Three Beautiful Things 07/05/13: Short Visit, Ducks and Napalm Beach, D-12 Is a Rocket -- Man

1.  I drove up the McKenzie River to Delta Campground where I visited with Diane, Kelly, Mike, Derrick, and Cameron.  It had been several months since I'd seen Diane and I'd never talked with Kelly and Mike before.  I could only stay for a couple or three hours, but we got some really good talking in and enjoyed ourselves a ton.

2.  On my way to Delta Campground, I was suddenly overtaken my memories of early October 1981 when Peter, Mark, Lannie, Roger, Terry and I all got together for the Ducks/Huskies football game and we partied hard before, during, and after the game and I lived with my first wife on 19th and Moss and we guys all somehow staggered from Autzen Stadium to Rennie's Landing to 19th and Moss and I was really wound up and began to take my clothes off while dancing to "Jungleland" and my wife had made great chili and somehow we thought it would be a good idea to go downtown to a dance club called The Place near Broadway and Pearl and my wife had learned to dance to New Wave music and the New Wave band was named Napalm Beach and we danced and my wife left early with Peter, who was reasonably sober,  and she told him she was thinking about ending our marriage and then she told me a short time later that she wanted to divorce and I had no idea and that night I thought life was great because I was with my friends and the drinking was good and so were the laughs and I was going to be teaching WR 121 at the U of  O and the dancing was wild, but really it wasn't good and I was on the edge of having life as I knew it come apart.  I can't say why driving up the McKenzie River brought that day back except that Mark and Peter and I are going to get together for a sober day in Salem and Newport in September and maybe recently thinking of them got me thinking about that epic day in October of 1981 when I thought my life was going just great and I was blind to the fact that at home things were actually pretty bad.

3.  I drew upon Elton John and Bernie Taupin to write my response to learning that Dwight Howard is going to be a Houston Rocket:

Sources say Dwight Howard is a Rocket.
Man.
Does this mean a title for Houston?
I think it's gonna be a long long time.
Dwight's not the man they think he is at home.
He's a Rocket.
Man.
Burning out his fuse up here alone.