El K

First off, sorry about my rather sparse web presence lately. This will continue at least through the end of August as I will be traveling with the spouse to Tennessee the eek of the 17th to get her settled in and won't be back until the following Monday at which point I will feel so behind it is ridiculous.

Second, it should be worth it soon as I put out a brief preview of the tome I am working on.

Third, loosely inspired by Pheromone Girl mentioning a car, here comes another pointless childhood memory.

Growing up, we loved to go roller skating. The twins, one or two of my brothers, Billy, Kyle, sometimes Cassie and Courtenoy and other friends, we would go up to Skate World in Kelso and go roller skating.

It went in spurts, but there were times we would go virtually every Friday night. They had these "contests" where you entered your name and "won" really cheap entry the next week. They made their money from the skate rental which was not included.

I say "won" because I do not remember anyone who entered ever NOT winning...but it was cool and kept us coming back.

Well, we were such regulars that the door guys knew us by sight if not name. It got to where we did not even need the formality of dropping by the ticket window to redeem our prize, he would just wave us on in.

And we had some regular running jokes we kept rolling. And they kept getting bigger, culminating in the night that her post brought to mind.

It started with my stupid joke about the organization down the street. "I love coming here during hunting season. It is so easy...I just wait outside until they come out and boom, get myself a Moose."

See, the double entendre was I was moose hunting and shooting members of the Moose lodge. I know, not to clever, right? Then we took it down a notch.

I continued, "Or I could wait outside the Elks lodge. They are easy to shoot because they are always drunk."

"That is because they are elk-aholics."

General laughter ensued, followed by, "And are always easy to spot because they drive Elk-aminos."

(El Caminos...there is your nod, PG)

There were more lines involved, but I always thought those were the best.

I miss roller skating. Of course, my ankles would no longer hold up to it anyway...but the point stands.