Real Men…

Back in college, my buddy Big John and I realized that we had both independently stumbled across the idea of things that “real men” do in everyday life. This was back in 2002 before there were a million podcasts, books, and social media accounts about how men are supposed to act and dress and groom their beards. John and I both grew up with strong father figures who worked on cars and approached life with a real blue collar mentality. We would riff off one another about things that real men do, like how they dress, where they work, and just any random thing that popped into our heads. It provided endless hours of laughter, but also made us keen at observing some of the men we encountered and the things they do that help make the world go around. Move-in weekend in the dorms was always a blast, and a few years I walked around the building bullshitting with random dads who were sweating their assess off hauling in furniture and building lofts for their kids. There may have been some, ahem, refreshments distributed to these hard-working and well-deserving dads as well.

The blog post below was written by me back in 2017. I think I may have done it for a class or something, but I remember having a ton of fun writing it, and it got me revisiting the idea John and I always had about writing a book about real men. The post is definitely unfinished, and I certainly could write a lot more about Rick and what he meant to us our freshmen year of college. I’ll have to write more of these types of post in the future. Each one would be a tribute to a special real man who was, at a minimum, a hilarious part of my life.

The above poster was hanging on our dorm room wall during freshmen year.  After seeing it at a poster sale, I was immediately captivated.

It didn’t take long in the fall of 2002 for John and me to meet Rick, the maintenance manager for Payne Hall.  Rick was a throwback straight out of the 1970s, sporting a fu manchu that would make Hulk Hogan envious, a blue collared work shirt unbuttoned to expose a hearty patch of chest hair covered in gold chains, and jeans with a massive dungeon master style key chain hanging from the belt loop.  Rick became an everyday presence in the dorms those first two years, and Igor and I could tell if he had arrived at work for the day by the smell of his aftershave in the hallway.  He would leave us to go work at Jacobetti Center the following year, only to be replaced by an equally real man named Brad, but that’s a story for another time.  I think the best way to describe Rick is through a series of quotes.  Picture all of these being said with an extreme Yooper accent.  If you don’t know what that is, imagine a more extreme version of the way people talk in the movie Fargo.  These are definitely not safe for work…Sorry.

“Igor, now don’t be sittin’ up on the bathroom counter whackin’ it.  You’ll tear it out of the wall.  Oh, sorry, I didn’t know your parents were visiting.” -Rick after Igor complained about an issue with his bathroom counter.

“We’d be out at the beach all day drinking seven ounce bottles of Miller.  If you didn’t have your head on a swivel you’d take a frisbee right upside the fuckin’ head.” -Rick after making several sick frisbee catches and throws out in the courtyard.  Many featured him in a full on sprint in his work cloths with keys jingling all over the place.

“Ohh, I remember mornings like those.  That’s why I quit drinking.” -Rick using the master key to enter our locked dorm room and wake us up after a festive night.

“Come on, I’ll let you in his room and we can do a panty raid on Igor.” -Rick moments before a panty raid on Igor.

“He calls them all pieces of shit right to their faces and waves his fucking gun around.  One guy was refusing to shower so he told him, ‘I’ll pull over at the car wash and clean you with a hose and a scrub brush, it don’t make a shit of difference to me.’ Then if they have a good trip they’ll stop at McDonald’s and let the prisoners get food before going back to the jail.  There was one young guy being unruly and the old guy that he was cuffed to the seat with told him, ‘You fuck up my McDonald’s before we get home, when we get home, I’m gonna fuck you up.’ He was nice and orderly after that.” -Rick talking about a friend who worked at the jail in Marquette.

“They had some convention in town and all these old people staying in the dorms.  One lady kept calling down to the front desk saying she didn’t have a toilet in her room.  She never went and looked around the partition.  The next morning I went into her room and there was shit all over the floor, sheets, everywhere.  I think she was passed.” -Rick describing his summer and teaching me that “passed” is apparently the past tense of “pissed.”

“Oh, look at you two guys.  Your chests are going to be all lifted and separated in no time.” -Rick upon seeing Igor and me come back from the gym.

Rick:  I just take the drain cover off and dig everything out of there.  It’s all hair and jizz.

Me:  Do you put a glove on when you do that?

Rick:  No, I don’t give a fuck.