Driving on the open road alone can be dangerous. Deprived of the hustle and bustle of everyday life, the mind starts to clean house, picking at old scabs that have been allowed to heal due to distraction. Drive alone through an area where you grew up, and the crush of memories is overwhelming. I was wrong to think that living each year better than the last would protect me from painful nostalgia for good times past.

To keep my mind off of the issues that I usually rely on defensive mechanisms to keep my mind off of, I visited a Cracker Barrel and rented a copy of Garrison Keillor's Lake Wobegon Summer 1956. It's a tale of his sexual frustration as a 14-year-old Sanctified Brethren- and the teenage narrative brings sex to the forefront quite often in the book. Frankly I thought most of the crackers in the Barrel would have been appalled at the content. I myself don't patronize the restaurant, like any American without a walker or a GOD HATES FAGS license plate cover, but they're the only place you can rent books on tape. I suppose I've patronized worse, and I didn't stay long, you know- sizzle sizzle and all that.

Now, Garrison Keillor is not the individual that I think of most often in a sexual manner. I'm sure there's a website for people who do. The sex in the book was all in that imaginative fantasy of a person who's never had it. I wish I could write such a revealing book, but still... I don't think Garrison anticipated reading this stuff outloud.

I got a late start, which I'll bitch about later, but it meant I didn't make it into town until about 12:45. To get the most out of my visit, I had KC and his gang meet me at the bar along with my college buds, who knew KC through me and said, "I want to be involved in anything this guy is up to tonight." That's the way it is with KC, he must feel terrible pressure to get into trouble all the time.

We drank. I knew I was in podunk-ville when the bartender held up my five dollar tip and asked if I really meant to leave it. In Chicago you'd get dirty looks, or worse, if you left anything less after having three drinks. Pardon me for trying to take care of my bartender, though judging by the service this place is famous for, I wasn't surprised that he'd never seen Abe in the tip jar before.

One of Kasey's buds was a cop, which is quite surprising considering how often Kasey is in trouble with the law. It was not the last time that I drank with a cop that weekend. Another friend, who I'll call I. Will (cuz his name is I. Wilbur) kept asking throughout the night what I was doing on Saturday. Everytime we'd leave one place to go to the next, he'd ask, and every time I'd say, "You're calling my parents' house at four. We're going out to eat. And I'm going to see you in five minutes, when we get to where we're both headed." Then, when we left that place, sho' nuff, "What are you doing tomorrow?" The next day my parents received several phone calls, much earlier than four, asking what I was doing that day. When it was dinnertime, he said his hangover was too bad to meet for dinner. Oh, well, I can sympathize.

Driving was also a shock for me. I'm used to going as fast as the traffic and obstacles will allow me, which is never above 45 or so. I had to restrain myself, and at one point even had to honk at six deer to get 'em off the road. I'd rather dodge deer than bullets any day, I'd reckon.

At closin' time we adjourned to the bus, the same one featured at www.maximroadtrip.com. I hadn't seen it since he'd added some shwankification, including red carpeting on the floors and ceiling. Not to mention the train horn. Ah, the train horn. I've never come so close to having the shit shaken out of me. He got it off a decommissioned locomotive. Five bells, with an air compressor that he hasn't yet converted to DC, so we had to unplug an unsuspecting vending machine and charge up the horn for a few minutes. You can imagine what it sounds like- like standing right next to the tracks when the train blows its horn.

A late-late-nite at one of those college houses where I'm sure I went to a party five years and fifty residents ago, and I crashed at my parents' house as the sun was coming up.

A nice afternoon spent chatting with the parents and my brother, and visiting my family's pug. A much-needed fix of Cincinnati-style "chili", which for the uninitiated contains cocoa. It was a lucky visit to my hometown, where I didn't see anyone that I hoped I'd never see again. I can't even remember the names of all those people I'm trying to forget. ;)

Before I knew it, it was time to head to the wrasslin' match.