I was down the Tavern Saturday night (like virtually every other Saturday night) when the bartender, Kevin, told me I should hang around later than usual because one of the waitresses, Brianne Kepler, was turning 21 at midnight and was going to stop into the Tavern for her first “official” drink.
Bri’s mother is Anne “Rip” Herpel, one of my ex’s, so I decided to hang around. I’m sure some of you remember Rip, we went out back in the early 70s, and I know she made at least one trip to Chicago. Rip was a Kappa Kappa Gamma sorority sister of Pat Driscoll, who was my roommate Pat Daugherty’s girlfriend (and later first wife) when I got out of the service in Dec 1970. Rip and I started going out around a year later.
Rip and I had an off and on thing for several years. I can remember being down at the Tavern one time sitting at a table with this older couple, Don and Betsy, who had dinner there almost every night. Betsy started giving me grief about Rip saying I really didn’t treat her well. All of a sudden, out of the blue, their son George who was my age and happened to be sitting with them that night, suddenly chirped up “I agree with Mom. Anne’s such a wonderful woman, I’d leave my wife for her.” I’ll skip some of the details but, sure enough, a year and a half later, he did. Needless to say, George is Bri’s dad.
Well at about 11:45 in come George and Anne to surprise Bri (not as big a surprise as Steve, Gary, Ronnie, and I showing up for Shannon’s 21st but a nice surprise for her anyway). Bri showed up right on cue a couple of minutes after midnight and was very much surprised to see her folks there. Here’s a photo of her having her first official drink (some special shot combination that the bartender made up for her) with Pat, Rip, and me (her dad didn’t join us at the bar for some reason).
Speaking of ex-girlfriends – I was recently sent this photo which I thought Marilyn would enjoy seeing. It was taken in St Martin in the Carribean. The woman on the far left is Diane Wooding, an ex of mine and an old roommate of Marilyn’s. Pat Daugherty owns a vacation home down there and invited Diane and a few others down for a vacation. The woman in the back right is Pat’s current wife Ruth.
The girls up front are some of my “nieces”. On the left is Natalie Berrena, whom I have talked about many times on the blog, the one in the middle is Lindsay Werner, whose father worked with Pat and me at the Tavern, and the one on the right is Kiley Campanis, whose parents I don’t know (at least I don’t think I know them). The girls all worked together at the Tavern (the other two women however are unknown to me).
Lindsay now works in NYC and emailed me the photo telling me about how she met one of my ex’s and got to hear Pat and Diane tell “lots of Larry Fall stories” (Given how one of Pat’s favorite sayings is “Don’t let the truth get in the way of a good story, I can only imagine some of the things she must have heard).
Diane is now retired and living part time in Florida near her mother and part time back in Philly.
I get to feel old every time I run into some ex girlfriend or old friend who’s now retired or who has a kid starting college or turning 21, etc. Of course, one thing that I have successfully avoided that would make me feel really really old would be to have a grandchild (how’s that making you feel Steve B?) 🙂