New England Oddities

So last night I found myself hanging out at the brewery and being unusually talkative...in a congenial manner. This guy was mentioning places he had recently been to and my response seemed to be "I used to live there" to each one. He then looked at me and said "I suppose you lived in New Hampshire too?" He is due to make a trip there in march and we started talking about beer joints. My first recommendation was to head down to Cambridge and hit the Sunset Grill, but locally in Manchester there is the Strange Brew Tavern, and a brewery. It was called one thing to begin with, then the name was changed to Stark Mill Brewery, then to Mollies, and possibly something else now. The name changes were due to some illegal or unethical practices, and then a paper shuffle ensued as a cover up.

At this point a guy on the other side of me interjects "Illegal and unethical seems to be a trend in New England." Huh? "You know, the Patriots*." We all know about the spying and the cheap hits that they are never penalized for, but this guy was about to throw something new into the mix, human growth hormone. He had some interesting things to say. "Look at Junior Seau, 37 years old, breaks an arm, heals like that (snaps his fingers) and comes back playing like he's ten years younger. Teddy Breuschi, has a stroke and is back in less than a year. " What HGH would do for a stroke I don't know, but he went on. "Look at Brady and Vrabel. Did you know that the real reason Vinatieri left N.E.? They wanted him to use HGH, but the trainers would always inject it between the toes so as to leave no discernible marks on the body. He didn't want his kicking foot or plant foot tampered with. That's why Brady had that little cast on. He actually developed an infection from a dirty needle." Two thoughts that I had were, surely there must be a needle exchange program in liberal Massachusetts, and I always thought Tom Brady got his extra testosterone in another form.

I took it all with a grain of salt until he told me about Stallone using it for his new Rambo movie, and how prevalent its use is, and that Stallone himself thinks it will be sold over the counter with in ten years. Suddenly there SEEMED to be some validity to his story. I'll leave it to the NFL to get to the facts of the matter. Whether they use it or not is of no concern to me. It wont make me like them any more or hate them any less.

In all fairness to equal hate time...Eli Manning. Here is a real ass who deserves to be locked in a cell with Skip Bayless. He is an arrogant puke who doesn't deserve to win anything. Anyone who is a #1 pick and refuses to sign with the team that chose him should be black balled, or deballed (if he has any).

As for other NE oddities, 473 Wilson street, does it still have that strange paint job in the living room? Ten years after the fact how do I remember that Johnathan Charuks favorite Bob Dylan song is "Visions of Johanna"? Go ahead, ask him.