That time I went to the derby Part 2

4 May 2008 (continued)




After the race, I had to get back to the car before the others so that I would not be left. I started back to the parking lot only having a vague idea of its location: across the train tracks, near a football stadium before the roller coaster.



The lot was pretty far away and everyone had different directions to it. Not having any time to walk to the bridge to cross the tracks and find the stadium where the car was parked, I quit asking how to get to the stadium and started asking where the train tracks were. I got a lot of, "What do you want to know where the tracks are for?" and "Don't you want to know where the bridge is to cross?" After this, they would go on with their directions to get around/over them. I was just looking for a finger point in the right direction. I'd figure it out from there.

Finally, I asked someone the best way to the train tracks and they pointed me in the right direction. When I got to the tracks there was a fence about 10 feet tall with barbs at the top. It turns out that these things may keep normal people from climbing the fence, but not Mike Donohoe. With a gash on my right hand, and cuts on my leg, wrist and ass I jumped down from a second fence and had finally reached my destination with about a half hour before any of the people in my group arrived. Apparently, they took the scenic route. I made friends with a few 40 year olds that happened to be from Columbus and lived in the neighborhood I was living in when they were my age. They also happened to be giving out free Long Islands.

Following the LIT's things get a bit hazy...It seems that my friends found me. They were amazed by the fact that I was able to get back on my own and were worried that they were going to have to get the police to find me. We went to a pizza joint and parked around back. Then, when we tried to get out of the parking lot, we came up against a locked gate about 8 feet tall. Being as I was a veteran fence climber, I hopped it no problem only to come to a second locked gate identical to the first. When I finally got over and jumped on to the main road, I looked up to see Jamie, Kyle, McNugg and and Jenna standing there waiting for me. They had gone around...

We rolled up into the restaurant and were seated. While they ate, I napped, not necessarily on purpose. When I awoke I saw that there was no more pizza left and more importantly there was karyoke going on. Sensing a second wind, I quickly hopped up to put our name in.

Jamie and McBaby, not wanting to sing, went to sit in the car. Kyle, Jenna and I went up when they called my name and grabbed the mic. They asked what we were singing and I told them not to worry about it; the words would be on screen soon enough. An Asian girl came up and asked if she could sing with us too, so I put my arm around her and we began to sing with the bouncing ball. She sang with us until we got to the first chorus "And I'm proud to be an American where at least I know I'm free/And I won't forget the men who died and gave that right to me..." That's when the Asian girl left and the rest of the bar got on it's feet. Arm in arm with the entire bar, we finished the song to high fives, whistles, cheers...my first standing ovation.

Without a word and without looking back, we dropped the microphones and walked out...