Old Friends

In about 20-30 minutes two old college buddies of mine will be coming to The Firm to visit MW, the fellow GWUer who works with me. They are here to spend time playing golf and hanging out with yet another college alumni (although I don’t know him as well) before he gets married this weekend. In college these two guys were simply known as “Hodges & Rice” and they were always spoken of as a single unit, since they were cousins and always together. They don’t share ANY family resemblance and yet they were best friends in college and have remained so after.

I have fond memories of these two guys, but one of my favorites is when Rice disappeared from a nightclub one night. I was not there that particular night (they tended to go to clubs that I didn’t like (read: Eurotrash clubs)), but always loved the story. He was completely out-of-his-gourd drunk, and got booted from the club around midnight or so. He climbed into the car to wait out his friends (who had no intention of leaving just because Rice got kicked out). After a while he got hungry and rummaged around and for SOME ODD REASON found a can of sardines (I ask you – who keeps sardines in their car?). In his drunk mind he thought they would be a good snack, so he popped open the can and ate them. After a few minutes he started to feel sick (duh), so he got out and puked on the side of the nearby road. He then decided he wanted to leave. But rather than attempt to have a bouncer inform his friends of his desire to leave, he started walking.

Now, this club was AN HOUR’S DRIVE away from our college campus (it’s about 34 miles according to MapQuest), but with 1/2 the drive on country roads, it took an hour to get there. And it was now about 1 a.m. or so in the morning. But Rice, again, in his drunken mind, figured “an hour’s walk” (duh) wouldn’t be that bad. So he started walking. And walking.

Well, when his friends left the club, they couldn’t find him, but figured he got a ride home with someone else since there was a large contingent of people from the college at the club that night. So they left. And didn’t see Rice passed out in a ditch on the side of the road a few miles down.

The next morning, the big buzz was “Where’s Rice?” and everyone thought that maybe he went home with a girl who lived off campus since no one had seen him ON campus. But no one was really worried at this point.

So, it’s lunchtime (or quite possibly dinner at this point – I’ll have to ask him when he gets here and update the story), and we’re all sitting there, laughing over the previous night’s debauchery, when Rice came staggering in. We all cheered at the sight of him, but he looked a mess.

“Where have you been?” we all asked.

“I’ve been walking home.”

He had walked the entire way back to campus. All 34 miles or so. Including portions on a major interstate highway. Drunk for most of the time (and hungover by the time he arrived in the cafeteria). Needless to say he was a hero to many of us that day. *lol* And he was also very lucky that he was this big bulky football player type that no one would dare mess with if they saw him walking on the side of the road.

Although, that also meant he couldn’t catch a ride either.

I can’t wait for them to get here.

Update at 5:39 a.m.: The visit was short (about 20 minutes) but awesome. Those guys haven’t changed (they still call each other “Hodges” & “Rice”). And I got clarification on the sardine/walking home story.

He DID eat sardines (he remembered, but Hodges and MW did not), and he did walk halfway back home. He said he actually walked about 15 miles to Chesnee, SC and found his girlfriend’s house at around noon, who then drove him the rest of the way to school. Still mighty impressive for a drunk guy.