Ruckus Central
The Mighty Monadnock Of Which We Climbed
Last Updated: 10/28/2003
The Word On The Streets
First off, let me apologize for the long lapse in updating. I have been extremely busy. Let me explain what I've done lately: October the 12th was a great day for all of us. Not only did it commemorate the 511th year since Christopher Columbus found the Americas, but it also commemorated the 22nd year since I was born. I had a good birthday and got some really awesome gifts including a new mountain bike and a photo printer. That weekend was spent in Vermont, making all the necessary preparations to winterize the cottage. It was a sad departure but it was ameliorated by the prospect of returning there in the spring and not having any broken pipes due to winter freeze. The following weekend was Alumni Weekend at Stonehill College, which was cool not because I was an alumni but because I got to see some friends I hadn't seen in a while, including this girl. It was an excellent weekend. The weekend following Alumni Weekend (that being the weekend of October the 24th through October the 26th) is what brings us to the crux in this edition of Ruckus Central.
Well this fateful weekend, I travelled in a North-by-Northeasterly direction towards the town of Jaffrey, New Hampshire to meet Matthew Kreiser and Charles O'Dowd for a weekend of camping and hiking. There is a mountain in Jaffrey which bears the name Monadnock (which comes originally from the Abnacki Native American word for 'mountain that stands alone'). It protrudes from the flat landscape around it like a very tall flagpole from a yard with lots of shorter flagpoles. From the summit, one may lay eyes upon all six New England states and New York. Yes that includes New Hampshire. Well Matty and Charlie went up there on Friday afternoon, a liberty not affordable to me for I was working for the man. However I did embark on my journey at the earliest feasible time, which was at 8:24 A.M. the next morning, Saturday the 25th. I arrived at Monadnock State Park at approximately 11 A.M. and we started our journey up the mountain.
The round trip climb up to the peak took about 4 hours, which included several breaks up, a lunch at the top, and several breaks down. It also included a photo session with a miniature snowman which some crazed hiker constructed and forgot to bring home.
Well as we were hiking, Matty and Charlie told me some very important information concerning our camping neighbors who stayed due east of our campsite. They were two men, both mayhaps in their mid-forties. One of them had spent considerable time at our site the night before, doing nothing but talk for hours with Matty and Charlie. And I mean talk. They didn't remember his name, but he talked so much about his friend Doug we started referring to him as 'Doug's friend.' So we were camping next to Doug and Doug's friend and Doug's friend loved to talk to random people, or at least that's what he told Matty and Charlie. He lives alone in Framingham, Massachusetts and his occupation is a 'professional recycler.' He collects cans and bottles and turns them in for a living. More like a professional bum. But anyway. He would not leave poor Matty and Charlie alone and they were preparing me for the worst. Charlie said that Doug's friend would leave to go back to his own site, but within five minutes they would see the familiar beam of light from Doug's friend's flashlight bobbing through the brush on his way back to Campsite 12. Charlie and Matty were sure that when we got back to the campsite that Doug's friend would be there to talk forever and never leave us alone. He would just talk and talk and talk about Doug. I think the main reason that Doug's friend loved talking to Matty and Charlie so much was because when he introduced himself, Charlie greeted him thusly:
Well we got back down the mountain and luckily neither Doug nor his talkative friend were there. So we changed our clothing as we were all soaked with sweat from our hike to the summit. We then hopped in to the 1993 Volkswagon Passat VR6 that had brought me so swiftly to Jaffrey and charted our way to the town of Keene, NH where Matty's cousin Melissa White goes to school. It was also was the site of a pumpkin festival. And not just any pumpkin festival, the Keene Pumpkin Festival. There were thousands of jack-o-lanterns. There were also all sorts of pumpkin delicacies, including pie. Pumpkin pie. There was also a rumor going around that there was pumpkin sandwiches, although, sadly, I never saw such a thing. We also heard a voice come over the PA and ask Dave Lumpkin to move his illegaly parked car. Dave Lumpkin was at the Pumpkin Fest!! It's hard to convey exactly how many jack-o-lanterns there were, but there were several jack-o-lantern towers like the one below dotting the streets of Keene.
We also saw a stupid jerk face mullet hanging out at the pumpkin fest. I bet he didn't even like pumpkins.
After the pumpkin fest, which was a thrilling and enjoyable experience, we travelled back to Jaffrey and to our campsite. Once again we were all relieved when Doug and Doug's friend were still not around. To celebrate (and also to alleviate our hunger) we cooked a package of cheddarwusrt sausage (or as I like to call it, cheddar-best) and some baked beans, which we cooked in old Dinty Moore beef stew cans. We also snacked on Seckel pears, triscuits©, pepperoni and cheddar cheese. We were sitting around the fire and I did something really funny. You see, it was a very cold night in the New Hampshire mountains and we were all huddled very closely to the fire. I proclaimed innocently, "It's really cold!" and then conjectured devilishly, "Maybe some CAMP FUEL will warm us up!" (If you don't know, camp fuel is a flame accelerant produced by the Coleman Company to fuel it's camp stoves. It is highly potent and very good for starting campfires.) As I said this I proceded to dump some of my cider on to the fire. Matty's face contorted and he jumped out of his seat and began to run away. Charlie shielded his red hair from the flames which he was sure were about to ensue. I laughed. Hard. And long. It was hysterical and we all had a good laugh. Later on Charlie said "I was kind of scared when you did that, but I have to admit, i was thinking, 'This is gonna be awesome!' "
So we were exchanging stories and whatnot and we got on the issue of sleeping bags. I had just purchased a brand new North Face© Trinity® mummy bag from Dick's for our camping expedition. Before I made my purchase, I rolled it out on the floor in the mall and tried it out. Sam zipped me up and tucked me in and I was sold. So we were talking about my nice new sleeping bag when Charlie told me about how much he would be able to buy with the money he could have saved if he never bought that James Bond watch. And I had no clue what he was talking about so he went on to explain how when he was a sophomore in high school he paid eleven-hundred American dollars for this James Bond watch and how it was the stupidest thing he's ever done because if he hadn't he could have bought a whole bunch of sleeping bags and stuff. You will see where this story comes in to play later. Well after our meal we were quite content and decided to go get ready for bed. I finished cleansing myself before Matty and Charlie did and returned to campsite 12 before they did. Doug and Doug's friend were back! I was so scarred and I didn't to talk to this weirdo alone so I shut off the lantern and snuck around the campsite like a ninja. When Matty and Charlie returned, I quickly informed them of the return of Doug and Doug's friend. Now, Matty and Charlie both knew that as soon as we made our presence known, we would see the familiar bobbing of the flashlight coming through the woods, signifying Doug's Friend coming to visit. So what does Matty do but throw a large cardboard box on the embers of our fire, igniting a blaze that could have been seen for miles, if we were on a flat, treeless plain in the middle of the desert. We were in the hilly, forested terrain of the mountains but Doug's friend was close enough to see the fire and sure enough came over.
Now Matty and Charlie really could not have prepared me for this situation enough. Doug's friend sits down and starts talking. Matty basically did all the talking because he was physically the closest to Doug's friend. He asked us how our hike up the mountain was and what we did afterwards. Matty told him how we went to Keene for the pumpkin fest (where Doug and Doug's friend also were) and how we came back and had dinner and whatnot. Literally five minutes later, Doug's friend asked what we did that day. Matty told him we went to Keene. Surprisingly, Doug's friend asked, "for the pumpkin fest?" Let's see Doug's friend, we just told you that. Yes, for the pumpkin fest. Also, he would not stop talking about Doug. "He gets wired and wants to stay out all night. But, ya know, I'm tired, I just want to go to bed. I have to drive him to his house tomorrow and then I have to drive myself home." Doug's friend said that line, verbatim, twice. Then he asked us if we'd ever heard of Bailey White, a southern radio host. No, Doug's friend, never. "She sounds black but I saw a picture of her and she's white." Well here she is, white as a ghost:
He then went on to tell us how she talks about how southerners are pack rats. "New Englaners are pack rats too, but apparently so are southerners." (Apparently he talked a lot about New Englanders being pack rats the night before.) Then, immediately, he continued: "One time, she told a story about how a woman was taking a shower and the floor went out from under her." Don't worry, I had difficulty seeing the connection between pack rats and the woman falling through her bathroom floor as well. But man did Doug's friend like to talk. And he wasn't looking for a response either. He just talked and talked and talked. He loved tapes. He talked about buying them and watching them. "Yea they were having a dollar sale at the thrift store. Bought some tapes. Bought a pair of jeans and a couple of tapes." Let's see. That means it cost Doug's Friend 60 bottles and cans for those products. I hope he gets some good use out of them. Well I wanted Doug's friend to talk some more so I took on Charlie's persona and told Doug's Friend about the time I spent eleven-hundred American dollars on a watch one time. He had difficulty believing it. I told him it was the stupidest thing I'd ever done. Then Doug's friend started talking some more. I started laughing. Very quietly, but loud enough for Charlie to hear me. Charlie started laughing too and told me he was very close to bursting into a full roar of laughter. Luckily for us, that was the end. Doug's Friend was tired and had to get up early for church the next morning. So he left us after about 15 minutes, and I must say, he was very entertaining. Not in the way that he had entertaining stories to tell, or he was witty or clever, but he just had this entertaining aura about him. Hard to explain.
Well that night was a good one. I had a mummification factor of three. You see we came up with a scale of mummification for when one is sleeping in a sleeping bag. You get one point for having a mummy bag. You get one point for sleeping on your back. You get one point for sleeping with your arms crossed over your chest. You get one point for having the drawstring tightened around your head. You get one point for having your organs removed and preserved. You get the idea. That night I didn't sleep very well because my jaw kept dislocating and popping in and out of the socket. I was half asleep and thinking crazy thoughts like "Fuck, I have to have jaw surgery." But then I woke up in the morning and I was fine. But then today I had a really hard pear and was tearing at it with my incisors when I pulled my jaw out again! I freaked out and threw the pear on the ground and my jaw popped back in. Well anyway, the next morning we woke up and made our way home. It was a good weekend and I spent a lot of it making songs about Doug and Doug's friend, including such catchy verses as this one:
Doug and Doug's Friend, sitting by the fire
Doug's Friend is a person that I truly admire
and this one:
Doug's at the campsite, sitting all alone
He's calling Doug's Friend but he won't pick up the phone
If he doesn't come back soon, Doug will organize a search
He hasn't seen him since he left and went to church
Also, the yankees suck. Haha.
That is it for now, make sure to check out the other pages for updates!
Lataz,
-Pauly
The Links
The Pumpkin Head Videos
Funny Stories
Music (Song Of The Week!)
Kreiserisms
Biography
Pally's Page!
New Band Page
Email Me
