Turns Out, Yes You Can Go Back

The Boys of '77 find the memories still linger.
Part 2 of 2. See Part One here.

Fisk, Stillings, Jesse, Mort, Stormin:

The grail at hand, once again.

Bing.

A text message lights a screen in Seattle.

"Hey Teasdale, it’s Magee. I'm in the pooper at Vancouver airport. Just ran into Walker. He sees me, cracks up. Just laughing and pointing. I mean I haven’t seen the guy for two years and he starts in on my outfit. Flip-flops, sweats, a week's growth on my face, baggy tee on an international flight, so what? Fuck him. You should see the plaid monkey suit he's got on. He's not gonna be laughing when he can't sleep on that flight. And I guarantee you, his ballsack in those pants... A ten hour flight, man. Ten hours..."

The things that matter when you turn 60. 'Cause, y'know, stuff's g

Like a Stranger in a Crowd...

June, 2017

Somebody had to put it together. This reunion thing. Someone had to do it. It’s been forty years.

 The scene of the crime.

They shine in our memories, those nine boys, up there on a podium drenched in the late afternoon brilliance of an English countryside in 1977. They’re up there, breaking musty British propriety in their Husky racing shirts because there just was no time for stuffy coats and ties, all grins with their trophy, surprise and joy and triumph and exhaustion etched in their smiles. In those old photos we can even feel the power in their grips as they shake hands with the officials, the officials who can’t believe these young American bucks crossed an ocean to take victory in a race they weren’t expected to win.

Jackman, Sawyer, Parker, Miller, Umlauf, Fisk, Franklin, Hess. Stillings at cox.

Well rowed, gents. Next time bring a coat and tie.

These boys came from nowhere -- "we weren't really that good," Mort said -- to take the Henley Grand Challenge in 1977. It was a Grand Theft really, stealing the hardware from a heavily favored Leander Club to write their names in Husky history.