Leg Four

Arrived in Columbus, Ohio, 7 P.M.
Jeep Odometer: 191, 870
Trip: 862

Homecoming 2010. I haven’t been on the old stomping grounds of the Ohio State campus for a little over a year. Things have changed, like always, and not just the ever-revolving faces of students, but some of the buildings, like the Ohio Union, and the ever-present reality that I’m becoming the “old man on campus” more and more with each return trip. Nevertheless I tried running with the young bulls one more time.

First, I met some random Indian kid from Craigslist who sold me a pair of tickets for the game at $120. This is a decision I would lament the following day, but I’ll get to that. After leaving Long’s Bookstore, I went to north campus to meet up with my old co-worker from the Cape, who is a senior in the Music school. Some things never change, like four 21-year-old guys sitting around a bedroom in an old, should be condemned, campus house, playing video games and smoking pot. I can’t say that scene didn’t ring a bell, even if I further displayed my “old man” status by not partaking. I also further cemented my “old man” status in my own brain by getting bored with such an environment within twenty minutes. But could I do, these kids were letting me crash on their futon for the night.

The rest of Friday night was rather uneventful. I went with the boys to a pool hall, drank a couple of beers and missed two dozen easy shots, walked to Little Bar—the old home base—met up with an old college friend, was ditched by him twenty minutes later, and randomly ran into another old college friend. We rehashed old memories, as we always do, and ultimately decided to call it a night by 1 A.M. That’s sad in itself—going to bed at 1 A.M. the night before a game because you’re old and tired.

Saturday followed much of the same uneventful blah-blah-blah. It was great to meet up with my brothers-in-law Brian and Gregg, to tailgate, crack jokes, and disregard the fact that we were, in fact, three old men. But the game was a bore. OSU beat Purdue 49-0, and we actually left at the end of the third quarter. I can’t remember the last time I left the Shoe, blowout or not, before singing Chimes and Carmen Ohio. Further cements how things have changed, I guess.

I then spent the rest of the day with a dear old college buddy and his fiancée, drinking $4 cans of Budweiser, and watching a cover-band who hasn’t progressed in their musical or performance ability since I left that town three years ago. By the time we went to El Vaquaro for dinner I was fading fast. I hardly remember the cab ride back to my buddy’s house, not because I was so drunk, but rather, I was so tired. If I were in Pamplona that weekend, the bulls would’ve run me over by the third turn in the road. Sad, but true.

It’s funny how a place like Clear Creek stays locked in time, but a place like my old college town escaped me like a dream that once was but can never be again.