Category: Larry

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Santa Crawl 2006

We had our third annual State College Santa Crawl last Friday. I was so busy trying to keep the group organized that I didn’t get my normal quantity of photos so I had to wait a few days to collect photos from others on the tour before making this post.

We started at out normal spot – Hooters. Hooters is located on the east end of the College Avenue, the main drag in State College. For those who haven’t been to town College Ave is actually the divider between the town on the south side of the street and the University which is on the north side of the street. Most of the downtown bars are located on or between College Ave and Beaver Ave which runs parallel to College. We traditionally start at Hooters and “crawl” our way westward ending the evening at Cafe 210.

This map should give you an idea.

The bars that we hit on our route and their block number on the map are as follows:

Hooters – block #12
The Lions Den – block #9
Gingerbread Man aka G-Man – block #24
Adam’s Apple at the Tavern – block #5
Shandygaff – block #5
Bill Pickle’s – block #3
Allen Street Grill – block #3
Cafe 210 – block #2

Here’s a photo taken at Hooters as we started

and here’s one of the group onstage at the Cafe at 2:00 am.

I was particularly proud of how many managed to make it to the end. I usually lose control of the group as we cross Pugh Street (that would be between the Shandygaff and Bill Pickle’s) as people decide to branch off to other bars not on the planned itinerary.

We probably had upwards of 35 people participate at one time or another and seven people actually made it all the way through.

To see more photos of our crawl, try this link.

To see photos from past crawls, try the links at this page.

To see photos from SantaCon events worldwide, try this link or this link.

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Not quite a zombie but close…

Since I still haven’t been resurrected by the PSU Alumni Association, I thought I’d get some life out of it. My original idea was to be a zombie but I couldn’t find any costume that I really liked. Then I stumbled across this one:

Here’s one of those freaky strange moments that happen every now and then (really odd that it should happen on Halloween). When I stopped into the Tavern, Pat told me that he had just come from listening to Natalie Berrena sing at the Allen Street Grill (on Tuesday’s she sings at the Grill in a duet separate from her bands – actually I should say bands since she’s singing in two of them). Pat described Natalie’s costume (see photo below) as “a cowgirl riding a horse”. I decided to head up to hear a couple of songs and on the way thought that I’d walk in and jokingly ask her to sing “Wild Horses” by the Stones. I didn’t even know if it was in their repertoire but thought it would be funny anyway. Sure enough, when I walk in, she’s singing it. Downright eerie….

Here’s Nat and her Tuesday night singing partner, Ted McCloskey.

For more of my Halloween photos, check out my Flickr account.

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One for the Other Thumb

You may remember this post titled “One for the Thumb” from a year ago (yes it’s hard to believe but the blog has been going for over a year now – I should have put up a first anniversary post but I missed it).

Last night was the 10th Annual Mondo Martini Madness event at Tony’s Big Easy in State College. Originally, I had not planned on entering (I was going to judge instead) but last week my competitive juices got flowing and I signed up again.

Rather than just whipping up any old drink, I’m always looking for some inspiration (it helps to have a story about the cocktail to tell the judges as I’m whipping it up). This year I wanted to find a way to dedicate my drink to the Penn State students who have been incredibly supportive of the football team over the last couple of years. Kirk Herbsteit called them “the best student section in the country” during the Ohio State game last year.

If you’ve watched any of the Penn State games recently you’ve no doubt seen the kids bouncing around to a techno song whenever there is a big defensive play. The song is often mistakenly referred to as “Zombie Nation” (the real name of the song is Kernkraft 400 and the artist’s is Zombie Nation, sort of,… the actual artist is a German DJ named Florian Senftner aka Spank! who books himself as Zombie Nation) – for more on Penn State’s love fest with the song read this Pgh Post Gazette article).

The Zombie theme became the start of my inspiration. There is a drink called a Zombie that was invented by Don the Beachcomber many years ago. The original recipe is a secret and there are many variations out there but one of the more popular uses Apricot Brandy along with three types of rum and various fruit juices.

When I saw Apricot Brandy in the recipe, it got me thinking. One of the things that Joe Paterno is known for is Peachy Paterno ice cream, one of the more popular flavors put out by the world reknown Penn State Creamery (little known factoid – Ben and Jerry ice cream got it’s start when the founders took a correspondence course from Penn State on ice cream making).

Bingo. I now had a unique name for my drink, i.e. “The Zombie Joe” and it would be peach flavored. However, I didn’t think that just a simple variation like changing the brandy from apricot to peach would be original enough to impress the judges so I went after a more radical approach.

The next step was to find out what peach liquors that Tony’s had on stock at his bar. He didn’t have peach brandy nor did he have creme de peche two typical peach liquors. What he did have was peach schnapps and peach vodka. Also, Southern Comfort is considered by many to be a peach flavored liquor (the reality is that peach is only one of many flavors in Southern Comforts secret recipe). Those liquors became the basis for my drink experimentation.

I had one other idea that I wanted to incorporate. Another unique thing that has stood out about our student section the last couple of years has been their commitment to having a “White Out” for big games. They will dress in white, wear white to whatever it takes to make the student section all white for the game. Well white fits in perfectly with my Zombie theme. Check these PSU students out in a shot from the Michigan game – they are some definite Zombie looking fans. That meant my Zombie drink had to be white and just to be sure the judges got the connection with the students, I renamed the drink “The Zombie Joe aka The White Out”.

After much experimentation with the three liquors and various whitening agents, Godiva White Liqour, White Coconut Rum, and Half and Half, I eventually settled on a drink that had equal parts of Peach Schnapps, Peach Vodka, Southern Comfort, and Half and Half. The drink is well shaken and served in a chilled martini glass. As the final piece de resistance I float two dark Necco wafers in the drink to look like Zombie eyes staring back at you as you drink it.

Once again, the judges liked my work and I walked away with my sixth title in the last seven years (I am undefeated only having my string broken when I sat out a year).

For more photos from the event, check out this link.

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Making me feel old…

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?) 🙂

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I’m dead

evidently.

A week ago Saturday, I ran into a couple of my old college roommates, “Doc” Scarborough and Dave Hannum, down at the Tavern after the football game. In the course of our conversation, Doc said to me “Well, it’s good to confirm with my own eyes that you’re still alive”.

When I gave him kind of an inquisitive look he said “Didn’t you know that the Penn State Alumni Assocation published an obituary notice about you in their magazine a few months ago?” Doc added that he was shocked to see it and had emailed Dave about it. Dave replied back to him that he had just seen me a few weeks before and that I looked “remarkably healthy for a dead guy”.

That comment got me thinking. I hadn’t remembered getting the Alumni magazine recently and I had just received a bill from the Alumni Association for annual membership fees even though I am a paid up lifetime member. I jokingly told Doc that maybe the Alumni Association had killed me off to void my liftime membership so they could get me to rejoin.

I called the Alumni Assocation to get to the bottom of the issue last week. They told me that I had received the “dues notification” because I wasn’t flagged on their records as being a lifetime member. When I complained that I’ve been a member for over 20 years, they went into my detailed records and where able to find my payment so they adjusted my membership status.

When I suggested that perhaps the “obituary notice” might have been the cause of my getting dropped from the roles, the representative responded that my old roommate must have been mistaken because there was no indication on my record that I was deceased. When I replied that while I doubted that he had made a mistake, I couldn’t confirm it because I hadn’t been receiving my issues of the Alumni magazine. The rep offered to send me the last few back issues.

Those back issues arrived this weekend and I just got a chance to go through them. Sure enough, in the issue from last March, there I appear in their “In Memoriam” section.

What’s interesting is that I’m listed with our old Rolling Meadows address even though I’ve never lived there. What’s doubly interesting is that, even though I haven’t been getting the Alumni Magazine, I’ve continue to get all sorts of other mailings from them. Also, their online information about me has been correct because I check it every now and then. Strange indeed. I doubt I’ll ever get to the bottom of how it happened but I will be asking them to correct my obit.

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My recovery continues

Played 18 on Friday with no problems with the knee during the round. It was a little sore Friday evening but nothing too bad so I decided to play in the senior club championship afterall.

Seedings in the tournament are by handicap following the defending champ who gets the #1 seed. I was seeded seventh which meant that I had to play the #2 seed, the lowest handicapped player in the tournament.

I played as well as I have in a long time and had my opponent on the ropes for most of the match. I opened up with a par and a birdie and quickly went up 2 holes. My opponent fought his way back and managed to tie the match by the seventh hole when he executed a beautiful sand save for a par. I failed to get up and down from about three feet off the back of the green when I missed a five footer for my par.

On the eighth hole, I went one down when I was overly agressive on a downhill 12 footer to win the hole. I slid about four feet past the hole and missed the comeback putt.

My par on nine evened the match when my opponent failed to get up and down from the back fringe of the green. I wound up shooting a 41 for the nine.

Another par on the par three tenth put me one up when my opponent once again failed to get up and down from off the green. The next three holes were all halved with a bogey and two pars so going into 14 I still held onto a one hole lead.

The 14th is a long par five and I laced a drive just into the right hand rough while my opponent wound up in a fairway bunker so I felt comfortably in control. He did manage to advance the ball about 150 yards with a decent recovery shot. I good lie but a downhill stance but as I swung my right foot slipped right out from under me. I only advanced the ball about 40 yards still in the rough. I was about 250 out but the ball was sitting up in the rough so I decide to take an aggressive cut at the ball. Bad move. The ball went off of the toe of the club deep into impenetrable brush and trees to the right. I had to take an unplayable and the hole was basically lost right there as my opponent made par.

That evened the match up but my confidence was gone. I staggered over the next three holes with a bogey, double bogey, double bogey and my opponent went par, bogey, par to close me out 3-1.

All in all, I was pretty happy with my play though. For 13 holes, I was just six over, which is as well as I’ve played in a long time. Plus, the best part was that the knee held up just fine so it looks like I can get back to my normal 5 rounds or so a week.

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Passed another milestone

Our men’s golf league plays on Wednesday nights and I hit the links for the first time since my surgery. After an extremely shaky start I settled down and played the last few holes ok. I had a dreaded case of the hooks for the first three tee shots and I think it came from a subconscious fear of transferring weight to my left side. Once my mind accepted the fact the knee wasn’t going to hurt everything started to turn around.

Further evidence that my recovery was going well was that I didn’t have any additional inflamation this morning when I woke up. I’m going to try a full 18 holes tomorrow and assuming that things hold up OK, I’ll play in the club championship starting Saturday.

Updates will follow.

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Why this picture?


I’ve been using a version of this photo that I have on Facebook in my profile on Blogger. Evidently, Blogger has installed new software that limits the url length of your profile photo to 64 characters and my Facebook link exceeds that. When I inser the photo in this post, it gets uploaded to Gary’s Blogger server and I can now link my Blogger profile to the photo on Gary’s server.

FWIW – the girls, from left to right, Vanessa Fiore, Ashely Schlosser, Susan Kim, and Taylor Baker, are all students hired as Bacardi girls here in State College. They appear at various bars and functions here in town to promote Barcardi products (usually not quite dressed as well though) and were doing such at the martini contest.

Now that that is out of the way, here’s a complete recap of my surgery todate.

The surgery went exceptionally well and everything was super…. but only for about 24 hours.

The surgeon was right. I was able to walk out of the clinic without any problems. I even stopped by the golf course Thursday afternon and went to the Spikes game Thursday night. Friday morning I woke up with a little soreness behind the knee but nothing that was at all a problem. I was even telling people that my left knee (the one that was operated on) was feeling better than the right one (and that was the truth).

Then all of a sudden things changed.

I was crawling on my floor. monkeying around with one of my backup computers, and then got up. Getting up was a little awkward because the knee didn’t have a lot of flexibility. I didn’t particularly notice anything pop or pull as I got up but as soon as I put weight on my left leg, the knee hurt like hell. The knee quickly started to hurt and swell. I pretty much became immobilized – I couldn’t put ANY weight on the leg at all without excruciating pain shooting through the knee. I very quickly put myself to bed (the only moving that I would do around the townhouse was confined to inching along on my hands and butt). And the pills didn’t seem to do much to help the constant pain in the knee. My ambitious plans for the weekend suddenly went all to hell.

For the next 24 hours I really didn’t get much sleep.

Things started getting better by Sunday. The constant pain started to come under control and I could switch my pain medication from Vicodin for pain to ibuprofen to address the inflammation in the knee. I was also frequently icing the knee to try to control the swelling. By late Sunday afternoon I was able to get around the townhouse pretty well by leaning on things and using my walking golf cart (bottom floor of the townhouse only) and a seven iron as crutches.

Today was even better. I’ve been able to find a couple of comfortable positions in bed so I can sleep well. The swelling in the knee has come down considerably. The knee can pretty much bear my weight without any shooting pains. I can now walk around the townhouse without having to hang on things to maneuver. I no longer have to butt hop up and down my stairs as I can safely scale them one step at a time. I also no longer need to improvise crutches (although I am continuing to use the seven iron as a cane – more of an emotional support than anything). And most importantly, I was finally able to stand up long enough to take a shower!

I’m going to try to start bringing my life back to normal in the next couple of days. My stitches come out Wednesday and my objective is to make our men’s golf league Wednesday night… as a spectator only. I’ve given up on my original plan to play – my playing plans are to be ready to play Wednesday a week with maybe a practice round that Tuesday. I’m bummed that I missed the Spikes games this weekend but the way that they are playing I evidently didn’t miss much. I do plan on making the Spikes game this Thursday though.

That’s where things stand at the moment.

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Larry’s knee (an insider’s view)

Home from surgery and resting. Everything went well. I walked out of the clinic without a problem. Here are some photos tsken off of the arthoscopic camera as it paraded around inside my knee.

Right in the middle of this shot, you can see some of the fraying cartilege.

Here is clearly a frayed loose piece of cartilege floating around getting in the way of normal knee movement.

In this shot, you can see the tool on the right which has just gone in and zapped, chopped, pureed, or something the loose cartilege piece and sucked it up.

On the right center of this shot you can see how the cartilege has been noticeably worn away.

Here’s all sorts of crap floating around in the knee (I believe the bubbles are actually generated by the tool doing its job, they aren’t typically there).

In this last shot, the tool in the lower right corner has just finished snipping away at the cartilege between 5 and 6 on the clock dial. The thing looks like PacMan the way that it snips away at the cartilege. I think the idea is to create a cleaner non frayed edge to the cartilege.

The doctor actually gave me a 15 minute cd video of the operation as seen through the camera that these still were taken from. It’s quite fascinating to watch. If Gary has enough room to host a 0.5 GB file, I’ll send him a copy and we’ll upload it for all to watch. It sure beats the simple old xray that I got the last time I had my knee operated on 40 years ago.

I feel really good. The pain is quite minimal, probably less than what I have been normally experiencing. I’ve got a bunch of Vicodin tablets that he prescribed for any pain but I currently don’t see any need to take them. There’s a Spikes baseball game tonight and I’m really tempted to go, I feel so well. The doc said I was cleared to go to the game tomorrow but I didn’t even think to ask him about tonight. He did say to take it easy today but I’m figuring sitting in a seat at a baseball game can’t be all that much of a strain. The game isn’t until 7:00 so I have a while before I have to decide.

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Going under the knife (and more golf)

Today’s the day that I get my knee scoped. Surgery is scheduled for 12:45. I’m told it should take about 45 minutes and that I’ll be walking out of the outpatient facility by about 3PM. I purposely scheduled the operation for a Thursday in the hopes that I could avoid missing any of my Wednesday night men’s league golf matches. My surgeon said I should be back on the golf course within a week so I’m hopeful I can play next Wed night.

Speaking of men’s league golf, my partner, the previously blogged Lanny Sommese, and I had an almost legendary match last night. We play nine hole matches with two points available on every hole, low net wins a point, high net loses a point (we keep league handicaps according to USGA rules and play the matches at an 80% handicap).

Our match was a big one for the league standings. We were in seventh place and were playing the fourth place team who was just 3 points ahead of us in the standings (you get two points for a win, one for a tie).

Lanny and I started poorly and were down 6 points after five holes (for the math challenged, that means there were only 4 holes or eight points left so we were in a pretty big hole). Coincidently though, Lanny and I hold the league record for the greatest comeback when last year we rallied from the exact same 6 and 8 deficit to win by one. We almost did it again.

We won two points on the sixth hole of the match, halved the seventh hole, and won two points on the eigth. That left us down two with one hole to play. Last night’s matches were a shotgun start and our match had started on the ninth hole, so we were finishing on the eighth hole.

The eighth hole is the #1 handicap hole on the course. From our tees, it’s a 576 yard par five with a small stream that runs down the left side of the fairway for the last 250 yards. Because it’s the #1 handicap, three of the guys in the foursome were getting strokes on the hole. Our opponents, Roger (6 handicap) and Bill (4 handicap), had honors. Roger hit a good drive about 210 yards down the middle of the fairway. Bill pulled his drive along the treeline to the left but it wound up safely in the rough about 230 from the tee. Lanny (11 handicap) hit a perfect drive about 240 down the middle. I (16 handicap) was up last and caught my ball very thin, failing to clear a hill in the fairway that crests at about 180 yards off the tee.

Then. for my next shot, I absolutely smoked my hybrid three iron hitting it about 220 yards to the dead center of the fairway about 190 out. Roger was up next and hit a decent five wood about 10 yards inside of me. Bill made a great save out of the rough and hit a rescue club to about 130 out. Lanny pulled a three wood just left of the stream ending up in the rough about 150 out.

I was up first need to come up with a shot. I responded, hitting the same hybrid club 190 onto the green but a decent way from the hole (the pin was tucked inside the bunkers on the left and my shot ended up on the far right side of the green). Roger, feeling the pressure, pulled his five wood slightly and wound up in the left bunker protecting the front of the green. Because Lanny was getting a stoke I encouraged him to not get suckered into going pin hunting saying that all we probably would need was a ball on the green and two putt to pull out a tie. Playing strategically, Lannie hit a 7 iron to the fat of the green but because he was coming in from the left angle, it travelled to the far right. The green is also two tiered and Lanny’s ball rolled up onto the second tier while the pin was down in the first tier.

That put the pressure squarely on Bill. We now had two balls on the green – in net two because we were both getting strokes. His partner, while also lying net two, was in trouble in the greenside bunker. Bill, playing without the benefit of a stroke on this hole was still 130 yards out. He rose to the occasion and hit a beautiful shot right at the flag. The ball checked up about 12 feet below the hole.

The pressure was now on Roger to come up with a decent bunker shot. He also executed well with his ball rolling about 10 feet from the hole. Both of our opponents putts were makeable but by no means easy. Now the pressure was back on us to get down in two. I had about a 50 foot putt that I hit real well – it ended up about 3 feet below the whole. Lanny was next with about a 45 footer but with much more of a challenge than I had because he was on the upper tier and was going to have to carefully roll the ball along the ridge and just have it gently fall down toward the hole. He executed perfectly and the ball nestled two feet from the hole.

The pressure now went squarely back to our opponents – and they finally blinked. Bill just missed his birdie put by an inch and tapped in for a five. Roger failed to get his par saving putt down and tapped in for his six. That meant that either Lanny or I needed to make our putts. I calmly drained mine for a net birdie, then Lanny did the same with his, giving us two points and tying the match.

The comeback was great because we did it by playing well not by having our opponents hand the match to us (Bill shot a 39 for his nine and Roger had a 41). We managed the tie because Lanny and I shot two over par for the last four holes which included the two hardest holes on the nine.

Yet as satisfying as the tie was, it should have been a victory. We should have gotten at least one point on the hole that we tied during our comeback. Lanny had a five foot putt for birdie that he and I misread and I missed a three foot putt for par. If either of us makes those putts we win rather than tie.

Still, we’ll take the tie given how futile things looked standing on tie of the sixth hole of the match down six to one of the better teams in the league. The point that we earned managed to move us up one notch in the league standings. We are now in sixth place.

I’ll update all on my surgery later today.