past tales
Shooting Car, and Shooting Car's Death
By Derrick
Quick History. Big Orange was our friend Leb's car that he painted up orange with a big power T on the hood for the Florida game of 98 (or maybe 96?). Anyway, Leb graduated, and left the car at the compound until he could figure out what to do with it.
Well, after a little while, it became center range at "The Compound Shooting Club." For a couple of years, it suffered machine gun fire, shotguns blasts, 9mm, .45ACP, 10mm, .40, .50BMG, you name it.
Well, several different combinations of our friends lived at the compound at one time or another, but Sean Morton and Shawn O'Neal pretty much always lived there for about 7 or 8 years. One day, in the eighth year, the landlord had a logging crew come it to take out some very large trees on the property. Overnight, they left their track loader (like a bulldozer, but the blade is more articulated) down by the gate.
So that night I go by there to visit, and I find Ashley, Shawn, Sean and Steven having a few drinks, and I ask "what's the story with the dozer?" They tell me about the logging, and they were upset about it as it had torn down the fence, and damaged their garage. The large trees had been cut and left laying in the yard for the crew to saw up later.
So I ask Steven, who has experience with equipment..."can we start that thing" He says, "buddy, that's a Dresser, we don't even need a key...we just need to jump it off."
So I say, "Then someone needs to park that dozer on top of Big Orange tonight!"
That's all the motivation they needed. Steven had the dozer jumped off of Shawn's Maxima in minutes, and the games were on. I quickly called Eric and told him what was happening, and man, he got from The Railery to Downtown in about four minutes. It got pretty hazy as it was snowing, cold as hell, and we were drunk, but Steven impressed us with his quick work on Big Orange. He rolled it over, drove over it, flipped it, and so on.
Eventually, Shawn O`Neal took the controls (impressive, as he had never run one before) and rolled the car up onto the felled trees. For whatever reason we left it there, though certainly, the next day the logging crew would figure something was up.
After some more time playing with the dozer, we parked it back were it had been, and called it a night.
The next day, we hazily remembered what had happened the night before. The logging crew came back the next morning and caught Shawn, as he left to go to work at the Brewery, to ask him if he knew whether the dozer had been driven. Of course he told them no, though they weren't convinced as the car that had been parked at the edge of the yard was now crushed and placed on their downed trees. They left, and we took some pictures. They wound up leaving the tree in question, and quickly took their dozer, which disappointed us of course.
A month or so later, a big party was planned. Sean had been getting heat from the landlord over the dozer incident, but figured what the hell.
I cannot describe the party too well as I was LOADED. Perhaps Eric, Patrick, or BigKev (I think BIGKEV was there) can chime in. All I know is that at some point, it was decided that Big Orange would make a great bonfire. Later in the evening, we decided to tear down the garage too. That is why in the pics, there is a bar standing in the middle of nowhere. It had been in the garage, but the garage came down.
Sean's landlord, while unhappy before, was now incensed, and a few weeks later, the Compound days came to a close. What a wonderful time we had there.
The Alex Housley Chronicles Poor Alex must have been the dumbest SOB in Campbell County . He was one of the few people that earned the ire of not only myself but that of most of my close friends and associates. Alex started out by angering Eric over a girl by the name of Jill Carmany. Now normally angering one of us is enough to have the whole group making your life miserable. This wasn’t good enough for this idiot he also managed to directly anger Derrick, Wong, Grot, myself, and even Jerrod several years later. To anger any one of our little group is a bad idea, but to have the entire group mad at once is suicide. This started when we were in high school ( for all of you who wanted some high school stories, here you go!). Any one of us could have killed Housley outright, but we decided it would be much more fun to torture him slowly. It was high school so one of our solutions was to egg his house. Well this got out of hand to the point that we literally had at least one group egging his house every night of the week. In fact on Halloween night there was a line of cars around the block to egg his house. It got to the point that we were getting tired of egging him. We decided to take it to the next level one night. Joe worked with Alex at Old Woodson’s Supermarket and got his schedule for us. One night Derrick, Eric, Wong, DeShae, Amy Nidifer, and myself went to Old Woodson’s and sent Eric, Alex’s primary nemesis at the time, went in and purchased dozen eggs. He made sure he went through the line that alex was working so he would have to bag them. Weaver said that the look of fear and resignation on Alex’s face was worth it, but we weren’t done yet. We drove to his house and simply left the eggs, still in the carton, in his driveway with a note reading, “the ball is in your court now m*th*r f*ch*r!” he did nothing and we grew bored with Alex for a time. Flash forward to my first freshman year at ETSU. Alex was dating a girl that I had an interest in. I decided it would be a nice gesture to send her a dozen roses. Alex did not respond well to this. In fact he did the single stupidest thing he could have possibly done, he took the roses to my father’s classroom at Campbell County High School , threw the roses at him and cussed me to my father. I came by who I am very honestly. Dad is just an older, wiser, more subtle version of me. He and my mother came up with an ultimate way to avenge the family honor. So I froze a large sample of my feces, and then incorporated it into a brownie mix. With the help of my friends I shrink wrapped it into a nice tin and produced a flyer for the ‘free sample” brownies that gave Alex the option of ordering more. I know for a fact, through the girl he was dating, that he ate at least one before realizing that there was something odd about them. I guess he will learn the truth if he ever reads this site. On a side note, I did finally break Alex and the girl in question up though I never dated her. A few years later we found out the Jerrod’s girlfriend, Fro-Mama, was cheating on him with Alex. This was the last straw when Alex found out we were after him again. His current whereabouts are unknown.
The UT street preachers versus Derrick’s PA
I’m not sure how prevalent this trend is at other college campuses but at UT there are groups of street preachers that come several times per year to scream at the student body. Now I’m not talking about nice old men handing out Bibles and asking people to attend church services. I’m talking about crazy zealots who would scream at the students thinking this would change them. For those of you that don’t believe me about this group go to Tucker Max’s website ( http://www.tuckermax.com ) as he has had experiences with the UT’ s street preachers as well.
Personally I always got a kick out of these people and the ones that would stand and argue with them. I don’t practice any particular religion, though I certainly encourage everybody out there to practice there right of religious freedom however they choose.
One day I was walking to class when one of the street preachers accused me of being a masturbator. All I could think was, “well yeah I’m a guy of course I’m a masturbator.” The same day I stood with a couple of UT’s football players and watched the same two members of this little group accost every hot young thing that walked by for being harlots and fornicators (their words not mine). This finally angered me. They were attacking one of the institutions that makes college great, young women who dress scantily and are willing to experiment. I assured the two football players that I was going to get these two back for dissing that which we loved.
I walked to Derrick’s truck hoping that some of our paint ball gear was in there. Sadly it wasn’t and when he arrived at the truck he seemed appalled by the street preachers as well. He decided to drive by and evaluate the situation. As we drove by them I seized his public address system and began quoting scripture of my own to these zealots. Unfortunately the only scripture I could think of at the time was Austin 3:16. So I yelled to them that they could have their John 3:16 because Austin 3:16 says, “I just kicked your ass!” The crowd seemed pleased and Derrick was fairly disturbed. We headed home and my PA privileges were suspended.
Pat and Wong go to Teen Board Teen Board is a debutante ball held in Knoxville every year. My junior year of high school I was invited to teen Board by Windy Lively, my prom date from earlier in the year. Wong also went with Windy’s friend Susan who he had a dating relationship with at one point. Now a little background on Windy. She is a nice girl, very religious, and very straight laced. I liked Windy but she seemed to want a bit more of a relationship than I did. Actually the only big problem Windy and I had was Eric Weaver. Eric, Whiskey for those of you that read the message board, is literally my oldest friendship. Our fathers partied together and it was just natural for us to carry on the family tradition. Windy was very anti partying, but more than anything she was very anti-Weaver. Now I wasn’t nearly the partier in high school that I am now. But hey, we all have to start somewhere. Weaver was my version of Obi-Wan kenobi at the time, he and many others helped make me what I am today. Windy didn’t want me to be this so we had some conflict there. She would have had me in church every Sunday, I was more for being hung over and sleeping in on Sundays. I think to this day she still blames Eric for us never dating. Back to the story. Wong and I knew we were going to Teen Board. We also knew that we would basically be without the rest of our group. Our motto at the time and ,for myself and most of the others I’m sure it still is, go armed or don’t go at all. Hey a little paranoia never hurt hurt anybody. I think our inventory of weapons that night included, two pairs of nunchakus, two swith-blades, three butterfly knives, a short sword, and dozens of throwing stars. Windy and Susan had no clue we were armed until we got there. They seemed a bit taken aback by the fact that we came to a social event armed to the point that it must have seemed like we feared ninja clans were after us. we assured them it was for their protection and we only wanted to be prepared. We parted ways after the event to go to dinner. Windy was having us chauffeured by her friend Phyllis Fannon, Dancin’ Stevie’s older sister. She also had a good hunk of her church youth group ,that weren’t invited to the dance, with her. I’m preety sure she was trying to make me a Baptist. We went to the finest dining establishment in Knoxville , Regis. It is a truly nice place to eat and is very high class. I decided to spice up the evening a bit and went to the cheese cart to cut me off a snack. I balked at the substandard knife that they had to cut the cheese with so I proceeded to whip out a switchblade and cut me a huge hunk of cheese. Most of the other patrons were horrified beyond belief and I saw Windy slump down in humiliation. We had a good meal and on the way home she started pitching for me to come to church with her on Sunday. I told her that I was sorry but I had to sleep in that day. This pissed off the entire group in the vehicle. Windy and I never went out again.
Pat’s first drunken story
Believe it or not I was not much of a drinker during my high school days. That is probably a good thing because i may have been a different Pat if I’d have started early I may have burned out or grown up or something equally bad like that.
Anyway at the end of my senior year of high school Eric’s parents went out of town for the weekend. He decided to have Wong and myself open for an exciting night of getting shit housed drunk. My cousin Keith provided us with a liter of vodka and possibly some other form of liqueur, but it is the vodka that is central to this story.
Wong and I arrived and Weaver declared that we would make screwdrivers and play Grog that night. Grog is a game similar to quarters only with a communal cup, if the quarter lands in the communal cup the last person who finishes drinking their beverage also had to drink the communal. Now I had never been drunk before, sure I’d had beer and frozen drinks but I had never had just straight hard mixed liqueur before. Well we played all the way through the liter of vodka and I drank more than my share. I’m pretty sure Eric and Wong drank whatever other liqueur we also had while i stumbled off.
I made my way downstairs and started drunken dialing. I could only remember Jamie Byrd’s number (who later played a key role in the Alex Housley Chronicles). I called and professed my undying love to her family’s answering machine, fortunately she was at the beach with her family that night. At some point Eric and Wong must have realized that I had disappeared. They came downstairs to find me licking the wall of Eric’s stairwell. They asked me what the hell I was doing and I told them I was licking the oranges. I don’t know why I said that as his walls were not orange nor did they have pictures of oranges on them. But in my hazy vision I’m sure that’s what I saw.
After a while Eric and Wong got me into the guest bedroom and tried to settle me down. I passed out for a few minutes before I woke up and and began emptying the contents of my stomach onto the entertainment center. Eric and Wong heard my retching and came to investigate. The site of half digested pizza all over the place infuriated Eric and he stormed off. As Wong was tending to me Eric came back with his fathers six-gun. Eric stated his intention to end my life and Wong looked at him and said you can’t shoot him. As if on cue I began puking again. The Wong looked at Eric and told him,”you can’t shoot him because I’m going to!” As they wrestled for control of the gun I slithered off to safety. Eventually the shock, disgust and anger subsided and I was allowed to go back to bed. At some point in the night I got cold and couldn’t find the covers, I was so drunk I didn’t know I was laying on top of them. I finally saw them hanging on the wall so I pulled them down, covered up, and passed out. The next morning I found out that I had pulled the curtains off the wall and used them as a blanket.
The next morning we were all feeling kind of rough. I was especially bad as this was a new experience to me. A little later in the morning we were all on different phones with our friend Anya Myers. I was basking in my pain on the downstairs extension with her when the puke pain hit me. I laid the phone down and crawled to the downstairs bathroom, which featured the anomaly known as Thrust Toilet. Then I did something that I have only done this one time, I began dry heaving. Apparently Anya heard this and and was horrified. Shortly thereafter Derrick arrived from summer school ( he had to take English 4 there to officially graduate since he never bothered going to it during the year). He was truly disturbed by what he saw. I was moaning in pain on the downstairs couch wearing nothing but my underwear, Eric was upstairs vacuuming all of my puke up, and Wong was cursing me. Well , that last part isn’t as shocking as Wong cursed everyone all the time. We eventually got the house clean and Eric's parent's were none the wiser when they returned home.
Travelling to UT with Andy
For those of you that don’t know, I truly hate to drive. Especially back in the day. When I was going to UT, I made it a point to find somebody to drive me there. One of these people was Andy Wyrick, or LOF. He was truly Derrick’s Mini-Me. Andy was a great guy though and is the man who was responsible for the drunkest I have ever been.
Andy and I had been riding together for a while when he came up with a brilliant idea. He wanted to take his girlfriend to the apehouse at the Knoxville Zoo while she was menstrating. He was hoping that her potent woman menstrating smell would cause all the varios apes to run up and start masturbating.
More on Andy will be forthcoming.
Traveling to UT with Christy
My first semester at Ut I rode with my friend Chuck’s girlfriend, and eventually his wife, Christy. Christy drove most of the time. I don’t think she liked my driving skills. That was fine with me, seeing as I hate to drive. At one point we were coming home to Campbell County and we were being harassed by an unkind driver. I didn’t take well to this because Christy was: a. my ride b. my friends girlfriend and c. technically she still owes me an evening to have my way with her because I defended her honor once (now I’ll probably never call that one in but at the time I was considering it). Well I dealt with this person the best way I knew how, I started mooning them. Christy didn’t notice this for several minutes, until the person passed us therefore leaving me mooning out of the front windshield. To her credit she didn’t tell me to find another ride. We rode together until she graduated at the end of that semesterHiding from Craig
First a bit of back-story. Chuck Kohlmeyer and Craig Ivey are friends of mine from my tour at Roane State Community College. When I went back to ETSU they transferred to Tennessee Tech and roomed together. Craig is a good guy but could be a bit overbearing at times and rooming with him took its toll on Chuck.
One summer day I was on the phone with Chuck trying to plan the weekend out. All of a sudden I heard Chuck begin cursing. Then he ran to the door and locked it. He finally told me in a hushed voice that Craig’s mother had dropped him off at the top of his drive way and that Craig was lumbering down towards his house. For the next hour we sat there and listened to Craig bang on various doors and windows around the house. While Craig was at the back door Jarred pulled in and must have had the same thought Chuck did. He sprinted to the door and quickly locked himself in. Craig really knew something was up when he saw Jarred’s truck sitting in the driveway. He spent another hour before giving up and walking home, which was roughly a mile away.
Yes this was kind of cruel and I wouldn’t normally condone doing it to one of my friends but damn it was funny.
Cheese, Wine, and Asphyxiation
A few years back a new room was added to The Pat’s Lair. The old carport/back porch was turned into a glassed in sunroom. This made for an excellent addition as it was indoors but I didn’t have to worry about getting it wet after swimming because of the brick floor. I quickly added a big screen TV to the porch for our viewing pleasure. As summer ended and it started getting cooler the new room was less useful. An unvented gas heater was added, thus making the room a year round investment.
The room became my primary entertainment area. It played host to many get-togethers over the years.
One night was particularly note worthy in its folly and almost disaster. Stevie came over to watch TV one winter night. It was cold so I fired up the heater. I also cracked open a fresh bottle of wine and a new block of cheese. We were eating like we were Frenchmen in a sauna. I had the heat cranked up rather high as it was in the teens outdoors that night. We both noticed we were unusually tired but blamed it on the alcohol in the wine. Eventually the heater cut off. Stevie mumbled to me, “Go turn the heater back on!” Try as I might I couldn’t make the heater fire back up. I then noticed the pilot light was no longer lit. Some where in my oxygen deprived mind I remembered something in the owner’s manual about a safety feature that shut the heater down completely when there wasn’t enough free oxygen in the room. This epiphany caused me to open one of the doors and let some fresh air in. It is amazing how quickly we woke up when we had some fresh air. Stevie did seem a might bit upset that I had nearly suffocated us both but he quickly got over it when I fed him more wine. We moved our festivities inside for the remainder of the evening and learned not to crank the heat up as high.