Hooner's Bachelor Weekend

My brother Hooner will be leaving the ranks of the unmarried in October, and this weekend my brother Tick and I took him on a bachelor celebration in St. Petersburg.

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Hooner arrived on Thursday early evening, and I talked him into a spontaneous trip to to Vero Beach on the Florida East Coast. I had an intense desire to go body surfing, and the Gulf Coast just doesn't have the waves. We left a little after midnight, and early into the trip I felt my enthusiasm wane. Still, it was good to be back in Vero, our family's common vacation destination throughout my childhood. I hadn't been there for over fifteen years.

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After very little sleep, we arrived at the beach the following morning only to find the Atlantic completely serene and waveless. I have never seen anything like it. It was clear that there would be no surfing of any kind.

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That afternoon, Tick joined us and we departed for St. Petersburg. The weekend had all of the mishaps and hijinks that we could have asked for. The trip was anchored by three Tampa Bay Rays baseball games, all of which we won in either convincing or spectacular style. There was plenty of merrymaking before and after games that sometimes went overboard (Bob set firecrackers off in the bathroom). My diet went out the window, as I enjoyed such delicacies as pancakes, pizza, and fried mozzarella. We topped the trip off with a trip to a menswear store where we were fitted for our wedding suits.

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Good times.