Journeys of Jack Tripper

Bobcat
It's Homecoming and I'll be engaging in its original meaning for the first time. It's 1999, I'm a first-year master's student and I'm happy to be back in Athens and away from the boring life I've started in Ypsilanti. In the early October morning air, my friends are spreading out the supplies for a full day of tailgating. While they have coolers full of beer, brats, and burgers, I'm sipping a hard cider and carrying around a box of twelve Krispy Kreme doughnuts. By the 2 p.m. kickoff, I've already downed six of them and a half-dozen ciders (along with two or three bottles of Labatt's). I bring the rest into the game with me and proceed to gorge myself on them, eating one after every Bobcat touchdown. With each extra point I take a shot of Canadian Club whiskey from the steel flask I'd received for my 21st birthday only two weeks prior. Somewhere around the third quarter I lose my memory, but will never lose my taste for Krispy Kreme doughnuts.

Beer
It's November 7, 2000. Readying myself to head to The Tower Inn to meet some politically-minded people for election night watching, I quickly down a six-pack of Stoney Creek Vanilla Porter, a wonderful beer that ought to be savored, not shotgunned. But I'm in a hurry. I drive my car the few blocks to the restaurant and settle into the back room where a hundred or so politics fans brace for the early results. It's 7 p.m. The Gore supporters fill the left side of the room, fittingly, and the Republicans are on the right. Hours pass by, and we do shots with every announcement of another state for Gore. When Brokaw solemnly announces Florida for Bush, it's late, and the restaurant should have closed hours ago. The charming immigrant owner permits us to stay and sober up. Of course, by the time that happens, Florida's been placed back into limbo, and the bar miraculously opens back up. At 7:45 I stumble out of the restaurant into the blinding sun, wander onto campus, and walk into my basement classroom at precisely 8:00, looking properly haggard and reeking of cigarette smoke. My class waits patiently, some with the same circles around their sleep-deprived eyes. I grab a fresh piece of white chalk, and draw the large block letters on the board slowly and meticulously. CHAOS. I set the chalk down on the desk, turn to face my students, nod, and walk out of the room and back to my apartment. I shrug off my brown tweed jacket and collapse into bed.

Bush
It's Christmas Eve and I'm a 2nd grader. My best friend, Todd, his dad, my kid brother Billy, and I are sledding on the golf course, the only place with hills in my flat, countryside hometown. It's getting late, and I have to be home soon to get ready for the 5:30 Christmas Eve Mass, one in which the entire school participates. For our last hill, we're going to sled down a narrow path near the frozen pond in front of the 6th green. I express concerns; there are rose bushes on both sides of the path. Todd navigates the trip fine and says it's really fun. I timidly mount the wooden sled with the red steel runners. I launch. The sled careens off the path and directly through a thicket. The thorns tear into the cold skin of my face and even in my numbed condition I feel searing pain. Todd's dad hands me a handkerchief to clean the blood, as well as my tears, and we quickly drive back to my parents' house. My mother dresses me and cleans the thorns from my thick hair. We drive to church. Still in pain, I sit in the balcony with my fellow 2nd graders and sing Angels We Have Heard On High. I have no idea what these words mean.

Billy
I'm eight and still sharing a room with my six-year-old brother, even though my parents moved into their bedroom upstairs a few months earlier, leaving what would soon become my personal bedroom empty. My brother Billy is in the bathroom, crying, as my mother forces him to brush his teeth with a bar of soap. His offense? Writing the phrase, "GREG IS DAM" in sloppy pencil on the back wall of his closet. Greg is a kid down the street who I thought was a friend of his, but maybe not anymore. I listen to my brother have his mouth washed out with soap and wonder why people take metaphors so seriously.

Bedroom
3 a.m. I'm weeks from graduating college and in an elevator with a colleague of mine and her friend from another school. We'd spent much of the night making out and I am now faced with a decision; as the elevator stops at my colleague's floor, the friend looks up at me and asks if she is getting off here. I don't respond, so she stays in the elevator for the trip to my 9th floor apartment. I have never taken a bra off in my life, and she ends up doing it for me. We awkwardly make out, and I try my hardest not to lose my virginity to this girl I'm attracted to but barely know. I succeed, and she leaves my room at 5 a.m., upset. The next time she sees me, years later, she pretends not to know me.

Bra
I stare blankly at the glowing screen, the only illumination in my otherwise dark house. It's midnight. I'm trying to buy lingerie for my girlfriend, but am utterly baffled at what I am supposed to do. It's for a surprise gift, so I can't ask her, and she certainly doesn't resemble the models on the Victoria's Secret web site. I only know her size is a 34C. After two hours of browsing, I settle on two very similar and conservative bras: one white, one pale blue. By the time I am ready to present them to her, she's broken up with me. I give them to her anyway. Years later, I wonder how many men have struggled to remove them from her body.

Broken
I am eleven years old. For a week the radio has been blowing up with the track Do The Bartman and I'm psyched to catch it on MTV for the first time. Sitting on the ugly orange sofa in my parents' basement, I have my mother's large radio reporter-style cassette deck in hand prepared to hold up to the television as the video comes on, so as to ensure I can listen to the song over and over as I lay in bed, amusing myself. Adam Curry appears on the screen after the commercial break of Noxema and an anti-drug commercial featuring the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. He informs me it's the #1 video of the week. The small television with the broken dial spits out a tinny representation of the cheesy song, but I diligently hold the recorder near its speaker. The video ends, and I press STOP on the cassette recorder. I turn off the TV and sprint upstairs to listen in my room, too quickly. I trip on the first stair and the recorder goes flying, smashing into the wall and emitting a terrifying rattling as it hits the floor. I know immediately it is broken and loathe telling my mother I damaged what I'm sure is a very expensive item.

Basement
We're probably in the third grade. berrydip is hosting a sleepover, and we're in his parents' basement with a few other kids. We're supposed to be asleep, but we're making crank calls. Actually, we never call them crank calls, but, rather, prank calls. It's my turn, and we pick the Riverview Lounge out of the Yellow Pages. I'm not the rebel type, yet, so I am nervous as the bartender picks up on the other end. I ask if Les Ismore is there. She assures me he is not, and informs me it's past my bedtime.

Bedtime
I'm in the fifth grade, ten years old, and my mom still tucks me into bed. That night I have a crazy dream about a girl in the grade ahead of me. It wasn't even sexual, really, but it sort of was. I didn't know what to think of it, having only learned about such dreams from sneaking a copy of Judy Blume's Then Again, Maybe I Won't from my mom's eighth grade classroom. On the bus the next day, I confide in my friend Brian about the dream. That evening, I see the girl as I go into the gym for basketball practice. "Are you sick?" she asks. "No," I reply, confused, and walk into the gym. I would say few words to her from that point on until running into her at a bar sixteen years later.

Basketball
Sixth grade, and we're playing our bitter rivals, the Lutherans. We're playing in their gym, much larger and nicer than ours. We Catholics have little chance to win, but we're trying hard. My father, our coach, barks out assignments from the bench as the game eclipses the final minute. I am guarding Jon Tassler, the taller of the Tassler twins, boys I've known since being teammates with them my nine-year-old year of Little League. He is a year older and much more athletic than me. Executing a perfect middle-school crossover dribble, he catches me off guard and I slide over in a futile attempt to play defense with my feet, not my hands. My ankle rolls and a sharp pain erupts from the outside of my left foot. He scores a layup, and I limp to center court. My father calls a timeout and angrily asks me what's wrong. I am yanked from the game, and shuffle to the bench where I remove my outlet-store Nike and examine my already-swelling foot. Emboldened by my father's assurance that I am fine, I walk on the foot for two weeks before an x-ray reveals my fifth metatarsal is snapped in two.