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Part II - I Find My Classmates First let me finish Friday night.
I DID go back to my room and watch a Law & Order rerun from 7 to 8 and, because there was no meat loaf on the room service menu, I grabbed a book I've been reading for the past three months (Jeffery Deaver, Garden of Beasts) and headed toward the restaurant.
I now of three copies of this book because (A) I bought a paperback copy, which (B) I left at home the next time I traveled, so (C) I bought a hardback copy from the remainder table at the bookstore at ATL, but (D) I really HAD packed the paperback, and (E) because I am almost 60 I saw the book at the Books-a-Million in Old Town Alexandria and thought it looked interesting so I bought it again.
I also have seven blazers which look exactly alike because I go into Jos. A. Banks and say, "Hey, I think I like that" and buy it only to find out I had already liked it and already had its brothers and cousins hanging in my closet or, more likely, hanging one of the handles of the Nordic Track in my room.
I poked my head into the bar before going into the restaurant and lo and behold there was a table-full of sixty year olds one of whom said, "You look like you belong to us."
I smiled with that charming, but uncertain, smile which has served me so well on job interviews over my adult lifetime and said I was Rich Galen.
"Richie Galen!" someone shouted and hugs and smiles and "how ya doin's" all around and I sat down.
A couple of years ago I wrote that there were three people in the world who called me Richie: My mother, my younger brother, and President Bush. President Bush doesn't call me anything any more so was really back to two people; but I had forgotten that everyone in high school apparently called me "Richie," too, so there I was: "Richie Galen" trying desperately to read people's lips over the noise in the bar as they pronounced their names.
Anyway, over the course of the evening maybe two dozen people stopped by and chatted and by midnight-ish we were ready to call it a night.
Picture the scene: It was a round table which was suitable for about six people. We had kept dragging up chairs and moving the perimeter out so more people could sit and chat. People ordered beer, wine, soft drinks, pizzas and who knows what-all and when it was time to settle up everyone sort of looked down at their belt buckles.
One woman said, "Well, I know what I had," and I could see a fight breaking out over who had eaten two pieces of pizza and who had eaten only one, and who had ordered the Heineken and who had only ordered the Amstel Light.
So I said to the waiter, "Put it all on my room," which he did and, so, did I preserve the peace in the Class of '64.
I waited, but she thought that was more than enough information and had gone back to adding energy surcharges or something to people's bills.
I said, "I'm sorry. I'm not from here. If I can FIND Morristown will there be a sign which says, "Starbucks, this way?"
She gave me directions and I headed out to the rented Taurus to find it.
When I rented the Taurus, I toyed with the idea of upgrading to a bigger car, not because I thought I needed to impress my classmates; at all. Really. It was a comfort thing. But, I decided that the $49.99 plus taxes, title, and dealer prep was enough, especially since there was no mileage restriction.
After picking up the bar tab the night before, I was now in heavy money-saving mode which for me is a never-ending self-delusion:
I stick to that for not a month, nor a week, nor even a day, but for about 15 minutes on the fairly thin theory that delaying lunch is almost exactly the same thing as not having it at all.
Hence, having saved money by renting a Taurus instead of a Hummer I convinced myself that I was about even for the night before.
I found the Starbucks and, through the magic of the Hertz Neverlost GPS device I always get, I found my way back to the hotel.
I put on a tie and one of those eight Jos. A. Banks blazers I was talking about and went outside to wait for the car to take me into Manhattan to do my weekly Fox deal with Brian Wilson and Bob Beckel.
The night before when people asked me what I did for a living (or what I had done prior to my retiring which a lot of them already had) I said what I always say: I'm a political hack.
If you say you're a political hack to people who are in or around politics, they will often laugh and when you answer their quizzical look by saying "on the Republican side," that is more than enough information to begin a good conversation.
If you say you are a political hack to people who are corporate lawyers and retired teachers and whatnot you get a quizzical look which more-or-less says: "Richie Galen spoke in riddles in high school and 42 years of seasoning has done nothing to change that."
I MAY have happened to mention, just in the course of idle conversation - to everyone from my classmates around the table to the bartender, to the group from Verizon who were in for a multi-week training session and playing pool on the far side of the room that:
So, as I waited outside for the limo (a Town Car, really) I kept sneaking a glance at the front door of the hotel to see if any of my classmates came out so I could tell them that:
But no one did.
Drat.
Speaking of TV, Mullster Richard Falk took a look at my shortly-after-high-school photo and saw a "Separated at Birth connection" with Dan Abrams of MSNBC:
Abrams had better get MSNBC straightened out in a hurry because in another seventeen minutes he's gonna go bald.
DEAR Mr. Mullings:
This, though, is beyond anything we would have expected even of you. Will you puh-LEEZE get back to the reunion. Signed,
The West Orange Mountain High School Class of '64
Ok. Ok.
So I went into New York, did the Fox gig - Wait! One more sidebar and I'll stop: I was in the studio which the Fox & Friends crew uses in the morning which means it has windows which people can peek in through. Or "windows in through which people can peek," if you prefer.
I was sitting on the set with the studio lights on and noticed people standing outside the window waving at me. At first I was very professional: I had my reporter's notebook on the desk, which I picked up and pretended to study carefully before pretending to add an important note.
Then I decided that wasn't much fun, so I started waving back which led to some of them taking pictures of me which led to me reaching into my very manly canvas shoulder bag, getting my camera and taking a picture of them:
I am still, 42 years after high school, so very easily amused.
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