"Greeeeg!" by Troy H. Cheek on Jan 10, 2005

Since I'm not doing very well with the one-handed typing gig, here's a rerun of one of my classics.

I got an email from an old college friend of mine. Greg. Good ol' Greg. Or, as I shout out every time I've seen him since college, "Greeeeg!"

Greg, it seems, had looked me up on the Internet, found my email address, and wrote to let me know he was coming up on vacation time. He'd decided to spend most of his vacation driving around the state visiting old friends. I'm his oldest friend. I'm going to assume that he means he's known me the longest, and not that he's making some snide comment about my age. I'm only a few years older than he is. Well, five. Okay, six, max.

Greg gave me a range of dates that he'd be travelling, and I told him which ones fell on days when I didn't have to work. I offered to take a day or two off so I wouldn't miss him, but he said that wasn't necessary. Darn. Was hoping to have an excuse to use some of that leave time I had saved up.

I knew Greg back before he became famous, or at least before he had his picture in the paper, which has to count for something. But let's start from the beginning...

I had many roommates in college. I was there for a long time, and I went through them quickly. The first couple were seniors about to graduate, so naturally they left after a year or two. The next couple were incoming freshmen who decided they didn't like college life. One didn't even bother to move in, so I don't really count him. Roommate number four was Greg. I figured he'd last about a month and that it wouldn't pay to get too attached to him.

Entering college, Greg was a tall, skinny, bug-eyed kid with thick glasses and too many teeth. He weighed maybe 107 pounds soaking wet, or 104 without his glasses. He had an interest in geology and journalism. I never cared much for journalist. I lost a girlfriend once to one. But then, I've lost a girlfriend to just about one of everything, so there's no use carrying a grudge.

Once I got to know him, I found out that Greg was pretty cool, and found that we even had a few things in common. He had worked at a store in Dollywood for a while; I told him stories about how it used to be Silver Dollar City and, before that, Petticoat Junction. I used to go there a lot the summer I worked at Porpoise Island, which doesn't exist anymore. He was interested in journalism; I had a wealth of stories that I told or wrote about. He got a job with the campus radio station; I'd done a little radio work for some sporting events back home, and we even shared a mic one night. Greg wrote for the campus newspaper; I had written several letters to the editor over the years, some of which might have actually been printed for all I know. I never read the letters page.

I dragged Greg along on some of my hiking/camping/canoe trips. My other companion was as always Jim "Interstate James" Parker, a man who was his own imaginary friend growing up. Looking back, I almost feel that Jim and I should have been charged with endangering a minor for taking Greg with us. Take the trip to Frozen Head, for example.

First of all, Frozen Head is not nearly as exciting as it sounds, especially when it's a state park and not an "extra service" down at the local Notel Motel. Frozen Head is basically a lot of woods, a couple of trails, and a very high weather observation tower. Greg, Jim, and I headed out at the break of dawn, barely taking time to wake up and dress. Breakfast was of course out of the question. We did stop somewhere along the way for soft drinks, chips, and a few other necessities, but we were basically running on empty when we started hiking. I did have the foresight to fill our empty drink bottles with water before we left the parking lot. Combine a bandana and a 20oz plastic bottle and you have a serviceable canteen. We hit the woods. They hit back. Survival tip #47: If you're running late, don't try to take a shortcut by cutting through a briar thicket.

A subjective lifetime later, we staggered to the top of the hill, climbed the weather tower, and enjoyed the view. Or, as Interstate James always put it, we stood in awe. That is, we stood around saying "Ahhhhh!" as we tried to regain enough strength to start the trip back down. We broke out our water, and I happened to find three packs of beef jerky in my pocket. We drank and dined like kings. Water and jerky tastes like fine wine and beef mignon when you're hungry enough.

Staggering back to the car, we stood in awe a while longer, then went in search of some place with cold drinks and hot food. Or hot drinks and cold food. By that point, we weren't really picky. We ended up in a pizza place in Harriman. We're lucky we weren't arrested.

It's not that we were doing anything illegal, mind you, but you have to picture the circumstances. We'd been in the woods all day. We were dirty, had leaves and twigs in our hair, mud on our shoes, and even if we had bathed in the morning, which I don't think we had, we no longer smelled fresh from the shower. Being very tired, we were punch drunk or slap happy or however you want to put it. Everything was funny. We were way too loud. We ordered a couple of large pizzas and sat at a table over to the side. About the time we each finished our first piece of pizza, the waitress brought a couple of to-go boxes and asked if we'd link lids for our drinks. I looked up and noticed the manager and a couple of delivery boys standing by. We took our cue and cut a trail. They probably thought we were on drugs.

We had good times and bad. I was with Greg when he bought his first legal beer. I gave him unsolicited and unneeded advice during his first college romance. I believe it consisted primarily of "If, at any point in time under any circumstances, she says anything which could be in any way interpreted as 'no' or negation, have your clothes in one hand and the doorknob in the other and be halfway out the door before you ask her what she means." I don't think he ever had to use that advice, but I'm too much of a gentleman to ask. Okay, so he's too much of a gentleman to answer.

Greg was a good enough roommate to take good messages when I'd get a call from a lady friend, even when the reason why I wasn't home to get that call was because I was out with a different lady friend. He didn't mind me coming in late after drinking too much. He slept through the nightmares that once in a while caused me to come awake screaming. Or he pretended to sleep through them, which was very important to a young man who didn't want to admit he had problems he couldn't deal with during his waking hours.

Greg moved on to better things, of course. He got a job writing for a "real" city paper somewhere. Later, he helped a congressman try to get elected. Not in my district, so I couldn't vote for him, which I would have done simply because Greg was working for him. I'm not sure what he moved on to after that, but I'm sure he'll tell me when I see him again.

What will we do? Maybe we'll go hiking for old times sake. Maybe go somewhere to get a beer and play some pool. Maybe just sit on the porch and talk old times while drinking some of Mom's industrial-strength tea.

Maybe, just maybe, we'll go try to get ourselves thrown out of a pizza joint...

Copyright 2005 by Troy H. Cheek. Reprint with prior written permission only. Comments and questions to