Twenty years! That’s the only phrase I could think for the first five minutes that I spent with Eric Hubble on January 27, 2007. That is how long it had been since we had last seen each other – or even communicated. Truth be told, Eric and I spent only about a dozen days of our lives in each other’s presence, but also we exchanged many letters and telephone conversations over the course of just over one year. Unfortunately, as we entered high school in our respective hometowns, we headed off into different directions and simply lost touch over time.
We first met at Camp Woodland Altars during the Summer of 1986. He had come along with another friend of mine from camp, Darin Anderson. We became something akin to the Three Musketeer Goofballs for that entire week, creating a bizarre vernacular all our own for the duration of our time there. Later that Summer both Darin and Eric would come and visit me in Beavercreek for a weekend. We all went to Kings Island for a day and later had a reunion of sorts with the girls from Troy (seen below), who had also shared that same week of camp with us. From then on, all of us exchanged letters – almost weekly – for a while. Eric’s were some of the funniest writings I’ve ever read, mostly centering on his ability to poke fun at the likeliest of sources: counselors and weirdos from that week at camp. Many letters were in the form of ‘movie posters.’ I recipricated with equally biting and inappropriate humor.
Eric, Amy Angle, Me, Kim Littlejohn, Mandy Angle, Darin (hidden), Wendy Johnston, Dorinda Dohner
Neither Darin nor Eric attended camp during the Summer of 1987, but in lieu of meeting up at Woodland Altars, I made a trek up to their neck of the Ohio woods: Darin lived in Upper Sandusky and Eric in Bucyrus. I spent a few days with each. The time with Eric was by far the more inappropriate and reckless. Some of our escapades were innocent – like visiting Cedar Point…but by the time we were through with it, we had turned even it into an outrageously wacky and outlandish experience. I’ll talk more about this entire trip in detail some other time – but the most memorable aspect of the four days was that we got drunk together on every single one of them.
This was precisely the 3rd, 4th, 5th, and 6th time I had ever been drunk and the culprit was an equal mix of beer and wine coolers. We had so much fun mindlessly swimming around in a world of our own – where David Letterman played every night, we quoted Weird Science incessantly, and we continued to boldly get progressively worse night after night – that it seemed like our own personal version of Groundhog Day – repeating itself over and over again, both for real and in our minds for years to come…
We were 15 years old. It was quite a scene.
I was afraid that it might seem strange to Eric twenty years later that I could remember so much about these four days in such vivid detail, but much to my delight, he could recall just as much, and in some cases more, of the goings-on that occurred over those four days of infamy.
Needless to say, it was great to meet up with him at the Old Bag of Nails Pub in Westerville, Ohio. Amazingly, I found that he lived not two miles from my sister Denise’s house, so since I was visiting her on this particular weekend, it seemed like the opportune time to arrange a meeting with Eric. Over a couple of beers, we recounted the tale of our abysmal behavior in 1987, as well as discussed our recent lives, jobs, Eric’s ten years in the Navy, our kids, music, and marital history. We also browsed – and laughed over – some his artistic handiwork that I brought along (above).
He’s still a cool guy – and still funny as hell – and I look forward to meeting up many more times in the future…and maybe creating some additional drunken and disgustingly unsophisticated memories.
All true! You did, however, just miss your toll. And another thing- why’d they take Sun Country Coolers off the market? Damn shame. Looking forward to topping our Bender of ’87, my friend!
Eric
January 30th, 2007