Monday, November 14, 2005

A FOND FAREWELL....

The last month has been bittersweet as we've had to say farewell to two of our favorite regulars: HASH BROWNIE a couple of weeks ago, and now GOLDIE. He recently accepted a new job offer with a prestigious corporation in Washington, D.C. and now that he's just about all packed up and ready to move, he stopped by to say goodbye to the Sunday Brew Crew.

The afternoon started off innocently enough (as they always do), with GOLDIE arriving well before the others. He was met by the WHIPPET BOYS, who usually make an early appearance before jetting off for an afternoon matinee at the LOWES KIPS BAY theatre. Soon after, T-BILL and AFRIKA BAMBATTA arrived, as well as one of the members of the PEANUT GALLERY. Finally, ANGRY BLACK made the scene and the festivities began shortly after.
It started out slowly, with most of the guys pitching in to buy drinks for GOLDIE. I think they had a mission to make his last day a memorable one, even if he doesn't remember it. He had a draft of Bud Light; then Bud Select, and then a Yuengling... at the rate he was going, he was going to have at least one of every beer on tap. Of course, when ANGRY BLACK arrived with a blow-up DORA THE EXPLORER balloon, the whole place lost it. I hadn't laughed that hard, well, since last week. You can bet your bottom dollar that poor DORA didn't leave GOLDIE'S side all day long. So while he was sampling the various ales on tap, he also had to do the occasional COSMO, the drink of choice of the Sunday Brew Crew.

Later in the afternoon, the focus temporarily shifted to the DENVER/OAKLAND game as most of the crowd was there for either team or the other. AFRIKA BAMBATTA had a vested interest in the WASHINGTON/T.B. game. No one else gave a rat's ass about the game, however, we paid attention to it anyway; this was due to the fact that we couldn't avoid it, thanks to AFRIKA's constant cheering and taunting. At one point, there was some drama found in both games, especially the WASHINGTON/T.B. game. AFRIKA had been bragging to anyone who would listen, that by the end of the day, his team would be in first place. He'd been bragging and gloating and at one point, his team had a two touchdown lead with a few minutes to go. All of a sudden, T.B. makes a miralculous comeback and next thing you know, WASHINGTON was losing, and AFRIKA BAMBATTA suddenly lost his sense of humor... Of course, when all was said and done, the REDSKINS had lost and he was thoroughly dejected. The look of dejection was priceless: Nothing could take the place of that.
The bar gave him an earful of laughter and eventually he got out of "funk" and joined in the laughter and festivities.

After the game, the boys decided to get involved in an impromptu dance contest and watching these guys dance to some good old-fashioned 80's R & B was a sight within itself. Again, priceless.

At the end of the night, the boys found themselves doing all kinds of old-school dancing and singin', and I am sure if you were walking by the window at around 8pm, you would have been asking yourself "WTF???". It was that funny. We took more pictures, had a last goodbye toast and then our good buddy departed into the night, with DORA THE EXPLORER in tow. He will definitely be missed. A true class act. My evening ended as usual with a visit from the CUSACK TWINS; we spent the evening talking about sports memorabilia and politics, a likely combination. In any case, I enjoy our conversations because while we don't always agree on points of view, we able to discuss things without having to always to agree, which is cool.

Check back in for more news later on today.

NUFF SAID