Big Leather Couch

The party was in Pennsylvania...a small town in the middle of nowhere. The summer had been going great. Working as a life guard at the local pool, the tan was a solid bronze and he had met a few nice ladies (girls) who admired him more for the fact that he was a lifeguard then his looks.

At 19, who cared why they liked him, all he cared about was he had dates most night of the week.

So, back to the party...he was meeting his friends in Westchester at Jamie's house. They were all planning on driving together and planned to have some fun before even getting to the party. There was Gary, who had come down from upstate NY and they were going in his car...Jamie and his girlfriend Nikki, Paul and Val and CJ, the lifeguard. 6 of them in that big old Buick. It would be tight, but hey...summer...fun...booze and some weed and what more can you want in life.

As they left Jamie's house, they stopped at the local deli and picked up 3 cases of beer...didn't want to run out or anything, did they?

Now, the question was, who was going to drive out of the city? Gary had already been smoking a few on his own, so he didn't want to be the chauffer. Paul took the wheel...they must have been young and stupid for sure! SO, they had Paul driving, Gary in the center and CJ was in the shotgun seat. In the back, Jamie, Nikki and Val behind the driver.

Joints lit, beers open, they are off on their adventure. They drove down the NY Thruway and took the ramp to the George Washington Bridge. As they are getting to the other side (THE JERSEY SIDE), CJ looks up and sees Paul is in the wrong lane and has taken the wrong off-ramp. "Paul, we were supposed to be over there" CJ shouts and everyone groans.
"No problem", is Paul's reply and he cuts the wheel to the right and heads for one of those openings in the guard rail. You know, the opening that is just barely wide enough to let a car go straight through and Paul was going to try and cut the angle.

Horns blare as Paul cuts across two lanes of traffic and then, miraculously, through the guard rail. As they get through, CJ looks to his right and sees the Winnebago barreling down on them and begins to see his 19 years flash in front of his eyes. He can barely hear Nikki's scream above Paul's insane laugh as Paul cuts across two more lanes of traffic and hits the exit ramp at over 60 miles per hour...tire squeeling.

Paul continues laughing, but everyone is now shouting about what an insane lunatic he is and that there was no way he was going to continue driving. They made Paul pull over and Jamie got behind the wheel and Paul slid in the back on the drivers side, putting Val on the hump (which he complained about until someone shoved another beer and a joint into his mouth) with Gary moving into the back next to the passenger window and Nikki taking the middle seat between CJ and Jamie.

Jamie hadn't been drinking, so they felt a bit more comfortable with him behind the wheel. Everyone continued to slam down beers and a joint was in constant circulation over the next few hours. It had gotten dark and they were almost to the NJ/Pennsylvania border. They were going to cross at the Phillipsburg/Easton crossing. One of their fraternity brothers lived in Phillipsburg, but there was not room for Corky, so they kept driving.

It is now near midnight as they cross into Easton, PA and from the back seat comes a groan, alerting them all to an unpleasent possibility.

The blast of air in the car alerted them to the fact that Paul had rolled down the window (yes, a crank not an electric window), and Paul's head was outside and the sounds of him depositing his share of the beer onto the highway could be heard.

Almost immediately, another sound was heard...the sound of the police cruiser that had pulled out from behind the gas station they had just passed! "Everyone hide the joints!" Gary shouted.

Jamie pulled into a parking lot and the cruiser follwed them in. The officer, a local Easton cop, not a Pennsylvania trooper, climbed out of his car and made his way to the drivers window.

Jamie rolled down his window, "Evening officer, was I speeding?" "No, son, but your friend was decorating the side of your car and the road with his vomit...is he ok?"

"Yes, sir, we are sorry, we are on our way to a party in Hamburg and, well, Paul had a few drinks before we left and got car sick."

"I see, well show me your license and everyone else, how about some ID" was the office's response. Jamie pulled out his license and the rest grabbed theirs and handed them over. In the back seat Paul opens the door and barfs again.

"This your car son?" asked the officer. From the back, Gary replies, "No sir, it is mine."
"Can I see the registration."

Gary says to CJ in the front, "Hey it is in the glove compartment." So CJ opens the glove box and starts rumbling through it. "Can't find it Gary."

Gary opens the back door and as he does the cop comes around to the passenger side. As Gary opens the front passenger door about 8 beer cans come tumbling on to the pavement. You see the beer cans were so high on the floor, CJ's feet were on the cans and not the floor by that point.

The officers light shines down and a small shake of his head can be seen. "Been doing some drinking?" he looks up and says.
"Well sir, we are all from the same college, the same fraternity in fact, except for Nikki, and we are on our way to a big summer bash, and well...I guess we started a bit too early" answers CJ.

"Same college, huh?" says the officer. "Yes sir" and they all grabbed their college IDs and hand them to him.

In the meantime, Gary is rummaging through the glove compartment as he leans into the car. "Where is that registration?" he mumbles and reaches, once more for his wallet. As he opens it, a joint tumbles out. Gary, thinking quickly, proceeds to dump the entire contents of his wallet on top of the joint, grabbing the regsitration, which had been in the wallet the whole time, and hands that to the officer. Gary and CJ, proceed to bend over and pick up the beer cans, the papers and silently, the joint and throw it all into the car and the glove compartment.

The officer looks at all the licenses and IDs and the registration and straightens himself up to his full 6'4" height and flashes his light into the car once more.

From the front, CJ smiles and says "Officer, Jamie has not been drinking the whole time, which is why he is driving sir." The officer says "Is that right?"

From the car comes a chorus of "YES SIR!" Except for Paul who is barfing on the side of the road once again.

As he hands all the paperwork and IDs to Gary, the officer looks into the car again and says...

"I suggest you use that dumpster over there to get rid of all of these empties and also not make any more empties before you reach your destination...you never know if you might get stopped by a cop."

He touches his hat with his fingers and walks back to his car and drives off.

They all sit there in silence...until the first giggle starts and then the entire group is in an uproar laughing. They did empty the car, they didn't drink another beer until they reached Hamburg and the rest of the weekend was a blast...but NOTHING they did that weekend compared to that 10 minutes on the side of the road in Easton, PA.

Thanks for sitting on THE COUCH, hope you enjoyed your stay.

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Keep that spark of insanity kids...It helps keep you an individual.

Wade Winter was not famous like the other two men I am dedicating posts to over this 7 day period. Not famous in the same sense as Thurman or Jerry, but he was famous within the “world he inhabited.”

I met Wade Winter at Rochester Institute Of Technology sometime my sophomore year. I had begun to hang with some of the members of Tau Kappa Epsilon Fraternity and though I can’t remember the exact first time I met him, his personality just enveloped me.

Wade was living over in one of the apartment complexes on campus with his girlfriend Randi (Left) at the time, so he wasn't always around. But when he was, you knew it. His laugh was infectious, his love of life so evident.

Wade and Randi married while still in school and that was the first wedding I ever attended.

Wade came to RIT to play football. RIT was a low division 3 school and 1972 was actually the last year they played football there. He grew up in Liverpool, NY – which I always thought was funny, because in some ways Wade was a Beatle. People flocked to him.

A lefty quarterback, he butted heads with his coach during his time on the team. The coach is someone many football fans know…Tom Coughlin, the current head coach of the NY Giants.
At RIT, football was not a big deal. What was a big deal was fraternity flag football. When the football program ended, Wade began playing football with our fraternity team. Now remember, he was a quarterback for the school team, but we had a guy from Buffalo, Mike, who was a real good signal caller and Wade became Mr. Everything. Running the ball, catching the ball, playing defense, kick returns…you name it and man he did it all well, winning the fraternity MVP for football.
We partied hard in TKE…we were the “animal house”, the “jock house” (We went undefeated in flag football and won 2 years in a row...won basketball…won softball…OH and we threw the best parties around. Wade was involved and when he and Tom got engaged, we had the best bachelor party for them!

Wade and Randi eventually split and a few years later, he met Sue. Wade and Sue brought Jeremy and then Alan into the world. These two kids were the funniest and were always around whenever there was something going on. They both seemed to be born as teens.
Wade worked for Met Life and that meant they moved. Let me see – if I forget a town, someone will correct me. I believe they began in upstate NY...or maybe it was Rhode Island… At one point they were supposed to move to Long Island near me and they lived in a hotel for about a month while their home was being readied. Well as they were about to move in, he got transferred to Texas. Then it was Chicago, then upstate NY. Wade grew in the company, moving higher and higher, eventually having 100's of people reporting to him.

I remember getting a call from Wade at one point. Wade was in a Friday’s outside of Chicago and sitting at the bar eating, reading Rolling Stone. Wade called to tell me he saw a letter I had written to the pub. Wade was so excited by seeing a friend’s name in print. This was true Wade...always thrilled when his friend's accomplished something special. Funny thing is, on a business trip years later, I ended up at that same Friday’s and called him to tell him about that!

Over the years, because of circumstances beyond my control, I missed many of the parties that were held. It was something that always bothered me, but in life, things happen. But we would talk often. Missed were, the races in Saratoga, the ski trips, the trips to Buffalo Bills games..legendary gatherings and Wade was there and Uncle Rookie was there beside him They were ying and yang...the right hand and the left...bonded in the fraternity...but more so, bonded in life. (The Rookie & Wade at the races)

And there was fantasy baseball and football. Wade was commissioner of our baseball league for years. This was before the Internet where the sites would do all the work and Wade would calculate all the stats by hand!

Across the country you would hear stories of “The Wade Winter Band”…he even ended up with a t-shirt he wore often…no real band, but people thought so.

The last big party I got to attend at Wade and Sue’s was a blast…Matt was about 6 or so I guess and he followed Jeremy and Alan all around!

As things do... things changed and Wade ended up moving to Ohio for business – but went alone. He had met Ingrid and they eventually married.
(Left: Ingrid with Uncle Steve)

Ingrid had a daughter and Wade became her dad…loving her as he loved life and his two sons.

Then the news… Wade was diagnosed with non-Hodgkin’s lymphoma. For me, it was the second slap, as Mom had been diagnosed just a few months earlier. As I was able to follow mom’s treatment, I talked to Wade about his.

Wade never changed…his spirit was so high. Wade would want to talk about my mom and not him…how was she…how was I…but that was Wade.

He went into remission, as mom did and we all breathed a sigh of relief, but it was short-lived. The cancer came back and this time it was going to be a rougher ride. Still Wade remained Wade....always with the smile you see in the picture at the top on his face.

If I called, Wade would turn the subject to Matt and baseball…and we would end the call and I would realize Wade never answered the question “How are you feeling?”

Then we heard Wade would need a bone marrow transplant to try and cut this hideous disease off. I called my doctor and got the information to make an appointment to see if I could becme a donor. Wade went to Indianapolis to get ready…having to be isolated before they began to kill his cells off.

Then word came... they found a match…some woman who was in the system and willing to donate. There was the light again. But Wade's body could not cope. It certainly was not his attitude or his will...they were huge fighters.

The call came August 7th…Wade had left us. I went and sat by myself. I had lost a friend when I was in high school, and one when I was in my 20’s…but this was different. This was Wade.

This was a man whose love for life was extraordinary. Everyone was “Uncle” to Wade. Uncle Vinny, Uncle Andy, Uncle Dean, Uncle Shebs, Uncle Rook...etc etc... And he was ALWAYS UNCLE WADE. We were family. These men are my brothers - always will be and one of my brothers was gone now and it hurt so damn bad.

The calls began…across the country…word spreading. Flying was out of the question. The logistics were a nightmare. So, Uncle Andy, Uncle Dean, Uncle Tige, Uncle Tom and Uncle Vinny decided to rent an SUV and drive it. With five of us in the car it would be a snap.

We all met early…a Lexus SUV...big enough for the 5 of us. We hit the road…a 10-hour drive and arrived just as the wake was going to begin. The place was overflowing. Uncle Shebs was in from Chicago…Uncle Stevie from N. Carolina…Uncle Jay from Rochester…Uncle Rookie from Whitehall…and phone calls from the other brothers who could not make it…

So many people. It was strange...all these friends from Ohio, who treated the fraternity brothers like “royalty.”

We were the other members of THE WADE WINTER BAND and they wanted us to feel welcome.

We then headed to the local pub to celebrate Wade. Jeremy, Alan, his girlfriend and another friend from home were there. Of course Sue was with us…and Bill & Shirley (Left), Wade’s mom and step-dad (that said for clarification- Bill was Wade's dad…in every way). Bill is part of our football league...he is a blast…Shirley can keep up with all of us and is one of the funniest women I have ever met. I truly appreciate them both…we all do.

We got nuts in the bar... drinks flowed…and flowed and flowed…then- it was back to the hotel and the party continued in the room I was sharing with Tom. It went until who knows what time, but we were all moving slowly the next day for the funeral.

Again, the place was packed…there were seats saved right up front…for the fraternity boys.
Then the eulogies began. The friends from Ohio talked about this guy moving in a few years before. He would be out in the street playing with the kids. The guy who would organize parties on the spur of the moment…the guy anyone could call on at a moments notice if they needed assistance.

Anywhere Wade lived, I think, his neighbors would have said the same words.

Uncle Andy got up and read a letter he had received. He had made some phone calls and gotten word to Tom Coughlin about Wade's passing. This man remembered his “left-handed” quarterback and their head-butting sessions like it had been 2 years ago, not the 32 years it had been. What a wonderful keepsake for his families to have.


All in all, we spent 20 hours in the car and 10 hours in Ohio, but I would never have done it any differently and neither would the others. The year before, there was a party for Wade's 50th birthday and – once again- I was unable to go. This will haunt me forever…that I let certain circumstances keep me from being there and celebrating with my friend…my fraternity brother…my bandleader…Wade Winter.

I know he still looks down on us and I can hear his laugh...and right now he is saying,

So, Uncle Wade… this one’s for you bud…race you to the bar.

Over the years, some facts have become cloudy...I invite all who loved Wade to leave a comment with your memories...or to correct mistakes above.