The wife and I walked into a Mexican restaurant last Saturday.
The plan was to watch some college football and have a bite to eat.
All the big TV’s were in the bar area so we took a seat there.
As we sat down I took note of some older guys sitting at a table near us. There were 7 of them. And all but one were overweight.
To me they looked old, tired and unhealthy (I notice these things).
They were all drinking beer in high volume.
This explained the healthy guts and lost masculinity spread all around the table.
In my mind these guys were clearly quite a bit older than me.
But that was about to change…
All of a sudden one of the men walked up to our table. Looked at me. And said…
Are you Mark Wilson?
Taken back a bit I replied, yes. Who are you?
His answer floored me! Literally launched me back 30 years in about 2 seconds flat.
Turns out I went to High School with this guy. He was on my Water Polo team.
I’d been to his house. Met his parents. Broken bread at his dinner table.
Man…I felt like I’d just walked straight into the Twilight Zone!
But there was more coming…
You see I knew this guy pretty well, but he wasn’t my main compadre. There was another dude I’d gone to hell and back with…
Another member of our team. And him and I were almost inseparable during those years.
And guess what?
He was the old, gray haired, heavy guy sitting at the very end of their table.
WOW!
He’d changed so much I didn’t even recognize him.
If it weren’t for the familiar sound of his voice, I would not have believed it was him.
But it definitely was.
We had a lot of catching up to do. I had moved 45 minutes South of LA during my senior year.
Home base for them was still 30 minutes North of the big city.
They were in my neck of the woods on a golf trip (A beer drinking trip that included some golf would be a better description).
They were headed out again the following morning to go at it again. I was invited. I told them I’d try to make it, but I already knew the chances were slim.
You see, these guys had settled for average.
The gallons of beer consumed. Combined with the piles of fried food on the table demonstrated this.
The beer bellies. The missing muscle. The pale, saggy skin told me that this behavior had been going on for decades.
So I wasn’t interested in joining the party.
An all day drinking session can send you into a hormonal tailspin for a week or more.
And the fact that you have a golf club in your hand doesn’t change this fact one bit.
So I took a pass on the invite.
We hung for a while that night. Traded war stories. Then the wife and I hit the road.
I’m sure they closed the place down.
Before we left, the wife took a group photo on her cell phone. All eight of us packed together in a tight bunch under bright lights.
It was a very telling photo, to say the least.
On the drive home, the wife pulled it up again. Gave it a good look. And said…
It’s hard to believe you guys are all the same age. They look like old men to me. And you don’t.
And she was right…
Right because I don’t do average. And neither should you (:
Mark
P.S. Feeling a little average yourself?
Get some help RIGHT HERE
