The “Connection” aspects of the 2018 Purge and Connection Tour took on a lot of different traits. During the course of my travels I connected with the place of my birth, our oldest national road, septuagenarian hold outs from the 1960s counter-culture movement, my grandson (and his parents), the beauty and grandeur of West by God Virginia, cruising Mayberry in a 1960 era sheriff’s car, a fortuitous encounter at the beach, and surprisingly good quality lodging at $50 per night motor courts (get your minds out of the gutter — ignore the connection between fortuitous beach encounters and $50 motel rooms).

These connections, with the lone exception of seeing my grandson (and his parents), came about because I entrusted my decision making process to the flip of a coin. My trusty 1990 quarter conveyed me along a serpentine route over the mountains, down to the sea, ending up someplace in northern Georgia. At this point, I left the quarter in my pocket and, instead, pulled out my phone. The conversation went something like this:

“What do you say we party like a 50-year-old in a mid-life crisis meltdown?” I asked.

He paused for almost a complete second and thoughtfully replied, “If I leave work at noon, I can be there in time for a great steak dinner. I know just the place.”

TFLAO (The First, Last, And Only — the kind of nickname that sums up everything) is a very cherished (translation: older than a sequoia forest) friend, now living in the Peach State (probably under some kind of witness protection program).

In our troubled youth, his particular strength was being just as skilled at getting me into trouble as he was adept at keeping me out of trouble. I remember one night…on second thought, I’d better hold off on sharing that memory because I have no idea how long until the statute of limitations makes it safe to discuss. We’ll leave that story for a different day (but, it sure was a good one).

The two of us set out on the original 1971 Connection Tour, hitchhiking our way across this vast country until Newport, Oregon, a beautiful woman, and the Pacific Ocean thwarted our westward travels. The main differences between the 1971 and 2018 tours were twofold (1) decisions were not made by the flip of a coin, but by the direction of the next car that stopped and offered a ride, and (2) because we were white boys from the suburbs, we had little to no angst to purge. The nearly five-decade span between “tours” was of no consequence.

He arrived in time for dinner — bearing gifts. He had hats made that read “Purge And Connection Tour — 1971 to 2018.” How cool is that? How he pulled that one off is beyond me, but it goes a long way towards explaining how he acquired “The First, Last, And Only” moniker.

We laughed, man-hugged as only the best of friends can hug, and started to party like it was 1999. I remember it all started with me buying the house a round of drinks (some of my best stories start out with those words). The house consisted of about a half dozen goodhearted souls, drinking away the afternoon while bellied up to the bar.

I know they were goodhearted because each of them returned the favor by buying a round for TFLAO and myself. That part I remember. I also remember a couple of days later, when I was leaving the motel room with a very large headache and a need hydrate my body by drinking the top 8 inches off Lake Michigan.

For the next several weeks, people I cannot remember sent me pictures of the events from those lost couple of days. Once again, there were pictures to prove my lies, but it might take until the next statute of limitations runs out before I can figure out the story those pictures are trying to tell.