The Midnight Ride of Rich and Dave

Before the world of e-mail or even faxing, for that matter, took over the CFCL, we used regular mail (snail mail as it's called nowadays) and occasionally the River Forest/Oak Park/Brookfield version of the Pony Express.  Bob Monroe had done something on his computer (probably printed up the stats or it might have been the official list for the draft) that we needed.  We talked about schedules and when we could pick up the documents he had for us.

We finally decided that Bob would leave an envelope by his front door and David and/or I would come by and pick it up.  Since we started the CFCL in 1984 and had our driver's licenses at that point, I suppose using a car was an option.  But we went old school.  I biked over to David's house in Oak Park and from there he and I biked to Bob's house in Brookfield.  Either because we wanted to make it an adventure or because we were busy earlier in the evening, we ended up making the trek there and back around 2am.  Hand to God.  Why?  Because we were in our early 20's and we didn't have women in our lives.  Daylight is for sissies.  In fact, that may have been the chant we used to keep pace as we worked the sidestreets in the early morning hours.

The next day at work, things were slow and I was staring at the electric typewriter at my desk thinking that this bike ride needed to be documented.  And so I crafted the following.  You can tell how scared I was about doing something non-work related during business hours - I typed it all up on company letterhead.  A little side note that I just noticed.  Look at the phone number in the letterhead.  Do you notice anything interesting?