Yesterday’s untimely death of Michael Jackson started me thinking of some of the fun and unique things that took place in my life because of him.

In the early 80’s I was doing engineering for a company in Portland, Oregon called Pacific Substations when the “Thriller” album came out of course the somewhat new music video company started playing the shit out of the album and related video’s. Michaels incredible dancing on those video’s set the whole world on fire. However it was the moon walking that got most people stirred up the most, including myself. I started practicing all the time and then one day after watching a couple of little neighbor kids across the street doing it with incredible ease, I learned how.

When the following Monday rolled around I went to work, and as I saw a couple of our shop employees heading towards my office I turned my back to the door cranked the music up and started moon walking and then when I turned around I acted as if they weren’t suppose to see that. I feigned embarrassment and of course they both started laughing, from that day forward my nickname became the “Disco Draftsman” I was actually quite proud of the name as they went back over to the shop and told a bunch of the other employees that I was moon walking when they came into my office, so of course other people wanted me too show them how also. After that moment I danced at work all the time and of course the guy’s thought it was funny as hell.

Thriller was the only album I ever bought of his and of course years later after all the weird crap started coming out about him I was more then a little embarrassed  but as time has gone on I remember with fondness some of the really fun times I had with his music.

Somewhere deep in side of me I was his ....London.... comeback tours would be a success so that he could try and get some kind of normality in his life and the lives of his kids.

As usual I was awake early, grab my laptop bag and set it up on the table in the room, I couldn’t find the wireless signal from our hotel and then proceeded to steal a signal from someone’s home, it was somewhat slow but at 5 in the morning it’s little more then an inconvenience. I check a few things out and decide what the hell. When Katie woke up we talk about what we should do with our day, showered and dressed, we head over to pay for another night and get some breakfast at the hotel restaurant, again another not bad meal, we both agree that the food may be the best thing the casino has going for it. The wait staff was pretty good but when we go to pay for another night, the woman at the counter wants to know if we need our room taken care of? Hello we slept here last night used the towels etc. I can’t remember anyone even asking such a bullshit question before.

We go outside and decide we’ll check the town out some more before we go or do anything else. The town is noted as having one of the few round courthouses in the country, so we went there first and yes it was very cool. Because the town is called Lovelock they have an area at a little park by the courthouse where you can proclaim your undying love for each other by purchasing a lock and having it engraved with your names the date etc. but it was closed and I hate to say it but it seemed rather childish to me, so of course we didn’t plus the only person that needs to know how much I love Katie, is herself. After almost 3 years together there are still frequent times when she makes me feel weak in the knees and I get that odd queasy feeling in the pit of my stomach.

We drive out of the north side of town looking the area over, finding back roads we just kind of meander around, and Katie says maybe we should go up to Rye Patch Park and see if we can find Debra that I work with. So after trying to figure out where exactly in the middle of nowhere we are we find our way back to the road that takes us there. It’s a state park where they built a dam with a long narrow lake behind it and a few camp sites and below it more campsites along the river. On the internet it said there were about 72 miles of roads around the lake so we thought will look for her friend and then take an extended tour around the lake. You immediately have to pay 4.50 to get in for the day, and then about 2 miles down the road it ends, and of course we didn’t see her friend either. The high light of this park maybe the fact that along the road, in and out we saw lots of lizards. We had picked out from brochures other point of interest we intended to go so we took of down the freeway in that derection…

We left Friday night after she got off work with no particular destination in mind, we took the land rover as you never know when you might need 4 wheel drive. We headed east out of town on I-80, one of her work friends had mentioned that her and some friends would be camping out at a state park called Rye Patch where they made a man made Lake Etc. So we thought we might check that out on Saturday. We drove about 65-70 miles and spent the night at a Casino – hotel in a small town called Lovelock. There didn’t seem to be an over abundance of hotels, but what can you expect in a town of about 3,000 people. Usually when we go out of town we like to stay in very well outfitted rooms, I’m pretty sure there was no such thing here, the room was at least clean but certainly out dated. We did get lucky in the fact that it had a king sized bed, but that was it for amenities, it had been some time since we’d stayed in a room with a 19” TV and later as we were laying in bed we both found it odd that the TV was not even close to being centered close to the center of the bed as it was at least a good sized room. There was a small round table with 2 chairs a long low 4 drawer dresser with a mirror attached to the wall above it, and another low table next to it that you could put your bags on. No mini fridge, no micro, but hey it had an iron and ironing board, haha.

At one point I did ask Katie if she thought anyone ever actually put their clothes in the dressers. She replied no, but if she needed to iron at least she could. After getting settled in we wandered over to the casino/ restaurant we sat down at the bar where it took about 5 minutes for anyone to take our order. There were we thought 2 bartenders, one getting drinks for people and one standing at the extreme end of the bar whom we later nicknamed ‘FAT BASTARD” as he was a fat bastard and all we ever saw him do while we were drinking was talk to some one down at that far end of the bar, oh yes I should point out that he was a very creepy looking fat bastard too. After our first drink Katie asked the bartender what his name was. He told us it was Gilbert, she then told him he should smile more, to which I said maybe he doesn’t because he had too work with some one like fat bastard. He said that didn’t bother him because that was his boss. Gilbert did smile at that however. After our second drink of which by the way they were very good, we headed to the restaurant which again looked very out dated, at which time I thought to myself another typical American business, takes all the profit but never puts any of it back in the business. Maybe there should have been a neon sign mounted outside that said come spend you money here but don’t expect anything special!

Before I forget I titled this “Memorial Day Relief” as some of you know my father has been living with us since last November and he is the ultimate rude obnoxious lazy old bastard! So we really needed to get away.

So you know that you’re in a small town when the sign as you enter say’s seat yourself, it’s been awhile since I’ve seen that. We select a booth by the window as the waitress comes over with menus, the prices for a small town weren’t what I had expected, but for the most part the food was good and there was plenty of it. Our waitress’s name was Amber, so Katie and I Quizzed her about the “FAT BASTARD” to which she replied was he black or white? I said you mean there’s more then one fat bastard? Yes she said and we never know in here which one is working and when. We paid for our meal and went back to the room we took our laptops with us but didn’t even turn then on until the next morning….. more in just a while.

Funny, I remember being a young man and of course we had no cell phones no texting, now I hear that as a society our morals are going down the shitter as teens are “SEXTING” each other! How shocking and …why almost outrageous! Not!!! HELLO!!! I am from the free love generation and at the time we were accused of many things some of which were contributing too the moral decaying of or great country. We obviously weren’t going to contribute to anything good in the world. Damn those “Beatles” for their long hair and drug’s and sex and rock and roll! They helped this decline of society’s moral values along by just being here!  

Now all you hear on television and radio are how teens sending explicit text messages are once again undermining the morals of our society. Give me a fucking break! Now granted when I was younger it wasn’t uncommon for me to walk up to a beautiful young girl and ask if she’d like too go fuck. Yes back then we did it face to face, but that’s mainly because we didn’t have such devices. Many, many times I would be out dancing or at a bar and as natural as the act its self ask a girl if she’d like to go fuck. I wasn’t asking for a life long commitment but just plain old hot sweaty lusty sex. Only once do I remember getting my face slapped, but more often then not I would take the sweet young thing home and do the deed numerous times in the course of the night. Sometimes, after they might ask for a phone number most of the time, not as we both knew what had happened was just hot freaky lovemaking, no harm no foul.

I don’t need some overly zealous religious nut ball telling me or any one else what they deem too be a recent decline in morals! Whose morals are they anyway? Now admittedly I always considered myself a “manwhore” the word my daughter once called me when she was in the tenth or eleventh grade but please this kind of behavior has been going on for many years. Katie tells me that the real stink began when some high school girl sent a naked picture of herself to a guy whom she thought was her boyfriend and then he sent it too the whole school, now the girl is evidently being home schooled  because she has been traumatized by the whole affair. Was it her that was traumatized, or her morally incorrect mother’s embarrassment? I know who I’m betting on.

When I was younger or maybe I should say back in the day I always took pictures of the girls I slept with. Sometimes it was so I’d know who I’d slept with and other times it was because I was validating yet another conquest, it just all depended, but not one girl ever objected. Years later when I was getting married my now ex-wife took it upon herself to throw the box of pictures out. At the time there were about 1200 to 1500 pictures in the box, but I didn’t show them to anyone, I was just validating my overly healthy sexual appetite. Oh wait it may have just been because all of society was morally decadent. We just didn’t realize it at the time.