Follow the Fords

For Years, many have told me that I should write a book about all the stuff that me and my friend Chunx went through in a brief period of time, before we settled down and got married.

So I started, and i need Feedback. let me know if it entertains you or not and if i should continue on.

Chapter One
The Beginning

First of all, not much is known by me of my friend Jeff prior to him becoming known as Chunx. Let’s, just say he lived a normal Northwest Florida childhood with his loving parents Don and Linda and his recluse sister Candice. He attended First Apostolic Church in Pace Fl and when he was in high school he played tight end for the local high school football team, the Pace Patriots, where he claims to be the greatest tight end they ever had. He was a popular student, made good grades and very smart both book smart and common sense, you know most people don’t have both or even one. He is a very charismatic person one of those kinds of people that everybody loves and is always the life of the party. You will learn more about Chunx as the book progresses so I will give you a little background on his parents. Not very many people got to meet his parents; they were just good down to earth people that kept to themselves. I will let you know as much as I do about his parents.

I will start off with his father Don. Don was one of the nicest men I have ever met he, grew up in Dorchester Mass. where he spent his time growing up going to Red Sox games with his brother. As he got older he joined the Navy. He often bragged to me that he was in the Navy with Bart Starr, the famous Quarterback. I think he did this because, he knew I was an Alabama football fan and that we could find some common ground. I always enjoyed talking with Don about any and everything, we often talked about the Red Sox and the Patriots, current events and cars I am a big car nut and he was to later in the book I will talk about the Impala SS that I had, Don had the standard Caprice and he would say he would love to have the SS, I offered to let him take it out sometime but he never took me up on it. Don was a very charismatic Man that could light up a room with his smile but was always content to stay in the background. We had a scare at one time I don’t remember the year I would say it was around 1999 and he had to go in the hospital for emergency bypass surgery. And to show you the type of guy he was, here he is, cheated death in a hospital bed he says to me “isn’t this just great, I have a heart attack, the doc talks to me for 2 hrs about that I can’t eat anything anymore, I get to my room and what’s out the window.” I turn and look and staring at us out the glass is a KFC, WhataBurger, Applebee’s, Burger King, and Hooters. He said “How ironic is that. I think it’s a test, whatever it is it stinks” and then as I am about to leave he says “Ya know what, now I am hungry let me go find something.” So he leaves us in the hall way and goes one way as we go the other. In his hospital robe, IV in his hand wrapped up so much it looks like a boxing glove he hollers out in his best Rocky voice “ I coulda been a contenda!!”

I didn’t see Don much after that. He didn’t come out as much when I went over to pick Chunx up. I would see him now and again and he was his usual self. The Last time I saw him was on Dec 2 2000, my Wedding Day, trust me we will get into what happened Dec 1st later. All us guys were standing outside waiting for my funeral, oops I mean wedding, and he came up to me threw me his keys and said “ Make a run for it I will cover for ya.” He told me “I was his favorite son”, to a big laugh from everyone and said “just kidding but he loved me like a son, and was very proud of me.” As he was walking off I thought to myself, I love ya to Donny. I never got to tell him that though, a few months after the wedding, he passed away suddenly.

His mother Linda, was a great person as well, She was caring, sometimes over protective, Chunx use to joke that his mom bathed him in the sink till he was 12, but none of us knew if he was actually joking or not. Linda was a loyal woman she worked at the same job since she was 16 years old. She would always come out and talk to me when I went to pick up Chunx, and yes I had to wait on him a good bit. She would just tell me to make sure her baby was safe, and I would always agree to do so. I guess I did a good job because he is still here. I didn’t See or talk to Linda as much as don and that was because she was often having to tend to Chunx’s older sister Candice. Now one thing I must point out at this time. Chunx was a big boy about 6’ 4” and weighed 280, but was solid not to chunky. Now keep in mind his size as that will come into play here later in the book. And Chunx got this size from his mother. She was every bit of 6 foot tall and was a big boned woman like Chunx is a man.

Candice his sister, not much is known of Candice she is very quiet, unless screaming at Chunx. I have never heard her speak, but she looks like Chunx with long dark brown hair.

Okay, enough of the background let’s get into the Chronicles of Chunx after all that’s why you are reading this. My first encounter with Chunx came in the fall of 1998. We had a mutual friend Matt, that was attended Florida State University. Matt is a cool guy laid back, easy going. He would always invite people down to see him in Tallahassee. I think now he was a little homesick but didn’t want to leave his little slice of heaven he had found, so he just invited everyone to come and stay with him.

Matt’s Apt was like any standard college Apt. It had old hand me down mixed match furniture. It had a decent size TV with the latest high tech game system on it and a stereo big enough to blow the plaster off the walls. The kitchen was always a mess even though all they had in the fridge was frozen pizza and beer. The bathroom was of course a war zone and the bedrooms I don’t even remember what the floor looked like, I could never see it.

I had visited Matt a few times before. I mean hell, what 20 year old wouldn’t go hang out with a guy that was in college doing the whole college thing. I wanted to go down there one weekend and break away from the mundane life in Pace. But didn’t want to go by myself, so I went to the local movie gallery where Matt’s girlfriend Christina worked, to find out if anyone was going down. Funny I should mention Christina and going down, see in future years to come here and Matt would get married, start a band and tour the southeast only for her to end up digging chicks too much and for that and some other reasons her and Matt divorced. Leaving her the ability to date all the women she wants, and Matt to do the same. Anyway Christina was always a cool chick though and broke the rules to look up Chunx’s phone number on the movie gallery system, since he was going down; see said it again, to Tallahassee that weekend. I gave him a call and pretty much invited myself along. Chunx agreed to let me ride shotgun and ride out to FSU for the weekend. Arrangements were made and He was to pick me up on Sat morning at the ass crack of dawn to ride out, I never knew I would get picked up by the best friend I would ever have, and also that he would try to kill both of us within 30 minutes of picking me up.

Chunx had a 1990 Chevy S10 Blazer. It was a burgundy 2dr with the factory honeycomb wheels and a factory digital dash, a very rare bird to say the least. He had just got a new CD player the day before. It was a flip face, so the CD slot was covered, and you touched a secret place on the side of the face and it would drop down to load and unload the CD. With that being said we were off heading down all the back roads through Pace and Milton trying to get to I-10 east to head to Tallahassee. Now, I mentioned earlier about almost getting killed within the first 30 Min of our new friendship, well here we go. As we are cruising down the interstate at a brisk 85mph Chunx had no concept of a speed limit, I wanted to switch CD’s to jam to the new Puff Daddy CD (that’s what he was called at that time) it was that song that was the rip off of the Sting song, you know the one that was about Biggie. I can’t remember the name; anyway, Chunx got to pushing all over this new CD player trying to find the “secret” spot. In the mean time the blazer then runs completely off the interstate. I don’t just mean into the little rumble strip deal. And I don’t mean his wheels in the grass. I mean, our asses are barreling down I-10 at 85 mph and I can look out the window and see grass. I guess it’s a good thing that Chunx was such a careless driver because it didn’t even seem to phase him; he never hit the brakes, looked up, or stopped screwin’ with the radio. He just steered it back up on the interstate and looked at me and said got it. At that time I knew that I could trust this dudes driving because most people would have over steered and we would have flipped all the way to Crestview. He was just as cool as Fonzie, said got it, and the turned on his wipers to wipe off all of the median mud that was now blocking his view.

After a few minutes I was able to get my heart out of my throat. I ask if he was thirsty and wanted me to get him a drink, after all he had just saved my life from a problem he created, this was the first of several times this would happen. He says “yeah I could use a drink and need to piss anyway.” So we proceed to the next exit and get off head over to the nearest gas station. As we are pulling in he says watch this. Which as you know is a term we use in the south, when something either bad and or embarrassing is about to take place.

If you are familiar with Florida and I-10 you will know that we are nowhere near I-75 which runs through Georgia and into South FL about 100 miles East of Tallahassee. We are in the panhandle at the far west of Florida headed to Tallahassee which is about in the middle of the panhandle. We are a few miles east of Crestview FL at this time.
We get out of the blazer now covered in dark brown mud from our little Baja Experience. And we start walking to the door. I am still wondering what this dude is about to do. Please try to remember, I have known the guy for about an hr now. Was he going to rob the place, shoplift, WTF was he about to do. He walks in and starts doing old school calisthenics stretches straight outta the 70’s, the woman behind the counter looks at him like he is nuts and so do I. He then in the midst of stretching tells her “Whew, been driving all night and I sure am glad to be in North Carolina!!!! Atlanta was real confusing though with all the interstates and whatnot, but we left Birmingham and were driving all night. And it’s good to finally be here, ‘Bout how much further to Charlotte?” as you can imagine the cashiers jaw just dropped she had no idea how to even respond. Chunx said it with such a convincing straight face that even I had to wonder for a second what he was talking about, and hell I was with him. A few uncomfortable moments past and the cashier finally said, in her most, this guy is a dumbass, so I won’t hurt his feelings “sir you are right outside Pensacola about 60 miles.” Chunx then looked at her in the same way and vocal tone and replied “No, Pace is like 10 miles from Pensacola not 60. And, how do you know so much about FL? You have family there?” She then paused for a second unsure of what to do or say just stared at him, like a confused dog. Finally Chunx just said “well, anyway” in a way that I think, made the cashier even wonder where she was at, Florida or North Carolina.
I just stood there dumbfounded. One, at the way he pulled that off, he was so convincing and so serious about the whole exchange of words. The whole time he was warming up like an overgrown Richard Simmons. I also began to wonder, what in the hell have I got myself in to, but I also knew that whatever was about to transpire, it was not going to be easily forgotten.
After, Jack Lalanne got finished with his calisthenics, I mentioned that I was headed to the restroom; He said “cool” and followed me to the restroom. Now I know what you guys are thinking, and it’s not like that, this is a large gas station so the chance of having more than one urinal was a real good chance. As we walked down the hall to the restroom, we were laughing about what just transpired. As we disappeared into the darkness of the hallway, I turned around to see the cashier STILL standing there confused. Honestly to her defense some of the people in that area of the world aren’t the sharpest knives in the drawer.

We finally made it to the restroom. Chunx swung open the door and holy shit what did we see! There was a dude standing there about 100 years old overweight and he kind of looked like Harry Cary, the old Chicago Cubs announcer. He had his pants down to his ankles and had his arms out stretched in a Jesus like pose. Yes, he was standing there with all his junk exposed, a sight still to this day haunts me every time I go into a gas station bathroom, wondering if Harry Carry and his old balls will be standing there. As we stood there with the door open for what seemed to be an eternity, he was screaming help me. Obviously, he could not bend over to pull his own pants up. Now I am sure that karma is a bitch and it will come back to haunt me but there was no way in hell, that I was going to bend over and put may face near a man’s crotch and pull up his pants. Chunx just looked at me and there was a mutual agreement to turn around, leave and forget this never happened.

We went back to the front grabbed two Mountain Dews and went the cashier. We paid for our drinks and began to leave. When, we reached the door, Chunx said, “this isn’t right.” For a split second I was like, no way, this guy is going back in there for Harry Carry. My thought process was interrupted by the sound of Chunx’s bold voice saying to the cashier. “Excuse me ma’am, but the men’s room is in need of service!” I turned and began to laugh to myself, as not to alarm the cashier of any wrong doing. I did not want her to think, this dude I was with had somehow sabotaged the restroom. He then followed it up with a “GO TARHEELS!!!”
We then left the station, after spending a few minutes figuring out how to work the radio again. And continued on to what would later be called Tallanasty.

Sometimes I often wonder about that poor cashier and what she thinks of the whole situation. Does she ever sit back and tell her friends about her worst day of work ever. When this guy came in, did a Tae boo workout and thought he was in North Carolina, only then to be followed by the awful sight of Harry Carry standing there with his wong waving for the next person that walked in. I also wondered what she did at that moment. Did she help him? Did she see if there was anyone else he was with, or is he still standing there as some kind of weird restroom attendant?

He then headed on to Tallahassee, joking and laughing the whole way down there. We were trading stories back in forth and talking about sports, general man stuff. After an hour or two we then got a little bored, see most men are not chatty Kathy’s, so we had to find another way to entertain ourselves. We then invented a game; after I describe this game to you it will be a nationwide phenomenon that will sweep the country, maybe the world.

What we did was, since it was apparently life threatening to change a CD on this new radio, we did find the scan button. We would push the scan button and when it stopped on a station, you would have to sing the song on the radio for the entire time it stayed on scan. If you didn’t know the song the other person got a point. First one to 10 was the winner. We excluded the stations from 87-92 on fm since it was mostly talk radio at the time anyway. So away we went screaming late nineties songs as we rolled down the highway, everything from rock country, easy listening, rap all of it. It’s amazing that 2 dudes from Fl new that many songs or it’s just that they always played the same songs. It is also hilarious that you think you know the words to a song until you have to sing them out loud in front of someone.

This takes us into Tallahassee, we finally made it three and a half hours after I thought my life was over, and I finally can to get out of the car. We arrive at Matt’s apartment it’s a sunny day relatively cool for that area of the country and the time of year. It doesn’t seem early to us since we had been up for so long but a quick look at the clock we notice its only 11:00am on a sat at a college town, that my friends, equals early. We go and bang on the door cops style not thinking anything of it. No Answer. So, we bang again. We must have startled them; we hear whispers coming from the inside. “Oh shit, hide it, hide it!” and the sound of stuff being knocked over and all hell breaking loose. So, before they flushed, what I assume would be a week’s worth of pot. Chunx yelled to them “HEY it’s us!” after that we see the blinds bend back a little and within sec. the door opens. See Matt like to dabble a little in the reefer when I knew him, don’t know if he still does who am I to judge, any who. So we go in, and it’s like a war zone in this place, clothes, food, and shit just everywhere. Matt swears it was clean before our little DEA raid, but we all know it was bullshit.

We clean us off a place to sit and a corner to throw our things and settle in for the beginning of a great weekend. Chunx and I for the first time get to meet Paul, Matt’s roommate. The last time I was down in Tallahassee Paul was at home so I never got to meet him. He was an interesting guy seemed cool, played guitar, had that hippie skinny look and was the hairiest mutha trucka I have ever seen. Dude was 20 and had a full-time hair sweater front and back. He liked to party, so as long as he kept his shirt on, I figured we were cool.

We, or I should say Matt and Chunx decided to sit there for a few long hours and play the new James Bond game on play station as I sat and contemplated if I would have been better off to been thrown from a blazer to my death a few hours ago. But then like a ray of light my hippie hair angel said the three greatest words any man will ever here…… “Hey Wanna Beer?” It was like one of those moments in movies when angels sing and it goes into slow motion. I then responded back with three words of my own ABSA FREAKIN LOUTLY. We all began to pound the good ol’ Red Dog. After a few beers, we realized that outside would be the place to take this little party, so we head out to Matt’s ground level deck. Matt’s apartment was on the first floor so his deck was more of a covered patio. We are all outside chilling swapping stories and telling everyone about Harry Carry’s peep show, just having a good ol’ time.

About an hr in to it and a few more beers down, one of Matt’s neighbors comes home. Matt introduces all of us to her, her name was Alyssa. An avg. looking girl, good looking enough to get to know once it gets late, but maybe not before then. She immediately starts to flirt with Chunx; He of course, thought he was Rico Suave with about 10 Red Dogs in him. He handled himself quite well; with an ending line from her of if anything goes on let me know. The way Chunx acted you would have thought he landed Jessica Alba or something.

Chunx remembered a few min later that Nathan a friend of his that was in chi omega Fraternity was having a toga party that night and maybe if we went she would want to go. So instead of walking up the steps like a human being he turns in to a ninja. Remember, that size thing? This is one part to remember it.

The apartments were a fourplex two on the bottom and two on the top. Matt’s, if you looked at it from the back patio was the bottom right. Alyssa’s was the top Left. They had a straight metal staircase that ran in the middle of the building between the right and the left. Each of the bottom apartments had a half brick wall that was about 3ft tall that ran the width of the apt except for about a 3 foot section to walk through.

Bruce Lee (aka Chunx) decides to, like I said, be a ninja instead of walking the stairs. His final words before his displayed of his mastery of the skills was “watch this James Bond shit.” With that said he jumps up on this wall, leaps up yet again, and grabs the bottom of the support beam of the above apartment then in one fail swoop tries to swing his big ass legs up on the handrail of the staircase. While doing this for some reason he let go of the beam and that sent our big ninja turtle upside down from the rail. Within a matter of seconds he slipped and was headed back down to the brick half wall head first. Somehow, he flipped again in the air and change his trajectory just an enough to clear the wall but to crash though all of Matt’s high end Dollar General patio furniture. His next words after the Donatello landed on the ground was, “Screw that bitch, I need a beer. Oh, and did you see that shit? It was crazy.” We then decide to take the party back inside before anyone else was severely injured or Chunx broke something else.
By now, I am beginning to wonder about this guy and whether or not I thought I would make it back to Pace without the assistance of a hearse. But there was something about this guy they call Chunx he was genuine, a real person, he was just himself and did care what people thought. It seems most people like that are some freaks that have 900 holes in their bodies, and say my parents don’t get me (note to self, they do…. they get that you are a freak) but he was just a nice all American guy. On top of it all I never stopped laughing when he was around, and who doesn’t like that, but I will say this to this day I have never laughed at him, only with him.

We calm it down a little, relax and watch the FSU game on TV. While the game is on Paul decides to cook us all frozen pizzas. While we’re scarfing pizza, I ask Chunx to call Nathan and ask about the toga party. We look about 30 min for Matt’s phone (this is before everyone had cell phones, I know hard to imagine) and then end up calling him. Nathan is stoked that Chunx is in town and says” Hell yeah!! You guys come over it starts at 9:00 but get here at 8:00 so we can catch up.” Chunx agrees and it’s on. I was pumped, my first college toga party, with visions of animal house dancing through my head.

We then immediately start looking for white sheets to make togas with Matt had a two that would work and we needed to more. So, Chunx taking the stairs this time, goes up to Alyssa’s and gets two more. We all get fitted in our togas. Everyone’s sheet fits but mine. I am not small dude ether. I was 6’1” and was pushing 245 at the time. My toga spilt right over my Left thigh to expose my beautiful quad muscles. I decided I had a pair of heart boxers that said I am in the mood for love on that thigh, and thought hell yeah, I will pimp these under the toga. It sends the right message. So now we are all sitting in Matt’s apartment toga’d out at 630 just waiting for the game to end so we can roll out.

Finally, the time comes for us to go we all load up in the blazer and head to fraternity row at FSU. We make it to the Chi Omega House a little after 800 and the party is getting started we hang out with Nate and Chunx introduces me to him. Nate is, how I should say, cut from a different cloth. He is a great guy. One of the kind of friends that would do anything for you and if shit went down he had your back. He could at times be a little harsh and of course was a smart ass. If you are reading this Nate you know it’s true. (I see that smirk) But he was a great guy confident, strong personality, and mans man. He was I guys what women would see attractive or maybe it was because he was a frat boy, hell who knows, and who cares right. We all sit back jam to the tunes and pound the keg. And yeah, it’s just like every keg party seen you see in the movies or on TV.

As me and Chunx are pursuing the scene scoping out ladies for us to talk to, we notice that no one cares about us because we are not frat guys. So, we do what in the future we would do better than anyone DRINK. We started pounding beer and getting rowdy. There was this on chick that always seemed to be right where Chunx was going, honestly every time he turned around he would knock her drink out of her hand and all over her. It was classic, first time she was like no big deal accidents happen but at the 6th time she became a little pissed about the situation. We figured before this chick kicked his ass, we should sit down.

We went over to the wrap around bench on the deck and set down amongst a few sorority girls. The one girl I was sitting next to had on a cute toga she made and knee socks with just about every color in the world on them. And he was next to a girl that could have been Jennifer Anniston’s sister. As we are sitting there soaking it all in Anniston, looks at Chunx and says.”Are you in this fraternity?” and of Course he says “Yeah, since last year.” She then follows it up with “Cool, I am a DZ”. Now with a full day of beer in us and the music kind of loud this mistake is easy to make. Chunx blurts out “What! You got a Disease” as she gets pissed off and leaves I erupt in furious laughter. The girl next to me then says. “Why are you laughing” I try just talking to her and she notices my shorts and say “Oooh, stand up and let me see.” I do, and now I am in front of all these people she then says “what do your boxers say? I am in the mood for love, looks like butt love.” I am shocked I have never had someone I didn’t know call me out like that. Chunx must have noticed my shock and followed in with “Hey Rainbow Bright, go suck a unicorn cock!” That was better than I think I could have done myself at the time. I tell Chunx hey let’s find Nate before something goes down.

As he gets up and is walking backwards gloating with his new friends on the smack he just laid down, low and behold he runs into the drink girl again. She is now ready to fight. I jump in and say “let me apologize, for my friend he has been drinking and is a little clumsy. What’s your name.” as I save his ass like he just saved mine. I motion for him to get lost so this half drunk chick will forget about him. We talk for a min and then part ways.

I spend the next hr looking for him or Nate and can’t find them for nothing I go all the way down to the far end of the hall at the last room. Door was open so I go in. no one is in there, but when I turn around there SHE is, Drunk girl. She followed me in here. Now she wasn’t ugly but she was not for me. She started babbling about how much we connected and this was meant to happen. I really don’t remember what all she said, I was thinking of an escape route. She pinned me against the wall and started kissing my neck. She then backed off of me and said let me show you these and took her boobies out of her shirt, that wasn’t so bad. About the time they were out in plain sight, Super Chunx to the rescue. He opened the door and hit her with it and the spilt his drink all over her, He was my big drunk angel sent from heaven. He saved me from being attacked.

It was NOW defiantly time to split. So we began combing through this party to find Matt. He was our ride out of dodge and we needed to find him quick. After about ten min. of looking we ran into Nathan. He informed us that Matt had left about 30 min ago. We sat around wondering how in the world were, we going to get back to his house, hell we didn’t even know where it was in relation to where we were now. The Chunx had the best idea of the night. He had Alyssa’s phone number he would just call her and since he was Rico Suave, she would come get us.
It seemed like days, before she pulled up. Now unlike your typical college chick in the 4 Runner or Pathfinder, she rolls up it this tiny red clown car. Chunx then looks at me and yells “shotgun”. My first thought was after Chunx’s big ass gets in this car I will have to ride on top, but somehow we managed to shoe horn ourselves in this thing along with the 4 tiki torches we “barrowed” from the frat house.

After a grueling ten minutes of not being able to feel my legs we finally got back to Matt’s. He was just sitting on his porch continuing the party with a few of his neighbors. We stumble over there to them and set up our tiki torches and join in as well. Alyssa decided to hang out with us as well so Chunx went into full mack mode.

After a while someone had the bright idea of sword fighting with the tiki torches. About that time the top of one of the torches flew off in to the bushes, setting the pine straw under the bushes on fire. Chunx then started kicking top all the way to the pool to extinguish it. Me, Matt, and the neighbors then stomped out the bushes, so’s not to piss off the neighbors with fire trucks or bring any more attention to ourselves at 2:30 in the morning.

Once by the pool, Chunx decided he needed to go for a swim, so he strips down into his WHITE boxer briefs and dives in. About the time he dove in he dove back out, his body reminded him it was freezing outside, and Alyssa came over to see what he was doing. Chunx then rose out of this pool like the girl in Fast Times and Ridgemont High, forgetting with the white shorts he was now displaying his junk to everyone at the pool. Once I notice what was going on me and Matt decided it was time to call it a night.

Let me know what you guys think

Monday, September 27, 2010

Hey NEW blog for Business!!!

Sunday, August 1, 2010

Back to the Swing of Things

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Chronicles of Chunx

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

The Start of Dis' Thang