A couple days earlier, I got through the annoyance of court preventing me from moving forward with my life; the wounds caused by GDW hadn’t scarred over yet. Now that it was out of the way, I went back to Grandma’s house to complete my packing. I couldn’t believe I finished in time to have the UPS courier pick up my boxes by early Friday afternoon. The excitement of Austin probably inspired me to remain focused on the task despite how cold it was in the basement sorting what would go, stay, donated or be pitched.
Within minutes of UPS leaving, I was on I-55 for Chicago to say goodbye to everyone: the Silders, the Bryants and Phil. At the Silders’ house we drank beer, ate White Castles, watched movies and had a couple Nerf battles. Losing my car keys between their place and the corner bar was a nice scare. Thankfully a neighbor found them through his snow-blower the following morning. I had a pleasant Saturday afternoon talking to Stvee (Bryant) while he was drawing and convincing me of Babylon 5‘s potential (I wasn’t impressed by the pilot a year earlier). How I wished that weekend never ended because I was going to miss these people’s company.
How much didn’t sink in until Monday morning when I dropped off Helen for jury duty. She cried a bit while getting out of the car, me too. The drive back to Bloomington was colored by ambivalence: Excited over moving to a completely different region to escape the drudgery of Central IL while frustrated on about having to move yet again, failing to avoid the “gypsy” attitude I criticized my parents for in the Eighties. Good thing the former feeling had a sizable lead in the battle, I couldn’t back out and if I totally washed out, the trip to Austin was turning into the closest thing resembling my first, actual, formal vacation in years.
Somara’s glad I took my time returning to Grandma’s house. For reasons I can’t remember, I made a detour at a mall outside Joliet and found my infamous Babs Bunny sweatshirt in a woman’s clothing store. It’s what I was wearing the first time we met in person.
I did make three more trips to Chicago in 1995. This weekend 15 years ago marked the last of those long weekends with my Marquette buddies we could spend without so much pre-planning.