(The Stragglers at Army-Navy Country Club. Photo Socotra.)

The dinner commemorating a quarter century of The Professionals was last night at the Army-Navy Country Club. We were on the Cocktail Porch, maybe fifty of us, most of a certain age, and it was a blast.
 
It was the same place where we had the wake for Admiral Rex, and the Porch has been the venue for other significant events down through the years, some pleasant and some sad. This one was a blast.
 
I was Mac’s chauffeur, which probably was unwise, but this was an old school evening, and that is the way we used to do things back in the day, hurtling around in our shiny cars, fueled by high-octane fluids.
 
I wound up, after a dinner that followed a thoroughly delightful and totally unplanned series of recollections by people who have given to this organization down through the years, at Willow with Jake and his lovely Bride.
 
Peter was tending the bar.
 
“I didn’t know you stayed up this late,” I said brightly. He smiled. It was after one AM, and I have not been awake that late in years.
 
What a hoot.
 
I rose this morning to go through way too much mail and discovered that global warming was a hoax, the President is not a US citizen, the Giants apparently beat the Phillies, and are going to the World Series against the Texas Rangers, a franchise I was not really sure still existed until last week. Didn’t George W. Bush have something to do with them? Or maybe I am confusing the whole thing with Saddam’s weapons of mass destruction.
 
My son’s beloved Spartans are eight and oh, and he is doing push-ups for a Marine Gunnery Sergeant from the Cote D’Avoire and he will miss every one of the regular games until the Bowl, whatever it is.
 
If this could get any stranger, I am not quite sure how. I am not sure I have another twenty-five good ones left in me, but damn, this was fun.
 
Copyright 2010 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com
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