Subject: The Party has been Won! (Part 2)

Date: 23 May 94

From: Uncle Terry, 73060,2661

Now, where was I? Let's see, midnight, no Heineken, Ma Rickey partying on, Colombians threatening, warm Blonderbrau...yep, must be time for the salad! Yes, our final course came around 12:30 (0:30 European), unless of course you're counting the coffee which was supposed to follow and which no one I've met ever saw. I had heard about these pagan festivals where people ate dinner for hours, but had never realized this is what they meant. But then we didn't come here for the food (except for one of our number who objected to eating Tex/Mex while in Paris, but I'm getting ahead of myself).

The Blonderbrau challenge was becoming more serious. Once young Tippie was able to smuggle in an entire case, but we didn't count on that being a consistent accomplishment, given some of Tippie's previous attempts at covert action. So as we made trips to the Pressmobile (which was actually a diesel powered Frog car), people tried various methods for disguising beer which they were sneaking into the hall. Mr. Carbo set what we believe to be the record, by stuffing eight bottles into various parts of his pants. Many young female players gave him "come hither" looks, until they observed him unloading his cargo, at which time they just asked for a beer.

1:00 (1:00 European) arrived, and still no Heineken. But much dancing. Your dedicated Vice President of Fun was found dancing to the Stones with a 17 year old for the first time since... well suffice it to say this 17 year old wasn't around then. Ma Rickey was teaching new steps to the Colombians, and they were teaching everyone else. Marianne was dancing in a way which I believe is unteachable. Sue was still dedicated to winning the party. Mike Grimm was no longer drinking Margaritas with cute little umbrellas (although many question whether he was ever drinking Margaritas, but what's in a name-- he had been drinking something and was no longer). And Evan was no longer in the picture.

At one point a plan was formed wherein we would sneak into the storeroom and liberate the Heineken while all the caterers were not to be found. When we discovered that the reason they couldn't be found was that they were having a meeting in the storeroom, the plan fell apart. Good thing we had the Blonderbrau. And the trips to the car were beginning to be refreshing.

The hours passed, and the Colombians still looked unstoppable. Much of our hope was placed in Ma Rickey (wooooo!), but when Ricky Rickey decided it was time to go home and tried to corral his mother (which took some time), we were nearly depressed. Then all of a sudden, like Don Johnson had walked into the room, all the Colombians disappeared. No one knew how or why (DEA interdiction?), but control of the party was up for grabs. Club Fred members know, however, that control is overrated-- too much responsibility. We realized we had the troops ready for the bitter end.

Seeing that victory was within our grasp, it was time for a brief ceremony. Amid clinking Blonderbraus, MoJo was sworn in as an Assistant Vice President of Fun. In case you're keeping track, her required miracle (it's sort of like sainthood, you know) were the incredible recovery of the beer tap in Champaign, when so many others had failed, thus enabling the party to continue, with confirmation provided by her part in the case-of-beer-for-the price-of-a-6-pack escapade. All Club Fred members will agree that the honor was long overdue.

A few more trips to the Blonderbrau stash (it was curious that the people who wouldn't let us bring in beer failed to notice the ever climbing pile of used Blonderbrau bottles) and more dancing, and before we knew it, the authorities told us they were closing the place. It was only 4:00 (4:00...oh, you know) and Sue objected mightily, stating that she full well expected the party to last until at least 5:00. But there was no arguing with the Froghosts. Actually, there was much arguing, but always to no avail. So it was time to hit the cars and head back to the Formule 1. Finally we were able to party in the hallway without fear of the Boss or His Wife threatening to kick us out, since we were leaving in the morning.

AVPF Dougie and several others maintained hallway duty almost till sunrise (if one could ever tell when the sun was up), but I eventually crashed, since I was going to have to get up at 8:00 because Party Dan had failed to reset the alarm the day before (well, he's a party coach, not a timekeeper). No problem-- I had to go into Rouen to see the Joanie memorial and buy some cigarette lighters, so I was eager to arise.

Sunday broke, and the hallway gang was no longer. I made a brief trip into Rouen (my first since my train arrival and commandeering of most of the cab drivers in town), dropping off some of the group who were going into Paris early. I got directions from Baldo, but managed to find the Joan of Arc Memorial (the ultimate goal of my trip) anyway. It was quite a stunning sight. A large pointy cross in the middle of a small plaza next to a church which looked like a boat turned upside down. The nautical theme continued in a more modern vein, as a small racing boat (sort of a floating quarter midget) was parked on display in the middle of the plaza. Seemed sort of odd, but who am I to question the French sense of decorative taste? Souvenirs were purchased, and I returned to the Formule 1 to rendezvous with the slowly awakening gang.

Several of us were going into Paris, and others were planning to head north to Holland. I, incredible politician that I am, was going to try to do both. The plan as outlined initially was that we would go to Paris, and after we had had enough French hospitality, Mr. Carbo & I would meet AVPF Markie V. in Amsterdam. We had been lobbying to convince Mr. V. to come to the South of France, but the joy of meeting various relatives of Wanta, and the promise of gaping at hookers in windows while partaking of illegal drugs which weren't illegal proved too strong a pull on the Markster. Not being totally opposed to the prospect of meeting Wanta's relatives, I agreed to meet them, with the details to be contained in a message to be left at the American Express office on Wednesday (one of Buddha Joe's ideas).

The Formule 1 Boss Lady was running through the rooms whining that we had put coffee stains on the carpet and were terrible guests. I don't know what the problem was-- I'm sure that as soon as we left the building the room doors would lock and the rooms would be thoroughly hosed down, just like the toilettes. So the Paris-bound folks started to gather in the parking lot. When we were almost ready to go, someone said that they had to run to the McDrive to grab a quick bite for the road. For some reason this seemed like an acceptable idea, but we were soon to regret this. After waiting what seemed to be an interminable time, but was probably only 20 minutes, someone else suggested that they go see if the first car had been kidnapped by Le Ronald McDonald, so off they went. Naturally this was the key event required to cause the first car to return in 3 minutes. Of course this event occurred a couple more times, until we decided to just all go to Mickey D's and meet there. I was envisioning this caravan making its way to Paris 3 blocks at a time, but luckily we encountered a communication error, and our car wound up careening down the freeway toward the Frog Capital.

An hour and a half later, we had found the hotel selected by Baldo in Gay Paree (we had to stay in that part of town- the straight part was too expensive). Yes, there we were in the heart of the Left Bank (planning to leave by Ruby Tuesday), just like Hemingway and Alice B. Toklas. The hotel was nice enough to rent us a room, and this one even had a bathroom just for us. But just to remind us of the good old Formule 1, the room itself had about a 40 foot hall to follow to get to the bathroom. The cars which had actually stopped to see Ronald eventually got into town, and people all found shelter within a block of each other.

We all met in the hotel lobby to go to dinner at a lovely little Italian restaurant Baldo's brother had picked out. The directions were clear-pointing to the map, he said "it's somewhere in this block, I don't know the name, but I'm sure you'll know when you get there." So this entourage of about 30 Americans was winding through streets about which we knew nothing on the 2 mile trip to an unknown restaurant. Somehow we did manage to find the place, which gave us just enough time to order before Mr. Carbo had to go to the Ritz to meet an old family friend who was supposed to join us. I joined Mr. C on this side trip, since his grasp of the Gallic language was somewhat suspect, and he thought I was somehow more knowledgeable (apparently his grasp of reality was suspect at this point also). We did manage to make it to the Ritz, which wouldn't let us into the bar because we were poorly dressed filthy Americain pigs. I suppose that's better than whining that we stay up too late after checking in, and besides, we were poorly dressed filthy Americain pigs, so we waited in the plaza outside next to the enormous phallic memorial. After waiting for a half hour, we decided that Mr. Carbo's old family friend was a lost cause, and headed back to dinner, barely making it before everyone else left. It seems we had finally found a place in Frogland that didn't make dinner last 4 hours!

We stragglers were finally about to leave the restaurant when we noticed a back pack hanging on the wall. After much confused discussion with the management, we determined it must be one of ours, so we took it with us. A half hour later, when Mike Grimm had returned to the restaurant after discovering that he had left his backpack, there was more confusion. But his trip was not wasted, for the waiter gave him the car keys which I had apparently dropped in the restaurant. Things were going well.

In the evening, some people looked at Cathedrals, some took boats on the Seine, and some cruised the streets stopping at every establishing which could potentially serve alcoholic beverages. Eventually most of us wound up back at L'Hotel, where we settled down to work on the Blonderbrau and relive stories from the past two weeks. Joining us were John McBride and Margaret Francis from Canada. Margaret made it clear to us that she had not come on the trip as John's date (something WE never accused her of, since she IS female), and regaled us with stories about the referee's nights out and chicken head jokes. Eventually the night clerk, who seemed to like us very much, since we offered him the opportunity to show off his knowledge of English, knocked on our door and politely asked us to quiet down a bit. We were confused, since he didn't stomp and threaten to throw us out, so we tried to comply in our own little way. We closed both sets of doors to the hallway and opened our windows, knowing that this was the best way to muffle the noise we were making. Apparently we hadn't calculated the echo effect of the walls across the street (which was about 20 feet wide), but that's a story for the next day.

Many tales were told, and much Blonderbrau drunk until, a bit before sunrise, someone said there were only two more Blonderbraus left. This excited us greatly, and we set out to finish them off quickly (by 5:00 in the morning, warm Blonderbraus do get a bit old). We had often threatened to sing "99 Bottles of Beer" at the pool, but I had never envisioned actually taking one down and passing it around. Unfortunately, these "last 2 Blonderblaus" seemed to have multiplied, and we had to work through more than anticipated. But in the end, all were gone, and we all were ready to collapse for our nightly nap. Everyone took turns sleeping on the floor (being truly team-oriented players), and we woke up refreshed.

<to be continued>

In part 3-

All the sights of Paris in 90 minutes or less

People go their separate ways

Fun with American Express offices

To the South!