Sitting at home one evening, we stumbled upon “Bono: Stories of Surrender” on Apple TV. The film is an adaption of Bono’s one-man show and best selling memoir. It was captivating, personal and intense. Watching it brought back the memory of the first panic attack I remember having.

It’s funny and strange the little things our minds remember that people tell us. Oftentimes our friends can’t even recall saying it, but it impacts us. Sometimes it’s criticism, or a nice complement, or nothing important at all. Yet, our minds, even decades later just won’t let it go.

I remember a college friend, William F., in early 1981 adamantly claiming U2 was going to be the next big thing. I always thought of myself as being musically savvy. I had no idea who U2 was and I thought it was a stupid name. William F. is Irish so I assumed that was one of the reasons he was selling them so hard. Their fifth album, Joshua Tree, came out March 7, 1987. William F. was correct, U2 had become big.

That was the era of AIDS. It was a scary time to be in your twenties and single. Disinformation was rampant, which just elevated the fear factor. I remember being at a social gathering and some of the more ignorant being afraid to open a sliding glass door because my buddy, a known womanizer, had just touched it. The hysteria was so bad some people no longer hugged. Then there was the theory that if you had unprotected sex with someone it was the same as sleeping with everyone they had ever slept with. If you let that get into your head, the number became huge. 

I wasn’t the most promiscuous guy. I’d say my reputation was worse than the reality, but still…I’m a worrier by nature. I’ve been told I buy worry by the truckload. I had myself convinced I had contracted AIDS.

According to the Google machine, U2 played the San Diego Sports Arena on April 13 and 14, 1987. I don’t know which date Kim and I attended. This was the tail end of our five years or so relationship. The last couple of years were more off than on. We both cared deeply about each other, it just wasn’t to be.

I was so worked up about thinking I had AIDS that I experienced a full on panic attack and we had to leave the concert. To be honest, I don’t remember if we even made it through the first song. Kim was very understanding.

Soon after that, we all started getting tested for AIDS. It was agonizing waiting multiple days for the test results. 

Sometime after we finally ended our relationship, Kim said to me when she hears the Pretenders song Back on the Chain Gang it reminds her of me. I like to think it’s the verse:

I found a picture of you, o-o-oh, o-o-oh

Those were the happiest days of my life

Like a break in the battle was your part, o-o-oh, o-o-oh

In the wretched life of a lonely heart 

 

Long, long time ago…

Myself, Kim, and House heading to some wedding in 1987.

 

The Double E Ranch was our base for five nights in Colorado. We might have to change the name of our website to Greg & Amelia’s Adventures as this was another non Airstream trip.

If you recall our blog post First Came the Thunder, we are big Chuck Prophet fans. Amelia is fanatical about his latest release Wake the Dead. She’s calling it her favorite album of the decade. We’ve been dying to see Chuck live, sure as shit, he was in San Diego while we were in Alaska. So we checked the upcoming tour dates. He had two gigs in August in Denver and Boulder. And we have friends that recently moved to Fort Collins. It was the proverbial killing two birds with one stone. We booked our flights, bought our tickets to the shows, and reserved a hotel room in Denver for one night.

The agenda was take the shuttle from Denver to Fort Collins, spend Wednesday night at the Double E Ranch. Needles and Tracee were kind enough to let us use their new Audi Q7 and on Thursday afternoon we drove back down to Denver, checked into our hotel, and caught the show Thursday night at Globe Hall. On Friday we had time to kill so we did a few things around Boulder before the 7pm show at eTown Hall. After the show we returned to the Double E for the weekend, and departed Monday.

Chuck Prophet and his Cumbia Shoes did not disappoint. It’s rare nowadays when something exceeds your high expectations. The first show at the Globe Hall in Denver blew us away. The energy was amazing. The second show in Boulder was quite a bit different. It wasn’t really a show, it was a taping for eTown. The sound quality was perfect and we were in the front row for this seated show where the hosts also interviewed the artists. 

The Double E is on a nice little 120 acre spread west of Fort Collins. They’ve just started raising Dexter cattle. They have five cows and one Aberdeen Angus bull. They are all short and stocky, just like Needles and me, since I’ve been shrinking. 

We’ve known Needles for decades. Never in our wildest dreams did any of us think he’d end up as a rancher in Colorado. 

It seems like all of us have nicknames. Needles real name is Doug. Back in the early 90s we were all calling him Neidermeyer, because of the character in Animal House, Douglas C. Neidermeyer. The classic story from back then involves Rheinhardt. Dave House had a condo in Mammoth where we all hung out. If you stayed there you left your season pass on one of the jacket pegs in the foyer. One day Rheinhardt was looking at all the passes and had Doug’s in his hand. With a perplexed look on his face, he said, “Doug Hoffee? I thought his name was Neidermeyer!” Neidermeyer eventually evolved to Needles and now he’s stuck with that name.

They are just like dogs. Shake the treat container and they come running.

 

 

A 38 second clip to give you an idea how fun Cumbia music is.

Showmanship

 

Then we killed more time at Sanitas. Of all the breweries in town we picked this one because my mom loved owls.

 

 

Our generous hosts busted out some incredible wine for our last evening.

 

 

All in all it was a fabulous trip, but one can always find something to complain about, commercial air travel is a drag. If you’re not a fan of people, then you are going to have a tough time with the busy airport terminals, and being packed like sardines on the plane. We are looking forward to our next big Airstream trip in October.