My good friend Angela, from Dazbog in Denver, also grew up around Toledo on the other side of the city in a tiny little town called Curtice. I wasn't quite sure what I was going to do when I got there, but it was one of the things calling me to go see. Shelly was kind enough to lend me the car while at work so I rose with her at the crack of dawn and made my way over to find this place.
I'd had no word from Ang so far, since I have a phone only on Saturdays, and didn't send her an email about what I was thinking until Saturday night. I figured, however, her high school would be easy enough to find and I could wing it from there. I did well by my assumptions finding her high school easily enough, and looked up her Dad's house where she grew up in the phone book. Old school researching skills. It wasn't until I stopped at a payphone near her house that I downloaded a 2am email from her through Pocketmail complete with instructions on what to do. She'd given me a number to call to get in touch with Beth, a friend of hers, so I tried that, but to no avail. I then swung by her house to possibly see her Dad, but he was out working as well.
In the end I got the tour I had expected, just not the bonus stuff I was hoping for. For whatever reason, I've always really liked touring the memorable spots of my close friends even though they aren't my memories, or with me when I do. Couldn't tell you what that's about.
I returned home by about 3pm to Todd having another productively lazy afternoon writing. We made some coffee and packed up our things before heading over to grab Shelly a little after five.
Once again, last minute, I adapted my plans for the week. I hadn't heard from Loreli's folks, who I talked to on Saturday, and wasn't really expecting to until Tuesday. My vague original plan was to take a night to myself in the Delta woods and meander over that way if I heard from them the next day. As we were packing up, however, the plan seemed suddenly really retarded and presumptuous that even if I did hear from them Tuesday that they'd be willing and/or able to see me that day. Being that was my only dumb plan at the time I figured I'd return to Hillsdale to support Todd in his endeavors there since we were coming back to Delta next weekend anyway allowing time to arrange something rather than push it through. After all, I don't know these people one bit despite how chill Loreli described them to be to me.
Soon enough we were back at Todd's mothers apartment. Having stayed up until 2:30 the night before and woken up at 6:30 that morning I was knacked. I promptly passed out in the easy chair not long after arriving and woke up somewhere around 10pm to Todd itching to head over to Bobs.
It was at Bobs that we wrapped up our night with a backyard bonfire complete with more faces from Todd's past. Groggy and some what reclusive I spent my time sipping on a beer, staring into the fire, and chatting occasionally with who ever started talking to me. The two who stood out most to me was Stacey, an old high school friend of theirs who Bob helped me in convincing her she and I had been old high school buddies too, and Justin, who I more listened to then talked with but had fucking hilarious stories of debauchery.
Stacey, in the end, bought our story and began recalling the good times we'd had together with my prompts of "remember, we used to get drunk in the field and cut class together". In her defense, she also was so drunk that she would ask if we all were inside or outside, and often was in danger of falling in the fire.
Throughout the night Todd kept smiling and leaning over to me saying "this is classic Hillsdale. I love it." I was a bit surprised at his surprise at me saying it was classic for Longmeadow days in high school as well except Stacey's name was different. Perhaps that was why I took to Stacey so quickly. She seemed like good people, which was backed up by stories of her unflinchingly opening her house to Bob when he was back in a time of need.
By 2am I was done with the night, as were most of the others as the gathering thinned. Bob and Todd had already retreated to the house for the night so I turned in as well.
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