Zac Off to College, No Call, Imaginations Run Wild

Zac went to Clarkson University on Friday to start his freshman year. I know Pat wants to hear from him, but he probably won’t call for a few weeks and doesn’t like intrusion. So, I think Pat will wait for him to call, but I know it’s driving her nuts not hearing from him. I was thinking of him too and came up with a few scenarios for Pat yesterday to help her pass the time until she hears from him. I guess all of this is from my own guilt of not having called my parents for 3 weeks after they dropped me off at college in 1976.

First, she was downstairs doing laundry while we were both matting and framing postcards for our next show. During a bathroom break, I called her home phone from my cell phone and acted like I was talking to Zac, but just when she came near the phone, I acted like Zac needed to get off the phone and hung up. I told her it was Zac and he was having a great time.

He had spent the morning at the outdoor stage waiting for the guy, two big girls and the boom box we saw dancing during the visit last year. They would each take turns while the other two watched the dancer do whatever wild stuff they could think up. It was pretty wild and the girls were pretty sweaty. I told Pat that Zac said the dancers finally showed up after 4 hours of waiting and he had to go because it was his turn to dance. The girls were both still big and that made him happy.

Today I called her and said I was from Clarkson and wanted to talk to her about Zac because he had joined the free dance club, but was insisting on changing all of the rules.

Also yesterday, we were listening to “Bad to the Bone” on the radio. I told Pat that Zac had called to say he was leading an effort to get a dance together with the Clarkson nerd boys and the Potsdam hottie girls. “Bad to the Bone” was going to be the theme song for the dance. The idea is that once all of the guys get hooked up with a Potsdam girl on the dance floor, Zac is going to have the band play “Bad to the Bone” and the guys can lip-sync the words to the girls so they will think the guys are really cool and will go out with them because everyone knows girls just love a bad boy.

I told her Zac called me earlier to ask if I knew where he could order a few hundred custom made pocket protectors with the “Bad to the Bone” theme printed on it that the guys could wear to the dance.

I'm going to need some fresh material for later on this week, so any help in the form of what you did your first few days away during your freshman year left in the comments section will be appreciated and passes on to Pat!

Running a Chocolate Store

Two months ago, Chiara and Gary at Adirondack Chocolates asked us,” What are you two doing on August 27 because we are having a party.”

We thought,”Oh cool. They’re going to invite us.”

“Nothing, said Pat. “Why?”

“Because we need someone to watch the store,” said Chiara. “We thought you guys would like to try it. Besides, it’s a family party and we don’t even want to go.”

So, for one night this summer, Pat and I were the sole proprietors of Adirondack Chocolate. We had a plan. 1st, we would buy some blueberries and make some blueberry dark chocolate clusters as soon as we got there, using the hot molten vat Chiara always has running. 2nd, I would stand at the corner of Montcalm and Canada






Map of Lake George Village

and hand out the 10% off coupons to draw people off the main drag and up to the store. It worked really well. In 6 hours, we did over $400 worth of business and completely sold out of some of the more popular items such as bear claws (adirondack paws), fudge, blueberry clusters, etc. Pat also sold one of our framed postcards of Lake George.

I had a great time giving out the coupons and used the following lines when handing them out:

You know what will heal that broken bone fast? Chocolate!

Are you two (three) on a date? You’d better buy that girl a nice piece of chocolate if you want to take her out again!

You just walked past the best chocolate in Lake George, Adirondack Chocolate, next store up on your right.

You know what goes really good with a cigar? Chocolate!

Are you ready for dessert? The best chocolate in Lake George is just up the street, next store on the right.

You know what would go really well on top of that ice cream cone? Chocolate!

Here, have a coupon for after dinner. Chocolate makes a great dessert.

Come on; take my last coupon so I can go on my break!

I did take a break at dinnertime at Gino and Tony’s Restaurant. I sat at the bar while the Traver’s ran at Saratoga and drank a beer while waiting for our takeout.

Bringing Your Son to School

When I dropped off my son, Christopher, for his freshman year at Fordham University, his sister, Melissa and I helped him move into his room. It was a hot summer day and I was sweating pretty good - unshaven, T-shirt soaked through, and overweight from a summer of deskwork - by the time we had all the boxes in the room. His roommate, already there for a week for ROTC, had stuff all over the room, but was nowhere in sight. We set most existing items on his side to get the room set up for two. Christopher and roommate Dan had talked the previous week to coordinate who would bring what items – refrigerator, TV, printer, etc.

Now that we had all of the stuff up from the car, we raised the bed (hammers are a necessary tool at this time of year) to allow for extra storage. Christopher and Melissa unpacked several boxes and began putting things away. I was doing box breakdown and runs to the dumpster. When they got to the box of folded shirts, Melissa sat on the bed unfolding them and handed them one at a time to Christopher behind the closet door, who was putting them on hangers and then away.

Just at this time, Dan came in the room in his Navy dress whites with his mother in tow, me in the middle of the room, Melissa hidden by boxes, Christopher behind the closet door. I stuck out my hand and said, “Dan? Hi, I’m Chris King, your roommate. We spoke on the phone last week.”

Shaking my hand with a quivering voice, he said,” Oh, hi. It’s nice to meet you.” He was giving me an incredulous look, staring at a middle aged, sweaty man in the middle of his college dorm room.

His mom said, “Hello,” shaking my hand weakly and giving me a good looking over.

“I’m only kidding,” I said. “I’m the Dad. This is Christopher and his sister, Melissa,” opening the closet door the rest of the way.

“I thought your beard was kind of heavy,” replied Dan’s mom.

Dan and Christopher seemed to get on very well for both semesters and even picked up an informal 3rd roommate, Drew, during the course of the year due to issues surrounding Drew’s roommate. However, I’m still waiting for Dan to get me back on that first greeting.