The non-stop snack bar stopped. I had no business being there at that point, anyway, but Pavel (the guy on the next stool) and Hanka (the bartender) turned out to be very friendly folk. I was there much longer than I had planned to be. At one point, near the end, Hanka took the keys and locked the front door. “She is closing,” Pavel explained to me, “but she says it is all right if we stay.”
It had started when Pavel asked me what I did for a living. “I’m a writer,” I said. something something Spisovatel something he said to Hanka. something something piš something she said back to him. “She is worried you will write about this place,” he translated.
“I already have,” I said.
Things just got rolling from there. I paid for Pavel’s next beer. I was at my limit by that time, but then Pavel bought me a beer. Now it’s tomorrow afternoon.
Hi Jer,
Dec 2nd could be NaNo WriMo NoMo Day.
Excellent suggestion!
As your once and pervious MOH, I cannot sit idly by and do nothing while this community and its leader slowly go mute by indifference.
Therefore, I propose a new game, one that I hope can match the participation of the last game (What was your worst job) that got, what?, 3 responses?
Where are they now? featuring women from Jerry’s past. The game works like this: A name is thrown out from Jerry’s past. Those of us with personal remembrances of this person share them; those without just make something up. Then we use the power of this internet thing to go out and find them and drag them back into this community. The winner is the one who can get the person to post a comment on the blog saying “so-and-so told me about Jerry’s blog so I came by to check it out.” Jerry is of course the judge and final arbitrator for winner and authenticity of post.
Clearly, the point of this game is to build relationships remembering shared experiences, and expand the community with like minded Jerry groupies who have drifted away over the years.
Okay, ready to play? I’ll start, since I made it up. Let the hikinks ensue.
First up are those two young lasses from England, Sharon and Jane, who came and visited Jerry at Emma for a week in the summer of 1988. Don’t recall their last names, and it probably doesn’t even matter, since they were engaged to be married when they came to visit. Bob and John, you were there: what do you remember about them? And just how good of friends with Jerry were they? Where did they sleep at Emma? How were they shown a good time?
Well, there was that picture of Jane, passed out on the sofa, where we’d perched empty beer cans all about (and on) her…
We took the two of them down to Mexico, fed them lobster and Negro Modelo, and showed them the joy of riding at highway speeds in the back of a rusty old pickup truck.
An excellent game!
Sharon Warner I was quite good friends with; I had gone to school with her in Wallingford – a school which no longer exists.
Jane I did not know as well, Jesse and I first met her when we stayed at their flat in London. She and Jesse hit it off particularly well. If anyone is going to have a lead on them, I suspect it is he.
Good show, MOH, old chap! A bit of the ol “where’s that english lassie now,” and “whatever ‘appened to the soggy rabbit,” and all that. Hip hip, what now.
/cough*cough
Jeez what a dork. Sorry about that.
Errrr, Sharon Warner married Phil Burton? (I think), and I last got a letter from her in the early nineties: pre-internet. So anyone doing web searches might try searching on Burton.
I lost contact with Jane well before that, although Sharon would probably still be in contact with her. I think Jane was pretty religious and got married to a similarily religious bloke and they went off to China for missionary work (operative words are I think). Probably back by now, and I don’t know her last name.
It’s a great idea, Keith, and here’s some more fodder for the game: I recently picked up a crusty old LP of a Night wasted with Tom Lerher (sp?) at a flea market, and it brings back fond memories of listening to the album over at Sandy(?) Berry’s house. Anybody know Sandy’s whereabouts?
Excellent posts!
I know that Jane did indeed go back to merry old England and marry. Not so sure about Sharon. She left San Diego with that dreamy “I’ve seen heaven and it’s Southern California and I’ve got to get back” complex and I think it caused a bit a friction with Phil. Or maybe he just didn’t care for her stories of pick ups, pickups, beer cans, and four single guys at the EmmaDome. We’ll never know unless some intrepid soul tracks her down.
Next up, the Taco Time girls…
If someone can find and post the aforementioned picture of Jane asleep with the beer cans (that was Jane? we did that to so many girls at Emma..), I’ll see if I can find and post the picture of me removing the broken screen door…
I’m fairly sure I was told that as of three years ago, Sandy Beery was a school principal in Albuquerque.
Alas, with memory games, one often finds they are not playing with a full deck. I think “Sandy Berry” is wrong, she of a crowd I never was involved with. Perhaps “Frances Berry?” Anyway, who was the girl that lived way down Arizona from Bob, closer to Club Rd.; her mom taught piano, and Glen brielfy dated her. What this has to do with Keith’s “Girls from Jerry’s past Gone Wild” (TM), I dunno.
There you are, Jesse. I was wondering where you had gone to.
Since you brought up the subject of those nights at my house with Tom Lehrer and without my parents, I have a little surprise for you:
You have a 13 year old daughter, who I named Jessie, our love-child.
Warning: if you hit preview and then publish, it repopulates the Email and URL fields. Drat.
What ever happened to Mari?
Keith (er Sandy)
To be historically accurate, the age of the love child would be around 23 not 13.
Phillee,
Mhari has been married for a good long while now, and is living in NYC with her husband. They’re both professional actors and have appeared in quite a few Shakespeare festivals around the country, frequently costarring.
Janice and I have seen them locally, playing the Katherine and Petruchio in “The Taming of the Shrew,” Titania and Puck in “Midsummer Night’s Dream,” and Lady Macbeth and MacDuff in… well, guess.
In every elevator in NC, there is a little placard stating the elevator is inspected and safe to use, and signed by the secretary of the department of labor – Cherie Berry. To heck with the suicide squirrels, I’m getting scared of all the berries in the world.
You know, I’ve never been more impressed with things I write than this. Sheer poetry. Plato weeps. I think Jer needs to vacation more often. We bloggcommers can fill in nicely.
p.s. strangely, the name of that love child was Cherie. I wonder…..
Speaking of vacations, What holiday plans do you guys have? I’d like to arrange my travels to coincide with yours. And I mean all of you!
Cherie Berry?
Love child of Jerry Beary?
Letter in mailbox,
Vacation plans forgotten,
Jury duty calls.
Jerry
Are you coming back to the United States? I’ll be in Santa Barbara for Christmas and then back in Alaska after New Years. When you do get back to the US, you’ll have to restart your road trip and get all the way up to visit me.
Well, originally, WCMIK and I were going to be spending Thanksgiving at Five O’Clock Somewhere, while Pat went to south Texas to visit his dad and also look at a boat he’s been drooling over.
But Pat got a letter from District Court, advising him that he’s been called for jury duty. He’s supposed to report on Nov. 18, and he’s supposed to make sure the subsequent three weeks are free.
So now he has to do things like find out what his employer’s policy is about jury duty, and he has to cancel or reschedule his airline tickets (they’re officially non-refundable, but maybe jury duty is something the airline will see as a mitigating circumstance) to see that boat.
The upshot is that all three of us are likely to be at Five O’Clock Somewhere for Thanksgiving. You’re certainly welcome to show up — along with anyone else who’s looking for a Thanksgiving feed.
You’re always welcome here. Don’t know any vac plans yet, but pretty sure we ain’t going nowhere. (gosh I hope i didn’t split a infinitive in there somewheres).
Of course, you’re always most extremely invited to visit when we go into labor and can ignore you and make you hand out halloween candy. My brother in-law discovered some neighbor has unprotected wireless, so you don’t even get to escape under that pretense.
Hey, Jerry Beary and MR&HBIers,
I’m serving up Wild Turkey 101 (aka the Dirty Bird) for the feastin’ day. You are welcome here anytime.
Bill – I certainly would like to get up that way, but overall I think I’d prefer the summer – although I always have wanted to see the norther lights. Thanksgiving will he here in Prague, but I was thinking of a Los Alamos Christmas.
I’mmmmmm
Dreaminnnnnnnn
of an L.A. atomic Christmassss
Just like the ones I used to knowwwww
Where the U235 fissions
and lab dwellers listennnn
forrrr
the civil defense sirens begin to blowwwwww
ba bababababah, I’mmmmmmmm
Dreaminnnnnn
of an atomic Christmassssss
with every particle I collidddddde
May your rad badge be neutral and non-toxic
and mayyyy your L.A. Christmas
be atomic
I did get a lead on an English Sharon Warner. Although the email address was 5 years old, the associated post certainly sounded as sarcastic as I remembered her, so I had great hopes when I had this blog’s URL forwared to her. That was Monday. Now it is Thursday (possibly later in England). I fear that the email address is no longer being monitored, but I still hope, going to site meter and examining all IPs from the United Kingdom.
Moving on to the Taco Time girls, so named because the three of them lived in an apartment above Taco Time at La Jolla Village Square, just southeast of UCSD. Annette, Karen and Nancy. (Last names anyone?) I borrowed Nancy’s red pumps to wear with my Barbie costume for Halloween 87. Annette graduated UCSD and went on to Washington University in St. Louis. Karen got some apprenticeship in Washington DC as I recall, as her career goal was possibly lawyer. Nancy may have hung around San Diego for awhile.
Let’s find these women from Jerry’s past and assimilate them here at the blog.
Annette was Annette Lewis. She was the Los Alamos connection. But I don’t remember what year she graduated high school. I was impressed by their apartment. It seems so stereotypically Californian to be living in a shopping mall.
I’m pretty sure Annette Lewis graduated in ’82, although it might have been ’83. I know for sure her sister Beata graduated with me in ’80.
There was a feature article on Annette in the Albuquerque Journal some months back — it might have been February, since the main point was to profile a successful African American woman. While I’m NaNoing, I don’t have time to hunt that kind of thing down, but maybe some other abqjournal.com subscriber can look it up.
Karen’s last name was Bergen (or Bergan?).
Nancy’s last name (not Collins, although Keith may be planning for her in a future episode) escapes my memory.
Taco Time Nancy’s last name was Bagwell.
Jesse, never responded to your question up therre – Yes, it was Francie Berry. I actually spent quite a bit more time around her than around Sandy Beery, mainly because she was friends with Mhari and Kim Koenig.
Anybody know what happened to Kim?
I think I’ve got Annette pegged in the Bay Area as late as 2002, but then the trail goes cold. Again I have cast an email out to an old email address, and again we can only wait here on this thread to see if there is reply.
Jerry
I like your Alaska haiku. I’m not insane, but I am very cold. Over the last several weeks the high temperature has been 28F. Lows have frequently been around the 5-10F range. I do now have a block heater for my car. There is a big effort by the city to have people plug in their cars when it gets below 20F. But when it gets that cold, it still takes a while for the heater to start heating the car. Once it does get warm, you don’t want to leave. So drive up windows are very popular.
Major break through! Watch this thread closely…..
So you are looking for the old Taco Time gang. Well, Keith found me (what a sleuth). Indeed, I am in the Bay Area… since 1995. Karen Bergan is living in NYC with Peter and their son (19months). Nancy Bagwell is in the Seattle area with her daughter (~2 yrs).
Now you know.
Where are all of you?…
cheers,
Annette
Wow, being a successful WWFJP-finder is even more satisfying (and rare) than pervious MOH. What was the prize again, besides the admiration and respect of my fellow MRHBIers?
I’m still San Diego. Never left.
Yo Annette,
Still in the Bay Area — bought a house in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
Hey! Annette! Great to hear from you! I’m in Prague, but you may have figured that out by now.
Good lord, the things you stumble across on the internet in the middle of the afternoon. Haven’t seen you folks in 20 years.
Scot, you’ll be extra-depressed to know that it’s been even longer than that. Good to hear from you!
OK, 24 years. But I have a difficult time keeping the days of the week straight. The years I let slide.
With very little effort I find myself mentioned twice in the vacinity of this url: once in cahoots with Jer on Hwy 60, and once in the company of Francie Berry.
Is this the extent of my legacy?
Sigh.
I did vote for the pole about marshmallow beverage concocts.
Glen at 42
Glen! Holy Crap! Wow!
So… *ahem*… how’s it going? Any word on ball bearing bounce height and temperature?
Glen! Hey bro’ ! How are you?
Good to hear from you.
Legacy schmegacy. Legacies are for strangers. Embarassing stories are for friends!
Hey! yourselves! and to the several other names I recognize.
I shall spare you a long and winded update, but briefly and catagorically:
Health: Excellent
Job: Excellent, Corning, Inc., R&D, mostly top secret, but you can thank me for your more affordable LCD TVs; just promoted to Research Associate (kinda like tenured). $$$
Family: Excellent. Brendon Ellery, 13, plays D&D, quotes Tolkein, builds solar-powered robots, hide bra adds next to his bed. Devin, 9, writes poetry, does Gilliam-esqe stop-action animation, searches for the perfect snuggle. Cindy, 42, retooled as an RN, and loving it.
Pets: Merlyn, 7, Cardigan Welsh Corgi (the big, working dog kind, not QE2’s rats), herds soccer balls and cats. Bookie, 8, black cat, perfected projectile hairball. Arthur, 1, black cat, hunts laser pointer spots.
Home: 210 year old, 4500 sq.ft. historic pioneer home in small town on an acre of bewonderment and rich topsoil.
Travel: J’aime Paris! As Ben Franklin said “It is every civilized man’s second home.”
Drinking: Less beer of late, but perfecting recipes for thujone-laced distillates ala absinthe, but sans the licorice-ey flavorings.
Sounds like things are going well for you. Say hey to Cindy for me.
As for me… well, that’s pretty much a matter of public record, now. One thing about having a blog is it doesn’t leave you many stories to tell when you’re hanging out with your friends. But to summarize:
Health: adequate.
Job: writer, just promoted to professionally published writer.
Family: same ones you met twenty years ago.
Pets: none.
Home: sunny converted attic in a quiet part of Prague.
Travel: (see “Home”)
Drinking: Beer, but while the local beer is fresh and tasty (and cheap), I miss the variety available in the US. Czech absinthe, I am told, was recently declawed to meet EU standards. Every once in a while I’ll treat myself to a nice single-malt Scotch.
Drop me a line next time you’re in the city of light, and you’re always welcome to swing east as well.
Wow. Good stuff. Congrats on the promotion and the fine family. Tolkien versus Harry Potter? Good show on that.
So where are you?