Hey Verne....

I was reminded of a friend of mine whom I haven't spoken with since his 40th surprise birthday party some 12 or 13 years ago.  We have been friends since baseball at Hillside little league.  His name is Vaughn, or as I called him for years, Verne.  We always get Christmas cards from him and his wife Jean, but ours to them always come back. 

Anyway, Vaughn and I worked together as bouncers at the Aquarius lounge at 72nd and Pacific in Omaha.  The building was round and is now gone, just for some background info.  The front entryway was made of plexi-glass because too many people were thrown through the glass when we were asking them to leave for poor behavior.  It was one of the last big clubs in Omaha to have live bands playing at that time...circa 1975.  We would always go out to breakfast or get a six pack of beer after work and unwind. 

One night we decided to unwind with a lot of beer and eventually finshed it all atop the construction crane on the University or Nebraska at Omaha campus.  Probably not a great decision.  No one fell off,  luckily.

Vaughn is the one who took the call from my mother on June 25th, 1975 teling him to bring me to her house after work.  She told Vaughn why but he never told me.  That was the night I found out my best friend John  had been killed in a construction accident.  News that would change the course of my life.  I never thanked Vaughn for handling that situation so well.

Eventually I moved away, went to school and ended up in Scottsbluff Nebraska working for a radio station.  (Not the end of the world, but you can see it from there.)  Vaughn came and visited me one summer.  He limped into town in his camaro with a blown engine.  We then went to a carnival thing in Gering.  I was with Ellen Ramirez and I don't remember his girlfriend's name. We got as far as a game of chance to win a TV.  That is all the further we got that night.  They wiped us both out of all our money.  I think Vaughn lost over $200.That was the end of that vacation.

Vaughn is someone I need to get hold of one of these days.  Not just for friendship, but I think he owes me like 5 bucks.

That is all...Peters out!