An American Rogue in Europe: Chapter Six

Moses had Aaron. JFK had Bobby. Batman had Robin (and, I suppose, Batgirl but that's not important right now). Everybody needs a sidekick. I'm not really sure whether today's topic is my sidekick or I'm his (probably the latter) but regardless, here comes...

Chapter Six: Tricky Dick and the Traveling Sharptons

I have been fortunate enough in my short lifetime to be gifted with many friends. Loyal, exciting, talented and above all fun-loving, they are all dear to me. There are only a couple I'd travel around the world to see, but for Richard, I'd swim. To say I was excited to see him would be the definition of understatement.

Since Richard and I met we were largely inseparable. Then he went and enlisted in the Army and he and his lovely wife, Allie, got sent half-way around the world. Ella and I attended their wedding (the night of Hurricane Rita) and then said goodbye. A year and change later, they visited us in Ruston while home for Christmas. That was five months before our trip.

As we landed in Nurembourg Ella and I agreed, "visit on the way home, sleep when we get to their house." We had an early morning to catch the train to Prague and knew we needed the sleep to get over our jet lag. All that went out the window when they picked us up.

One of my favorite things about Richard is that our friendship has more to do with personality and world outlook and less to do with day to day activities. Conversation flows just as easily whether it's been a day or a year since we last saw each other. That's why we ended up staying awake for 36 hours straight during his Christmas visit and why we didn't stop visiting and actually sleep until after 2AM that first night. It's good to have friends you can't get enough of.

Maybe it's technically against the rules, but I'm gonna quote myself here about my introduction to Richard. Ladies and Gentlemen, an excerpt from The Life and Times of the Drunken Rogue: Part Four...

Richard was a transfer from some Junior college in Mississippi, who after a year or so at Tech, had decided to get involved in the theatre. He was in "Goiter" (I shudder every time I write that name) but since I wasn't, we hadn't seen a lot of each other. It turned out we had a lot in common, and before long, we were hanging out frequently. We both liked to talk about music, movies, and politics. We both had open and inquisitive minds as far as spirituality was concerned and we both liked pretty girls. The pretty girl he had his eye on at the time (or more accurately that had her eye on him) was Allie. Allie is a year younger than me, but considering I didn't start dabbling in the theater until a year into my college career (and, that I graduated a year late) she might as well be in my class. Spunky, funny, beautiful, with a southern drawl (or is that yak?), Allie was the preeminent overachiever. She always went to class, was President of the theatre organization, made solid grades, and was beloved as dependable and trustworthy by her professors. I was, largely, none of those things. My grades were acceptable, I didn't lie but I'm not sure I would be called trustworthy, and while most of my professors liked me, they also knew I'd take the easy way if I could. I always liked Allie, but you have to see the dichotomy that existed. Richard was more like Allie I think in the beginning. Hungry to learn and prove himself. However, the more he and I hung out, the more we reinforced each others inner slackers.

So Allie and Richard got more serious as a couple, Richard and I got lazier, and theatre continued to happen. Amazing isn't it how much goes on in the theatre building?

Three reasons I love Richard:

1. Richard, Kevin and the janky TV -- Richard, like me was a film-lover. So much so, that in the early days of DVD, he had gone out and purchased a television with S-Video inputs. At the time it was fairly state-of-the-art, especially for a college kid, with zero money. He blew some $500 bucks on this TV and enjoyed for years the best video image he could afford. However by the time I knew him, this TV had seen it's better days. The audio output on the back had a loose connection on the inside, and while watching a movie, the sound would suddenly disappear. Without missing a beat, Richard or (his then roommate) Kevin would just stamp their foot down on the floor of their little rent house, shaking the TV set and turning back on the sound. Of course he could have gotten a new tv set, but probably not one with S-Video inputs. Richard was willing to endure the annoyance of dropping the audio occasionally so as to maintain high fidelity video.

2. Richard vs. Wendy's -- Yes, I mean Wendy's the fast food establishment. While Richard understands the health hazards and low-quality food of the fast food business, he also doesn't mind it as a whole. He and I have grazed at McDonald's more times than I care to count, and the man's love for Taco Bell knows no bounds. He does have a deep-seated resentment and anger at Dave Thomas' chain of burger joints. While the roots of this hatred, may be much deeper, the surface injury is easy to explain. Wendy's has, and still does, market itself as an "up-scale" fast food restaurant. They claim (and some swear to it) that the food is simply better than the "other guys." Richard stands offended. How dare they claim to be "up-scale" fast food and charge an extra thirty cents for the same crappy food? (This is Richard's opinion, I personally find Wendy's delightful).

3. He's a MonkeyBall Wizard -- For those that have not had the pleasure, let me introduce you to the single greatest video game series of all time. Super Monkey Ball from Sega. It's multi-platform now, out for PS2 and the Xbox, but I played it on Gamecube. Richard might claim otherwise, now that he's a serious military man and all, but let me tell, "That boy plays a mean monkey ball." The idea of the game is like Labyrinth or Marble Madness. You maneuver a ball through a maze, not by moving the ball, but the whole maze...oh and there's a little monkey in the ball. The game also includes dozens of mini-games, like bowling, target, soccer, baseball etc. all with the monkey-in-a-ball theme. Richard and I spent the better part of a year playing this game. We were very productive.

Now that we've been re-introduced to all the main characters (Allie, Richard, Ella and the Rogue) and experienced the obstacles we overcame to even get to Europe, it's almost time for our real journey to begin...

Coming soon -- Chapter Seven: On the Road to Prague