Maid-Rite ... Not Quite

I traveled to Greenville on Wednesday to see my girlfriend and I got to visit, finally, one of the legendary landmarks of that little town.

There is a restaurant called Maid-Rite that is the local hotspot for all the surrounding counties. People will drive for over and hour to eat the "hamburgers" there. I call them "hamburgers" because they are not traditional hamburgers. They are the equivalent of "loose meat" sandwiches with the meat having been soaked in beer, topped off with mustard, onions and pickles.

I have been hearing about this place since Tammy and I started seeing each other. According to her, people either love or hate the sandwiches. When her ex-husband took her to the place the first time, he literally turned to her as the car pulled away from the window and asked her to eat the sandwich now in case she wanted him to immediately get back in line for another one.

All I knew was Tammy has gone on and on about these sandwiches since the first time I made the trip to Greenville.

I should also preface the story with the fact that I can at times be a germaphobe. It just sometimes depends on the situation. For example, I don't like to eat or drink after children since they slobber like a leaky faucet.

So we are slowing down on the road and sitting behind a pick up, waiting to pull into the drive through lane and Tammy says, "I guess I should've mentioned this earlier, but I didn't think about it until now. This may gross you out a little."

Probably not the best way to start a conversation when trying to get someone to try new food.

"Do you see the outside wall up there?" I glanced at the speckled wall.

"Yeah," I answered.

"All those little spots are chewing gum. It's a tradition on the building that you stick your chewing gum on the outside of the wall as you go through the drive through."

I think I started gagging when I heard this. I threw up a little on the inside.

As we pulled into the driveway, it looked something akin to this picture, except it covered the entire front and side of the building from the ground to six feet high. This picture is only about a 15 foot section.


I thought I was going to be sick.

I had to shield my eyes from looking at it. According to a link I found online, this has been going on for at least 50 years.

What the Hell is wrong with you people?

I thought I would be sick. Tammy handed me to food as I stopped trying to accidentally glance at the 10,000 pieces of gum stuck EVERYWHERE.

"Sometimes they clean it off with a power washer and it just starts all over again," she tells me.

We picked up her daughter and spent the early evening together when Tammy remembered to tell her where she took me.

Chloe's face lit up. "It's so cool! You go through the drive through and you find yourself searching for the piece of gum you stuck up there before."

I thought I might hurl.

The food was mediocre. It wasn't anything I would drive 54 miles to have.

And the outside decor, while being truly original, was the most disgusting thing I have ever seen next to perhaps a booger wall.

YUCK!!!!!

Chris's [BLEEPING] Roommate (The Story of Ext12)

Over the years, I've had numerous email addresses for my personal use:

ext12@copper.net
ext12@yahoo.com
ext12@netcom.com
ext12@aol.com
ext12@insightbb.com
ext12@columbus.rr.com

These are just some of the addresses. I had one at Earthlink, SBC Global and a Hotmail as well with the same ID.

An astute person might realize a pattern in the email addresses and I have been asked more than a few times why I stuck with "ext12" as a email address ID.

Back in 1989 I was living on Irving Street in a small apartment next to the Domino's pizza. I was a junior in college and this was the one semester where Chris was my roommate. I had known Chris from high school and I transferred up to the University of Dayton my sophomore year after visiting him and Richard Higgins on Halloween and St. Patrick's Day at UD.

My schedule, as a I recall, had classes on Monday through Thursday which allowed me to drink from Thursday through Saturday without missing a class the next morning. I am pretty sure I was out the night before this particular day because I was taking a nap on the couch at 3:30 p.m. when the phone rang. I got up and answered it.

"Hello?"

"Hello. Is Chris there?" It was a girl's voice and I did not quite recognize it. I was sure of one thing, it was not his mom.

"Ummmm, no. He's at Ted's house." I was the only one in the apartment. Our other roommate, Joe, was either downstairs with Mary or out studying 12 hours for a test. He was not one to drink, much less have a mediocre time.

"Do you have the number?" she asked.

"Yeah," I mumbled. "It's 228-7130 - " After 21 years, I still can remember the number to Mike, Ted and Matt's house on Ashley. Then without thinking and without pause, I added, "extension 12."

I could hear the puzzlement in her voice. "Extension 12?"

"Yeah. There's multiple lines there and when one of them answers, they'll transfer you to Ted's line."

"Thanks." And then she hung up.

I went and laid down again.

About an hour later the phone rang again, and I dragged my tired self up to answer it again. This was in the days prior to portable phones, so I had to keep getting up to answer these annoying calls.

"Hey Bryon. It's Chris."

"Hey Chris."

"You want to go to a party tonight with me and Ted? I got a call from Chris Vogt and she has a friend in town from Mansfield and she wanted to take her friend to a UD party."

Upon hearing Chris Vogt's name, there was a light bulb in my head that flickered. I knew her from working in the Kettering Dining Hall on campus. She and Chris had become acquainted there and I had an impression she had an interest in my roommate. The light bulb in my head put together that she was the mystery woman who called earlier.

"Sure, sounds like fun. Richard's house is having a party."

"By the way," Chris told me, "that was the funniest joke you ever did."

"Huh?"

"Chris called here and was asking for extension 12!"

"Seriously? I've done that a hundred times to folks and no one ever fell for it."

Chris was laughing now. "I answered the phone and she said 'Can I have extension 12 please?' I answered, 'What?' And she repeated, 'Can I have extension 12?' And I said, 'Chris is this you?' Then there was a pause and she says, 'Chris, I HATE YOUR [BLEEPING] ROOMMATE.' "

This was puzzling. I was well known to piss people off back in the day (as recently as two weeks ago actually,) but I never expected this kind of reaction for such a harmless joke.

I don't recall where we met up with the girls. I think it may have been outside Founder's Hall by the tennis courts. Chris Vogt's friend was a very pretty girl named Michelle. Instantly both Ted and I were very interested in getting to know her better.

On the way to the party, I learned more about the story that made it funnier than I could have ever imagined.

Chris Vogt and Michelle were in a Kettering dorm room with about 10 other girls eating pizza when she called me and then called Ted's house. The other girls in the room heard her entire conversation including her confusion of asking for extension 12 when se called Ted's number.

The reason she hated "Chris's [BLEEPING] roommate" was because they all heard her side of the conversation, figured out what was going on - that she was the victim of a silly prank - and started teasing her while she was on the phone calling her "Extension 12."

I did not tease that much as we walked to the party. She made it clear she was not in the mood for my shit.

It became her nickname for the next couple of years. All the girls were taunting her when she got off the phone. I imagined it like the shower scene from "Carrie" with all the girls yelling "Plug it up! Plug it up!" except they were teasing "Extension 12! Extension 12!"

The next few hours were spent in the basement of a Ghetto house with Richard and his friends. Ted and I were giving Michelle a lot of attention as we both had an interest in her. Chris, Ted and I were experienced drinkers and within a couple hours we drank about 10 beers. Every time we finished, two of us would go get another round because the girls were actually keeping up with us right up until Michelle threw up all over the basement floor.

Flashback to another party

We were at Doug's Kettering dorm for a party earlier that year. I was late getting there because I had to do a load of laundry so I'd have something clean to wear when I turned the corner and saw Chris standing there giving Mike a condom in the hallway.

Chris was urging Mike, "Take it Mike, it's my last one."

Mike was hammered. "Chrissssss, your sssuch a pal. I got one question. I can't ssseee very well. I wanna know ... Is she cute? I can't see so well."

Chris is laughing. "Go for it!"

Mike took the girl home. Later that night, Ted pulled the fire alarm in a drunken stupor and we learned the rest of the story the next day.

(Pictured: Ted, Doug and Mike)

When Chris and Ted stumbled home that night, they walked up the steps to the porch and the inside door was open. As they started to walk in they heard both bathrooms flushing off the kitchen. They stopped. Mike did not close the deal yet. They retreated down the steps as Mike and the girl came walking towards the door.

The walked to the the other side of a giant bush next to the steps and Mike and the girl sat down there. Ted and Chris were about six feet away on the other side of the bush when the girl turned and vomited off the porch.

Ted started whispering, "Kiss her Mike... Kiss her...."

Chris thought he was going to die laughing. He crumpled down trying not make noise as Ted continued.... "Kiss her."

Back to the Present

So we walked Chris Vogt and Michelle back to the Marycrest dorms and the three of us walked home without saying anything the first few minutes. We were walking across Kennedy Union plaza and I idly thought to myself, "Once she threw up, there was no way I was going to kiss her," which made me think about Mike's infamous night.

We walked past Anderson and were in the parking lot headed to the corner of Brown and Stewart when Ted, verbatim said, "Once she threw up, there was no way I was going to kiss her."

I busted out laughing telling them I thought the same thing which of course led us to recollecting Mike's adventure earlier that semester.

I think we went to Walnut Hills and had a couple more beers before calling it a night.

Years later, while living in Columbus, I got my first internet account and I had to decide on a user ID. I went with 'ext12' in memory of the only time my extension 12 joke ever worked.

If I am ever killed by a sniper's bullet or an assassin's knife, someone needs to direct the police towards Chris Vogt.

Indianapolis 2008

Every once in a while I posted a Springsteen review to one of my online groups. This was a review for Indianapolis (3/20/08).

Chris and I left town at noon after I paid a speeding ticket at the Dublin Mayor's court. My day had not started off well. That lunch cost me $100.00; $8 for the Chinese food and $92 for the ticket. Still, it's cheaper than lunch with Eliot Spitzer.

The ride was uneventful on the way out. No discussion topics or debates (like the Discount Renaissance Faire Tickets from our Philadelphia drive last fall,) just typical chatter in anticipation of the show.

We arrived at Conseco Fieldhouse and found a parking lot about one block away. There was a sign that said "EVENT PARKING - $5" so we jumped on it. The parking lot was packed. As we got out Chris asked me what our parking spot was. Now Chris is one of the smartest people I know. He has a doctorate in Sociology and teaches at OSU, but I gave him a real funny look and I answered. "Dude, there's only 50 cars in the parking lot. I think we'll be able to find the car after the show."

I walked up to pay the attendant and it was then I realized it was automated. "Oh, that's why you asked me what our parking spot was." I needed it to pay for parking cause I had to punch it into the machine.

He didn't have to say anything. He rolled his eyes and shook his head at me. I was blond until I reached the age of six, so maybe there's something recessive that affected me. :-)

We had GAs and needed to get wrist bands for the lottery. The plan was to wait until late as the number tends to be a high number because of the person pulling the number out pulls from the top.

A lady walked by and I asked her, "Did you just get your wristband?"

"Yeah, right through that door?"

What number are you?"

"215." That's a low number for that time of day. That bode well for our chances to get in if they did not give out more than 600.

We talked with Lisa, the woman who had #215, for about 90 minutes. She was an attractive woman and came across as intelligent in general and pretty knowledgeable in the world of Springsteen. As it turned out, she knew a couple of the people from my work as she was an attorney in Ohio and worked in workers' compensation and I was in IT at a WC company.

She said, at one point, "My husband has nothing to worry about my attending shows alone because I said most of the Springsteen fans are more interested in the show that hitting on a married mother of two with a third one on the way."

Without thinking, I responded, "I can kill two birds with one stone."

Yep. That filter is lying in a ditch somewhere, hopefully wearing clean underwear. After I said it, I thought to myself, wow, that was kind of rude.

Eventually Bernie, Richard, Todd and Carol show up and we get our wristbands for the drawing.

We watched the show 25 feet from the stage in the pit.

Lauren and Pat were next to us. I've seen 20+ shows with Lauren over the years and she is the VP of Education at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland. Talk about a dream job for her.

Lauren told me, "I don't care what he plays tonight, I just want them to be ON." The show reports have been detailing how great the band has been in recent performances. Of course Lauren had no idea what would get played!

The lights went down at 8:33 and the band comes out.

It's like a freight train or a sudden tornado sweeping through the trailer park.

The drums build up and Bruce is building it up. "Good evening Indian-a-plus." He pronounced it like a Midwesterner.

"Is there any body ALIVE out there?" Drums and guitars building up like rain and thunder.

Crowd goes crazy.

"IS THERE ANYBODY AAAAALLLLLLIIIIIIIVVVVVVEEEEEEE OUT THERE?" Drums and guitars building up like it's hailing.

And then the "Wall of Sound" blows through as the tornado hits with the rat-a-tat-tat machine gun fire of the drums and sax as the band tears into "Night."

There were a couple audibles tonight as well from folks holding up signs. One requested "Prove It All Night" and that was the fourth song of the night. It replaced "Candy's Room" which was on the setlist.

The real surprise was the audible by Bruce, "Let me see some of those signs," after "Reason to Believe." We got "Rendezvous" and it was a fun version.

The only minor issue, since they had not rehearsed it (I don't think) was trying to end it and they did not end it into the segue for "She's the One" properly. Everyone just stopped, awkwardly. Bruce looks over at the piano and Roy, the piano player, made a motion that signaled, "I screwed up."

I said to Chris, "He's gotta play something else now so they can segue into it."

Bruce seemed to agree as Roy played the opening notes to "Because the Night." It smoked. Nils's solo was insane.

Dan Federici came out to play on the three songs "Promised Land," "Spirit in the Night" and "Sandy." Danny's last show had been in November when it was announced he had melanoma and was leaving the band to get a treatment. The crowd cheered as Danny took his seat at the organ.

"Spirit in the Night" was an audible called by Danny actually. The written setlist had "Growin' Up," but Bruce walked over to the microphone and commented, "He's taking me old school tonight," and the organ led off into the song. It was a fantastic version. The audience embraced the song and Bruce really nailed it on the third verse sliding down the microphone with his back. Bruce finished up next to Danny, encouraging him to finish the solo, stretching it out a bit at the end of the song.



With Danny there, it changed the complexion of the setlist of the show. Two songs from the 1980s, zero from the 1990s, two songs off "The Rising." Everything was off the new album or from the 1970s.

Danny came out for the all five encore songs as well.

I was looking forward to "Girls in Their Summer Clothes," but we get the long overdue (for me) piano intro for "Backstreets." It may be my favorite song, depending on what day it is. I actually knew someone (Laura in Chicago) when she got married, she walked down the aisle to the piano intro of this song rather than "Here Comes the Bride." :-)

Then the guitar screams out the opening to "Kitty's Back" and I am laughing. Lauren turns to me and screams "You've got to be kidding me!"

How in the world do I live my life like I do and be so fortunate to see such incredible songs at one show? Karma was catching up on a lot of payments it owed me.

Another highlight was a sign held up by a little girl during "Dancing in the Dark" as Clarence did the sax solo that said "Dance With Me." Bruce held up the sign and pulled her onto the stage and danced with her as he did with Courtney Cox in the video many years ago. I think the last time he pulled someone up was, oddly, in Indy in 2002 when a woman held a sign up that said "Courtney Cox" and a big arrow pointing to herself.



She started doing this little dance move that was cracking everyone in the band. Bruce mimicked to Stevie her little move and they were all busting out laughing. He put her into the crowd again and finished up the song ...

"Hey Baby!, Hey Baby!, Hey Baby! Owwwwww!"

Then Bruce ran over and pulled her up again and they did the little dance move, going about 30 feet to the right, she was watching Bruce, dancing next to him as they moved, and the Bruce motioned to go back with his head and they moved back across to the center of the stage. It was hilarious and she such a cute little girl that everyone was absolutely dying laughing.

After the show we walked back to my car. We're 40 feet away from the parking lot and Chris says, "Hey, do you remember our parking spot? I don't want us to have to be searching all night for your car." I ignore his witticism and notice I have a little envelope that was a ticket saying I had not paid. I was fired up from the show, so I overreacted. I stopped as I left and shoed him a receipt that I paid $5.00 and it was good until 11:59 PM on that day. I got more defiant and said if the owner has a problem, I'll let him communicate with my lawyer.

I told them I was not paying and that I'll mail a copy of the receipt to the address. He argued that it was a "special event" and I pointed out that there was no sign and no attendent and I acted in good faith and that was the end of it. He gave me a phone number, but I'll just fire off a letter or just ignore it.

It should've said 5:59 PM, not 11:59 PM. (Bryon - let it go.) It's not a city ticket, it's a company ticket, so I really don't think I need to worry about it.

What an unbelievable night.

A month later I was flying into Florida when Danny Federici died. I was going down to see three shows and as a result, the shows were canceled. When Danny played that night in Indianapolis, the general feeling amongst us was excitement because we all thought Danny was getting better with his cancer treatments. It turned out there was a distinct realization that the end was coming soon and Danny was brought out to play one last time with the band before he prepared to die. It made what was a phenomenal show into a more meaningful one.

There's a fund set up for Danny and the contributions go to melanoma research.