Shoot-out surprise

Last week, I put a boat on the car, and a sleeping bag in the back, and the dog in the passenger seat, and drove South. Spring had exploded in a party time uproar down there, and each tree was either white with popcorn blossoms or purple with candy beads.
The school was just in West Virginia and I visited them just last week, killing a possum, exploding a bird on my windshield, hexing myself and driving away from a gas station with the gas pump still in the car (which led to the tongue lashing of my life from a West Virginia meth head) in the process. But now....there they were in North Carolina! My state (my current state anyway). I had to go visit them again, and this time hope less roadkill, black magic and people yelling at me. Let me advise you, if you ever have a friend or two (or 16, in my case) in the same corner of the country, take a day off and drive down to see them . . .

Under normal circumstances, the world's most alternative high school exists within its own world, alone on the banks of some rural Chilean river or packed like sardines into the little house in Fayetteville. Under normal circumstances, it's just us....making our own entertainment, causing our own trouble.

. . . this was no normal circumstance. It just so happened to be the big Shoot-Out at the NOC. . . a freestyle kayaking rodeo competition that boasted a 10,000 cash purse. The place was just crawling, literally crawling with kayakers and pros and big names and friends and strangers and people 'in the industry', a huge sound system boomed over the cold, cold river, there was beer and liquor all over the place, and at night there was a garish light thrown over the wave so we could paddle till midnight.

It was a bit....as you can imagine....

more to come....