all for the love of a girl
OK, here's the scoop:
I was 21 years old and finally freed from my legal obligations to the state of Washington for my 1988 royal screwup, and returned to Oklahoma to get on with my life. After some time there, I began looking up some of my old high school friends. I very easily located a girl who had been a close friend in high school, and was pleased to discover she was only six hours away in Lawrence, Kansas, attending KU at the time. Now, I had always had a tremendous crush on this young lady, and was more than eager to respond when she invited me up to Lawrence to a popular college hangout to watch the Jayhawks in the Final Four. The only downside was, I had to be at the pizza restaurant at 9:30 the following morning, as I was the opening cook.
Saturday morning I was on my road to Lawrence, eagerly anticipating the chance to catch up with an old friend. I made it into Lawrence, we watched the game at the bar, and then we hung around talking until 10 pm, when I decided I needed to go. The original game plan called for me to return to my apartment and catch a couple z's before going to work, but the original game plan didn't take road fatigue into account. I needed to stop regularly for coffee and vivarin refills, and to catch a short nap at the truck stops. I turned a 6 hour trip into an 11 1/2 hour trip, and rolled into work just in time to start the day.
Nothing serious came of the relationship, but we remain good friends. I basically went through the day sleepwalking, but I don't regret this great road trip for a minute.
signing off,
Gideon MacLeish