3 Krauts and The Token
And we’re off!
Chad’s been called up to the Chicago Hard Rock Café to train their new employees. When he’s not slinging cheeseburgers to hungry, wide-eyed, serial “Hard Rock” goers – he trains and helps management out with scheduling and stuff.
Instead of opting for flying – we offered to drive him up there so it was up and out early, first to pick up co-worker Geoffrey Jones and then begin the five hour schlep up highway 55 to the Windy City.
A note about Geoffrey. We’ve met briefly but hadn’t had the pleasure to get to know him – at least not that “Get to Know” way when you’re stuffed in a VW for hours on end driving through a boring state like Illinois.
Admittedly I was nervous when we picked him up. G lives in the depressed, predominantly black “north side” of St. Louis…. and sure.. o.k.. fine! I had a knee-jerk-white-bred-cracker reaction when we entered the neighborhood – … but I got over it. I knew we were in for a fun ride when we got back on the highway and he reached up from the back seat and put his arm around my neck in a fake threatening manner and squealed “Let’s put on a show for the other drivers, Act like you’re fearing for your life!”
It went wonderfully downhill from there and by the end of the trip we were carrying on like old friends.
Once in Chi-town – we were off to the Hard Rock for the boys to received their “orders”, then off to the hotel to check in and then back in the car to meet up with Julie (of previous non-blogged fame).
We met up with Julie’s posse at the downtown German Festival, complete with beer tent, omm-paah-paah bands and more drunk guys wearing liederhosen than you could shake a stick at. We drank… We ate… We questioned Geoffrey’s Afro-Pride at being at such a WASPY event.
The evening ended all too soon – and we were back to the hotel.
Considering how well we got along, G didn’t mind the prospect of three fat hairy guys spooning in the queen size next to his, so we camped there overnight.
I damned myself for not having the PowerBook completely loaded up with my work, otherwise we surely would have stayed.