2000 TFL Convention: Anchorage

Day 1

Great day. It rained and was cold, but Lacy refused to give into the elements and wore his shorts all day. By night, he had learned his lesson and put on some jeans.

Scotty, Iggy and I had a great breakfast at Alaska Bagel, Inc. A fantastic, better than we remember lunch at Arctic Roadrunner (we will be back) and then dinner at F-street.

We picked Taylor up at the airport. Lacy and Taylor took turns admiring each other's calves. They have taken the derby very seriously and have been comparing notes on training techniques. The posturing has begun.

We took a nap in the afternoon, anticipating a late night out. Lacy called Brogan, um, who was a little busy at the time. He was huffing and puffing. Lacy said, "What's up little Bro?" Casey responded, "Um, I just ran up the stairs." Scotty baby said, "but you answered on the first ring! Admit it, you were getting busy!" Casey said, "Um, OK, you caught me."

Nate and Katz joined us at F street. We had all forgotten about the block of cheese until we saw it sitting there in its usual place. The bartender and waitress are the same ones who were there eight years ago.

We eventually went over to Darwins. Our first trip to that sacred ground. There was much drinking, even more lies being told. Everyone was having fun.

Van was invited to join us, but did not. As feared, he won't even make the convention in his own town.

No word from Bingham. I don't think anyone knows how to reach him.

Sagan left (had to work today) and then the debate turned to what to do next. Someone suggested a trip to the Bush Company to look for Bingham. (Yeah, right!)

I said why would a gay man want to go to the Bush Company?

Eventually, after much negotiations, a deal was struck. I would go to the Bush Company that night, and all the other guys would go with me tonight to someplace called Mad Myrna's, voted the best gay bar in Anchorage.

So, I went to the Bush Company. Um, I don't know how to report this, but those young ladies were not wearing any clothes. Oh MY GAWD!

Casey had a little too much to drink. As did everyone but Wit and I.

We left the Bush Company when they closed and dropped Katz off. Then, the rest went to Denny's. Lacy and Taylor for all their talk of training had four meals. Lots of grease.

I'm going to kick their ass in the derby.

We finally got to bed around 4 a.m. At last report, Lacy was still unconscious and threatening to remain that way for weeks.

Tonight, we go to Mad Myrna's. Should be interesting.

Day 2

I hijacked the rental car while Lacy and Tuttell lay unconscious in my hotel room. (Lacy wishes it reported he has been up at 10 a.m. every day this week, but we're still talking noon Denver time, which is about normal for him).

I had breakfast again at the Bagel place, then went downtown to get some cards and gift certificates. Walked around the mall a bit, then played on the Internet making the Day 1 Report.

I return to the hotel about noon and Lacy and Tuttell are long gone (I missed them by 10 minutes). They left three different notes telling me they were on their way to Scotty's Sub Shop and if I knew what was good for me, I'd get the car to them (oh, and I was invited as well).

I make my way to Scotty's and meet Lacy, Tuttell, Taylor and Katz there. Howard left Scotty's in 1995 and is now in Eagle River. They no longer have Poor Boys, my staple when I was at the Times. I settle for a poor man's poor boy, a Hokie. Taylor played football with some 6-year-old kid. The kid had an arm, and used it to nail Taylor in the place all men would rather not be nailed by a speeding projectile.

We ate on the grass field across from the 5th Ave. Mall. Then, we went to Casey's Brogan Arms. From there, we walked to the Anchorage Football Stadium where we intended to throw the ball around a bit.

A couple of guy decided to run the 60 yards, just to get a feel for it. Then, a couple ran against another. Tuttell beat Lacy, with Tuttell obviously holding back and Lacy going full speed.

Taylor had all the facial expressions of a man running full speed, but his muscles weren't flexed, so he was sandbagging us.

Brogan defeated me after getting a 5-yard jump on the start, still, I couldn't catch him from behind throwing serious doubts on my pre-race boasts.

Then, we played some 3-on-3 football. Taylor, Lacy and Sain took a commanding lead over Tuttell, Brogan and Katz. The only chance the second team had was using gimmick plays, like the no huddle, or Katz feigning death and while we checked on his health Tuttell threw a TD pass to Brogan. Nice teammates.

Katz recovered, but his team did not. They were hopelessly behind when we had to give up control of the field to Service High School's football team. During the game, however, we all watched as Taylor caught Tuttell from behind on one pass play when both were running at full speed. Forget the sandbagging, the outcome of the Derby is no longer in doubt. Taylor will win in a romp.

We made our way back for our afternoon naps. Brogan headed for the Darwin's Football League draft. After a slow start, we crashed it. We were as welcome there as Chris Reidy is at a NOW convention.

We did see John Sweeney though, and said hello. It took him a second to recognize the new sleeker me.

We went to the Soughdough Mining Company for dinner. Eventually, Nate and Charles joined us. It was the first time many of us had "seen" Charles in 8 years. However, I don't know if we can have claimed to have "seen" him. What we saw was a giant hairball that talked endlessly about Alaska sports history. Maybe under all that hair, Charles lives.

Still no site of Van. We still suspect he died of pink eye, doesn't exist and is a shadow team for Casey to make trades with.

After dinner, we made our way to Mad Myrna's. They boys were a little squimmish, but held up admirably. In fact, they even had fun and no one tried to pick them up. You would think with their lack of success at straight bars they would know they'd be just as undesirable at a gay bar.

They played pool and darts. I kicked Iggy's butt at darts, which is a first-ever. He normally kicks mine. He said I had home-field advantage.

Then, we went to Darwins. Everyone drank, including me. Darwin himself gave us all a shot to welcome us back. Then came the nastiess moment of the week to date. Taylor and Lacy did a re-enactment of their nasty confrontation in the Times sports department a few years back. It was ugly, but it appears all is forgiven.

For now.

Plans today, we're going to search grave yards to see if we can find proof of Van William's demise. We're hoping to run into John Woodbury. There is some talk of climbing Flattop. Someone suggested Wing's and Things for lunch.

Tune in tomorrow!

Day 3

Once again they let me keep the rental car, so I snuck out about 9:30 a.m. for a quick breakfast and then over to the Sheraton by 10 a.m. to pick up the guys. After collecting Tuttell, Lacy and Katz we headed to the Internet place to go online, check e-mail and type the Day 2 report.

Some of us are also doing some research. Silly boys. Don't they know it's all luck.

Finally, we headed back to the hotel to pick up Mike Taylor, then over to the Brogan Arms to collect Casey. Then, lunch at Wings and Things.

We would pay for that grease fest later.

It took us forever to get moving. Big groups move slower than glaciers. We decided on La Mex for dinner and made a few phone calls to let everyone know that's where they could meet us.

Finally, we headed for Flattop.

We arrived at 2:30 p.m. and began climbing immediately. At one point, the trail split. One was easier than the other. Katz and I took the easy path. Taylor, Tuttell, Lacy and Brogan took the more direct, harder path.

We found each other again where the two paths met before the serious climbing begins. After some rest, we headed up.

The journey up was slow for some, quicker for others. Casey brought along a neighbor's dog, Billy. Katz and I were the last to reach the summit.

It was 4 p.m. We talked for a bit and enjoyed the view. It was a clear day and you could see Denali off in the distance.

Katz kept saying that the last time he did this climb, there was another path that wasn't as difficult. We saw a path that looked much easier on the back side of the mountain. Katz urged us to take it.

"I think that's an easier path," Brogan said.

"Come on guys, it's easy," Katz said.

"I sure hope it doesn't end in Girdwood," Sain said.

"This is a mistake, I know this is a mistake, but I'm going to do it anyway," Tuttell said.

"Screw you guys, we're going down the way we came up," Lacy and Taylor said.

So we split up again. Casey, Wit, Steve, Billy and I taking the new "easier" path at the back of the mountain. Lacy and Taylor retracing their steps up.

Our easier path didn't have the rocks to climb like we did on the way up, but it was unrelenting. There was not a single flat space the entire trip down the mountain. It just kept going down. My legs, when I tried to stop, turned to spaghetti and I couldn't stand.

We rested often, usually on our butts. There was one gorge we had to travel down with trees overhanging on both sides. The trees were great for hanging on to as we slid down.

Near the end, a woman caught up with us. Iggy, fearing the worse, asked her is we were close to where we parked the car.

"Oh no, you're miles away. You better just go ahead and climb back up and then go down the other side."

Iggy was ready to do so, or so he says, but we all thought that would be a bad idea. We went the final couple of hundred feet down to a road and started hiking from there.

We walked for 3.5 miles AFTER we got off the mountain. We probably each walked more than 7 miles that day, most of it up or downhill.

And we were still miles away from the car. Finally, we started hitchhiking. Not a sniff. Then, Iggy gave Casey a $20 bill to use. A Dominos Pizza delivery guy passed us doing 60 mph. About 30 seconds later, he was in front of us again, making a turn to come right at us.

Casey gave him the $20 and he drove Casey up the next 4 miles to where Lacy and Taylor were just arriving at the car (they sat and waited for us at the midpoint of the mountain for more than an hour and finally decided they should check the rental car just in case).

We were rescued. Long live Domino Pizza Delivery Guys every where!

We traced our route to get an exact count of how far we had walked, then headed back to the hotels to get cleaned up for dinner. It was 6:30 p.m.

At 8:30 we were at La Mex. It was the usual cast of characters. Bingham and Sagan had joined the crew from that day's activities. Then, halfway through dinner, Michael Bourque joined us. Melissa stayed back at the hotel.

As the dinner was winding down, Beth Bragg joined us. We did some drinking, a lot of boasting, and almost everyone laughing at the four souls who walked down the wrong side of the mountain.

As we were leaving the restaurant, we ran into Doyle Woody. The whole group headed over to Darwins.

When we arrived at Darwins, another friendly face joined us. John Sweeney was there and greeted us all, including buying two rounds of drinks for everyone. He said he was doing great, the best thing that ever happened to him was getting fired from the Times (even though it hurt like hell at that time) and said if he could do it all over again, he'd fire each and everyone of us.

Everyone was enjoying the night and talking to long, lost friends. Lacy and Tuttell got into a drinking contest where there would be no winners, except for Darwin's profit margin.

We closed down the bar.

The Derby is scheduled for 3 p.m. today at AFS. No plans yet for dinner. All of the owners who are planning on being here, are now here. Flint, Arctic and Lackawanna teams are not represented. Oh, and neither is Willow.

Van Williams is dead. Otherwise, one of us would have seen him by now.

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