Go Random. Go To The Un Mom. Right Now. Well, Read This First. Then click this. She's hawt.

Eight years ago, I lost my best friend.  I’m dedicating today’s Random Tuesday Thoughts to Joey, because he did more random and spontaneous things than anyone I’ve ever met.

Joe took me to my first concert.  It was Genesis (with Phil Collins).  It was when the Jack Daniels alcoholic beverages were around, and I had myself a Texas Tea.  I’m pretty sure the concert was great – I don’t remember.

Joe shows up at my door with a 18 pack of beers and a golf club and tells me, “Let’s go!” and I went.  The next thing I know, we’re sneaking out onto a golf course playing golf in the  middle of the night.  We ended up doing that a lot. For years.

Joe was my best friend.  We were only friends, nothing more.  He was my brother.  He and my sister were together for quite some time and he was family, I want to make that clear.

I worked at a department store in the mall.  In walks Joe, asking if I’d like to go to the beach.  Thinking I didn’t like the job much anyway, I shoved a bikini down my pants and took off for the beach (YES, I ripped the store off but I was 18 and I never got my paycheck so it’s like I bought it).

We got in the car.  He started driving.  About two hours in I asked which beach we were going to.  He said Virginia Beach.  We lived in Syracuse, NY.

When I saw the sign for VA Beach, I noticed Joe wasn’t slowing down.  Again, I asked which beach we were going to.   Myrtle.

We drove to Myrtle Beach.  We stopped at about 6 hotels until we found the Silver Sands Motel for $36 a night that had a bed and a fold out couch.  It also had a kitchenette.

That exact same room we stayed in was used for an episode for the X-Files.

We spent three days in Myrtle but the most significant night involved us taking beach chairs in the middle of the night and putting them as close to the ocean as we could.  As soon as the tide rose enough to touch out butts, we backed the chairs up.  We continued to do that until the tide came all the way to shore.

We saw a mass of birds on the beach at dawn.  We took off running and ran right through them.  There were birds flying everywhere around us.

I became convinced that all clouds were made from the ocean and traveled to wherever they pleased.  I may had a mushroom sandwich that day, with the bread toasted.

On our way home I noticed we’re in Washington, DC.  I know I told this whole story so I’m glossing over it but this trip to the beach was taken both figuratively and literally *wink* and lasted a total of seven days.  It was totally random, henceforth suiting today’s Random Tuesday Thoughts, even though it’s more a story than random shit I usually toss out.

Joe managed to get us lost in DC, because the tour bus left without us when he decided we could walk the seven hours it took in our Birkenstock sandals back to our car.  He managed to stop at every national monument along the way.  I haven’t been there since and don’t think I’d want to.  Nothing could measure up to the tip we took there.

New York City – A day later. We didn’t sleep in DC, we drove right to NYC. I had NO IDEA where we were going.  We walked to Central Park and took a nap and then ate another mushroom sandwich, toasted.  We sat in one spot for hours watching a Hindu (I assumed – he had a turban on) teach a middle aged white mom (she was wearing mom jeans) how to fly a kite.

I had to pee and stopped at the most beautiful McDonalds I’ve ever seen.  There was a grand piano on the second floor playing music and their bathroom was the first time I ever used one of those super high power quick hand dryers.  Since that damn sandwich was so good, I spent about two hours playing with it.

Joe sat in the lobby listening to the music as he sat next to him on the bench and got to know the pianist.

On any given day, Joe would show up at wherever I was living at the time.  We’d drive to Lakeland, the suburb of Syracuse where we grew up and we’d walk across the catwalk (the bride that takes you over the highway to Onondaga Lake where there are trails you could walk).  He carried a cooler and we sang.  We walked and we sang in the middle of the night.  Sometimes, my brother Chris would come along and all three of us would sing.

I remember two particular songs that made an impact on me during one of those walks.  I was with Chris and Joe and I sang “Mercedes Benz” by Janis Joplin and they LOVED it.  The other song was by YES – “All Good People”.  As we sang that together, Joe pointed out that if you listen very closely during the end of the song where all the voices overlap you’ll hear “All we are saying, is give peace a chance”.  I never noticed it before that moment and I now hear it ever time it’s on.

I was out of town once when I lived with Joe and my ex, Casey.  Casey and I went to the Poconos and it just so happened some crazy massive hurricane like storm destroyed Syracuse.  We came home to a mess – trees, signs and bits of houses everywhere.  Inside our second floor apartment sat a huge branch, leaves and all. The place was trashed. This is what Joe told me -

So yeah.  I was outside with Chad and it was a really nice day and we saw a storm coming so we decided to sit out on the porch.  It was a beautiful storm – crazy – and in all the excitement I forgot to close all the windows so a tree came in.  I’m also still trying to find your cat.

Yes. My cat.  Joe left the porch door open because my kitties wouldn’t jump overboard.  I don’t know the sequence of events since I wasn’t there but basically what happened is that Mr. Tigger was on the porch, was blown up into the air, over the house and landed behind it on the lawn.  We found him totally uninjured that day.  I’m assuming he landed on his feet and was shocked all four legs didn’t break.

Time goes on, random things like I just wrote happened.  One day, Joey said “Hey, I’m moving to Charlotte!”.  I was extremely disappointed but it’s Joe, so I didn’t fight him on it.  I asked when he was planning to leave and his reply?  “In two hours.”

He called weekly and I flew down monthly (I worked as an airline ticket counter agent so I flew free) and he took me all over Charlotte.

Joe moved here years before I did and a few months after I moved here eight years ago, our Joey was lost in a drowning accident.  That man could swim across the ocean and no one knows the story of what happened except Joe, but we lost him.

And we miss him.

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