhip.  I picked it up, "Maybe ya oughta use this on me out there," I joked.  "Don't tempt me," he replied.  I quickly hung it back up. 

The lessons went on for a couple more weeks, and I finally got the hang of it, not to the point where I'd call myself an expert, but I could hold my own.  The next step was learning how to rope from the back of a horse.  That - took a lot of time, which was running out for me.  It was now late August, and I had to leave in a couple of days in order to make it to Idaho by the second week of September. 

The day I left for Idaho, my heart was beating so fast, I was sure people could see it.  Frankly, I wasn't sure I could pull this off.   I knew I had to look somewhat authentic, well, what I thought authentic looked anyway.  I stopped shaving, and had a decent looking beard and 'stache.  I kept my hair cut short.  I never liked it long anyway.  I bought some grungy looking Wrangler jeans off of Ebay, packed a couple pairs of 501's and Levi jacket, roughed up my one and only hat, bought two pairs of chaps, and took two ropes that Lee gave me.  I was set.   What I couldn't pack was courage. 

To say I was intimidated when I met the ranch foreman was like an understatement.  Here was this gruff looking dude in his late forties, giving me the once over when I stepped out of my truck at the motel in town.   I'm not going to go into names and stuff, because I don't know whether or not it would be appreciated or open me up to some kind of freaky lawsuit.  I'll just call the foreman, Hank.  Hell, there's always a 'Hank" on a ranch anyway, isn't there?

I knew Hank had called my "references" when we first talked about him hiring me on.  I'd begged and pleaded with Tyler to go along with me, and he got the owner of the boarding stable to go along with us.  Hank sized me up for about an hour before we headed out to the ranch.   He told me that I'd be working with 6 other guys, and that there was only one about my age.  He was single and I'd be bunking with him.  His name was Sully. 

Tomorrow, Day 1 and beyond.....