Me Howie, UAlbany

This special edition Schloss-Blog spent the weekend remembering, from back in his college days, that what happens in Albany, stays in Albany (to quote a good friend).

***

Great to spend time with my fraternity brothers of yore at our old stomping grounds, Albany, NY, where we all attended SUNY Albany.

Between swapping stories, remembering old times (some good, some not as good) and reintroducing ourselves to each other, we found time to take over Fort Orange Brewing Company and drink a night away. Then we took over the Elm Avenue Park's large pavilion and ate and drank an afternoon away, mixing in some friendly cornhole competition (there's no such thing as "friendly" competition in Gamma Delta Chi).

Showing off our magnificent, modern GPS skills, some of actually found the "Large Pavilion" on the first try, or, as Corky recalls, we kept on effing going. So did the stories.

Twenty-eight of us, and spouses, partied and reminisced about tales of zipping down the Thruway to Yonkers Raceway to place a sure bet on a horse that couldn't miss - until it did. Or recalling how, two years in a row, our dorm overlord and then the university housing director, respectively, decided to consider evicting a quartet of us for having - heavens to Betsy - a refrigerator in our suite (fraternities at the time were housed in designated sections of campus dorms because they had - ahem - "misbehaved" too often in the city of Albany and were subsequently "sentenced" back to campus for "oversight").

But a refrigerator, c'mon, how are you supposed to keep the beer cold?

So enamored were we with each other and our spouses that hardly anyone paid attention to the college football games on TV we had going in our hospitality suite - instead the banter flew, the drink flowed and the pizza got chomped on.

Would like to mention some names here but then I'd have to mention all of them and there's not enough room here for that. But there's plenty of room for all of them in my heart.

***

While the reunion rambled on, and we did leave the Hilton Garden Inn standing, the world kept spinning.

And spinning. Haitians are now "persona non grata" in MAGA America. Not only do Donald Trump and J.D. Vance lie over and over, they admit they do and they get cover from their fellow Republicans in Congress and all over.

Well, not from, of all people, Marjorie Taylor Greene, who called out Trump for being close to - yuck - Laura "Loomy" Loomer. All she does is contend that 9/11 was an "inside" job. Trump says, that's cool.

Kamala won the debate though. Now, if she can only win the election too.

***

Meanwhile, back the reunion, everybody headed home. To New Jersey. To Long Island. To Chicago. To Phoenix. To Tampa. To Dayton. To Colorado.

Plans were discussed to get together down the line, in small groups. In Arizona. In Florida. In some warm weather clime.

Hopefully, it'll happen.

Hopefully.

***

Good night, Mrs. Calabash. Here's to you, GDX wives.

More every Sunday night on my Radio Free Phoenix rock 'n' roll show.