The Rosslyn House

For three years the house on Rosslyn was our bachelor pad of doom. Seven men have officially lived there and I might as well been the eighth! The first two years I could just open the door and walk in as someone was always there. The house added many friendships for me; Friends of Friends (FOF) became Friends (with no OF). I could bond with men as I helped helped move furnature in and out, help lay down the walking stones to the side door, helped lay down marbled vinyl tile on the bartop, helped set up nightlights along the patio, helped laid down gravel, helped build the storage bench for the hot tub, and . . . HEY, for that much sweet equity I should have been given a key to the house!

Rosslyn was more than a place, it was a state of mind. Go to Broad Ripple via the Monon Trail so we could stumble back drunk and happy. Need to meet someone just have them go to Rosslyn. If you wanted to just see how someone, anyone, was doing, just go to Rosslyn. You never knew who was going to be there, but that was the fun part. There was usually a cold beer and a warm burger available there, if there wasn't we would fix that. Plastic money, dangerous money! Oh, I fear for your livers!

I'll miss the Indy 500 Parties, the New Years Parties (the Chad steeping on glass part can be forgotten about), working on a '65 Mustang, cruising around Broad Ripple in the 'Stang, stalling out in the middle of the street in that 'Stang, Thanksgiving dinners, relaxing in the hot tub, seeing "Oh my god, is he doing that with her in the hot tub!", being unable to get in the side door because the six people in the living room couldn't hear me knocking due to someone having loud sex in his bedroom, charging toward the side door when someone broke in (but BiggMann had beer so it was good), the broken furnance before New Years, the closed flue in the fireplace, the couch I fear will spontaneously combust, the damp seeping basement, the toilet that required a prelaunch sequence to use it, Stokes peeing on the kitchen wall (at least he was attempting to aim for the kitchen wastebasket), the leaking wall, and one pretty damn good 30th birthday party for yours truly!

As you can tell the Rosslyn house has many memories. All were created by the people who either lived there or visited it. Many are now some of my dearest friends if they were not before, my own Band of Brothers. As our lives have changed over the past 3 years it is amazing to see. The original 3 men are all married now with 2 getting ready to be fathers. One has been in, out, back in, and back out of college. Two have moved to Indy to find work (with one being a little more successful than the other). One did have a job, but needed to wait until the wife could come to Indiana, and I get to drop napalm on their overgrown lawn in a few weeks. He-He! As for me, that house saw me quit my job and attend 2 years worth of law school as the employed and unemployeed gave me beer and burgers.

Tonight some of us hosted beer and bad champange to praise the Rosslyn house. The house keys will be turned in over the weekend, and sometime over the summer someone new will enter. Friday night we drink beer at the Rathskellar and will definately toast that house again. I feel the need to drive by one more time with a tear in my eye. I hope 5 gallons of gasoline is enough to burn down that craptastic hellhole.