Today used to be a day I looked forward to for weeks. Mind you, weeks were a LONG time in the mind of an early 20-something. But I digress. I'm writing about how special today was and is. A quick glance at your calendar will note that today is not my birthday (My birthday BETTER be on your calendars), it's not release day for the new Madden, and nope...it's not the drop day for Ke$ha's new single.
What's so special about today? It's Preakness, baby. In all it's glory...it's PreakNic. It's "The Infield" and I ain't talking about no Camden Yards. It's PreakNasty. And for us Marylanders, it might as well have been the most ginormous State Fair/Festivus/Big Sale at Hecht Company all rolled into one.
The Preakness Stakes are a major deal in the horse racing world. Understandably, because it's the 2nd of the 3 legs of the Triple Crown, and things with 3-legs are either awesomely odd, or something to be worshiped...am I right ladies (and some of you guys)? But in the glorious environs of: Charm City - The City that Reads - Home of "The Wire" - STDCentral - otherwise known as Baltimore, Preakness might as well BE the Triple Crown. And the Lombardi Trophy. And that cup thingy that Jesus drank out of.
We Baltimorons are made to believe that Preakness is a right of passage for all to experience until our livers, our spouses/children/jobs, or a judge prevent us from doing so. 98 Rock with their Kirk, Mark & Lopezes used to whisper sweet nothings across the airwaves starting shortly after New Years, reminding us how many days it was until "The Infield." We HAD to go. It was our DUTY as crab-lovin, NattyBoh drinkin, sorta-rednecks-but-not-really-because-Howard-County-and-Owings-Mills-are-rich-suburbs to attend Preakness. We spend the better part of high school trying to figure out how we can get to it. It's a Marylanders right!
I feel it's important to say that there's two experiences to Preakness. One is the wanna-be Kentucky Derby that happens in the grandstands. It is the "Wear a cute hat and sundress" for the ladies, while the men don their Calvert Hall or Loyola ties with plaid blazers, white UVA lacrosse hat, khakis, and flip flops. The mint juleps are replaced by black-eyed-susans and the stories being regaled in those grandstands are about how McDonough lacrosse is this year, and when the sailboat down in Annapolis will be Bay-ready. And don't get me wrong. There's nothing wrong with being a rich, snobby son-of-a-bitch who's Daddy bought you a Mercedes for your 16th birthday. But that Grandstand experience is alien to most Marylanders. And they'd just as soon have it that way.
It's the OTHER Preakness that we all wanted anyway. It's the OTHER Preakness we'd remember (sorta) for years to come.
The REAL Preakness was about waking up at 5am to meet your friends at someone's house (usually mine...thanks and sorry Mom!), or a local bar to board a chauffer-driven school bus. Odds are that you were showing up slightly hung-over from partying a little too late the night before. So when your friend reached into the cooler that was literally the size of a coffin and grabbed you a cold Beast Light, you were in dire need of cracking it open quickly and glugging that golden goodness as fast as you could. Who knew a dog's hair could taste so wonderful.
Part of what made this a PERFECT time was that finals had ended for colleges, and we were too early into summer jobs to be fired yet. Preakness often represented the first "write-up" you'd get that summer. And it was always so worth it. Also, Memorial Day was still a couple weeks away, so you didn't have to go "DowneyOhshunHon" yet.
Arriving at Pimlico Race course was also always a lesson in humility...and bartering...and Sociology. Let's just say that the neighborhoods surrounding Pimlico and it's Preakness weren't the kind of neighborhoods that most of the attendees spent a lot of time in. Unless they were scoring some dope for the party.
Driving around trying to find a place to park, while avoiding the kids running out with signs advertising $20 and $30 parking which was always a person's front or back yard, was the first adventure of the day - and the first sociological experiment. Trying to find that house whose owner didn't look like they were going to jimmybar your door and go looking through your shit while you got shit-faced. It required quick "judge that damn book by the cover" mentality and a little bit of a gambler's ego. "Our car will be fine...just don't let them see where you hide your purse" (which is a little difficult when the owner's kid has hopped on your hood to take you to their house). Could people set aside racist notions about each other for the sake of a little commerce. The answer: nope. But then again, they've never, so why would a horse race be any different?
So judgmental racism aside, and the car parked, you would group with your friends and retrieve all the gear you'll need for the day: blankets, tarps, throw-away camera, lucky hat, can coozy, condoms (cause we were young and stupid and you just never know), and the most important thing...13 cases of beer piled into a cooler the size of a Honda Civic hatchback.
Being a taller dude, I was always one of the ones who had to carry the cooler. That, or because I borrowed it from my sister and she'd kill me it I broke something on it (*note - Chrissy, IT WAS A COOLER...NOT A TENNIS BRACELET). Now don't let my height fool you. I'm as weak as a cocktail on a cruise ship. Carrying that damn cooler was one of the most painful memories of my post-childhood/pre-marrieddom. And I couldn't bitch about it because I (along usually with a Casella brother) was one of the heroes of the moment. I WAS CARRYING THE BEER. They would've called the Maryland State Police to give me an escort if they could've. But most of them were either in attendance or on the roads cleaning up the after-affects. Plus, none of us had cellphones. It was the mid-90's.
So with the weight of this cooler that was the size of a crabbing schooner cutting into my skinny four fingers and stressed my rather noodle-like arms driving me almost to the point of crying. But there's no crying at Preakness! At least not until you're schnockered and it's 4pm and you're sunburned and have lost all your friends and bets and now you fear going back to where the car is parked, alone...then you can cry. But NOT while carrying the cooler on the way in! (*side note: when your friends are doing a solid and carrying the cooler, it is NOT at all funny to sit on the cooler; act like you're going to sit on the cooler; or tickle their faces or arms. Don't be a dick.)
The odd thing about Preakness is that no matter how early you get up and arrive there, you ALWAYS feel like the party has been going on for hours. You walk up into the infield and sure as hell, it seems like you'll NEVER find a place to set down your blankets, tarps, and this cooler that is size of those two fat guys on the back of every Guinness Book of World Records on their motorcycles. A cooler which, by the way, has now caused one of your arms to be 3" longer than the other permanently - regardless of how often you switched hands.
We always seemed to be running late for Preakness. I personally blame Oba. Because if we're late for something, it's probably Oba's fault.
Lateness aside, walking under the tunnel or across the track (whichever they were letting you do that year) was always a surreal feeling. Or maybe that was just the 4th beer kicking in. Either way, coming up into the world of the infield is certainly something to be experienced at least once. But if you can't ever do it, or are over 30 and have children to worry about, try this and you'll essentially get the experience: get a little buzz on, go stand in some mud while holding 100lbs, light up a marijuana smelling incense (or just blaze out), turn on Skin-A-Max and pause it on a boob shot, and then maybe ask a friend to vomit about 15 feet away from the stale portapotty you've set up nearby. That'll do it.
Oh, and for good measure, walk around for 30 minutes while everyone debates the best place to set up camp. You think driving with your father while he hunts for a "great" parking spot at the mall 2 days before Christmas is a pain in the ass? Try getting 14 people to agree on the best place to spend 8 drunken hours together. I think the Geneva Convention was less contentious. Did I mention that we were carrying a cooler that was the size of Glenelg High School?
Eventually the treaties were signed and a camp was chosen. Often, and again because of Oba's tardiness, we would find ourselves a little too close to unfavorable areas: the johns, the walkways, or the betting windows. More traffic = more people stepping on your shit. Drunk people. Drunk BAREFOOT people with muddy feet. You'd really get annoyed with this...until at least 6 or 7 beers.
Thinking about Preakness today and all the memories of the years we went go me thinking about those wonderful little details. So I've begun to wonder:
What the HELL was so special about Preakness?
It sure wasn't the beer. We couldn't afford good beer in that large of quantities, so we often found ourselves choosing either Milwaukee's Best Light or National Bohemian or...God-forbid...Keystone Light (although I always hid a 6-pack of Oxford Raspberry Wheat at the bottom of the cooler, but never can remember drinking a one in the 6 I attended). We swilled beer that today most of us would scoff at. And if we were made to drink one of those today, we'd likely leave half the can sitting somewhere at the cookout in Glen Burnie we are regrettably attending. And look, I'm all for the sentimentality of Natty Boh. But be honest with yourself. That beer tastes like shit. The only reason Marylanders drink it with pride is because we're too afraid to drink water from the Chesapeake. So this is the only liquid in Maryland we can be proud of AND claim to have tasted. Even now, as I sit here and write, I have a glass of Sauvignon Blanc next to my keyboard...not a Natty Boh or a Beast Light.
The grounds at Preakness sure weren't what was special. Usually by midday, you were barefoot. That was either because you lost your shoes, or you just got tired of them getting stuck in the beer-and-urine-made mud. When in Rome...right? I heard a rumor once that there was grass somewhere under the acres of beer-pooled tarps and passed out frat boys.
Maybe it was the young, lustful, scantily clad women and men who populated the infield that made it special? But let's be honest about this. We're talking about Maryland here. Most of the state doesn't have all it's original teeth. When Jerry Seinfeld said that 95% of the world was undateable, he was cutting Maryland some slack. And when you start removing shirts from many of these folks, that number drops rapidly to 99.9% Sure, you would see an occasional girl raise her shirt (I have plenty of pictures if you need proof), but ultimately, you weren't there to hook up. Unless you were this couple we knew who did the deed in a porta-potty at Preakness. Yes, really. I know. Made me gag too writing this.
Was it the horse racing or the actual Preakness itself that made it special? Well in 6 years of attending the Preakness, I saw 2 collective horse races. And neither were the Preakness. I could hear them. I heard the crowd get excited in the Grandstands (maybe those white-bred-snobs were on to something!) And let me just tell you this: large quantities of booze and gambling on a sport you know nothing about is a VERY stupid mix. You don't down a fifth of Goldschlager then go try and bet the Pakistani Field Hockey Championships, do you? What makes you think you've got the top horse identified in the #6 race, when you were probably too drunk to tell anyone your shoe size at that point?
Was it the time with your friends that made Preakness special? Well, the majority of the pictures I have are of all of us whooping it up: Beer Pong...and well...that's really it. Most of the pictures are of us sitting around and drinking. With shirts off. Getting FRIED by the sun and of course not wearing sunblock because we're 22 (or so our ID says) and at that age the human skin is more resilient than later in life (an actual argument I once made). If we wanted to sit around with each other and get plastered, why go through all the above to do it? On top of that, 2 of our friends would inevitably get in a fight. Either with each other or with a guy walking by who stared a little too long (um, dude, he was shitty...he was just trying to see his way past the 3 of you he was seeing on his way to go vomit on the track) Friends fighting at Preakness is not fun. I'm pretty sure we didn't pass through metal detectors. And I KNOW there were some parolees around there. Bottom line was, Nate & Tony...not a good idea.
So I'm at a loss. Something that seemed so freakin' awesome every year that I would spend the better part of April planning for it, now has become quite an enigma to me. I ask myself "Self, why would you have ever done that to your...self?" (I haven't even MENTIONED the hangover and sunburn you'd have for 3 days following)
The only answer I can come with is: because I'm from Maryland baby...and that's how we rolled.
And even though thinking about all this and writing it down has made me feel older than the rednecks who sat by the women's porta-pottys and held up 1-10 signs rating the talent; and to those of you who've read this far and are now thinking "I understand where 'Bitters' comes from", I gotta say, I'd do it again in a heartbeat. If Stef would let me. And if I didn't have to carry that damn cooler.
And THAT'S the Bitters Truth.
