The Birthday Party - Chapter 1

There are plenty of pros and cons of social media platforms like Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. The biggest pro for those of us over fifty is reconnecting with old classmates from high school and college.I belong to ?groups? for the dorm I lived in one year, my fraternity, and another for those in the Greek (fraternity and sororities) system. While I?m in close contact with about a dozen frat bros and another six girls in the Greek system, I was surprised to get a recent birthday party invitation for a frat bro whom I shared a room with in the fraternity for one semester.Doug Allen and I, along with two others, all shared a large second-story room in our old 1919 Victorian frat house. The theory was that it was the master bedroom since it was by far the largest room at nearly twenty by twenty feet.In early December I received a Facebook message from Doug?s wife, Cindy, about his 60th birthday party. It outlined the date, time, and location, and how the restaurant and bar would have specials for those of us with the party, but that it would still be open to the public. Cindy?s note also said she hired a DJ from 9:00 pm to 1:00 am for dancing. She also included two hotel names and website links for us out-of-town guests.The last time I saw Doug was about eight years ago at the small memorial gathering we had for another frat brother who had passed away, so I thought it would be a good opportunity to reconnect with Doug and hopefully a few other guys. The drawback was that Doug lived in Silicon Valley and I was in Sacramento, so I was going to need to book a hotel room. I went with the hotel that was in the same parking lot as the restaurant and a couple of fast-food places.The day of the party I made a day of it driving over to Silicon Valley and visiting a frequent location from my youth, Stanford University. Growing up playing water polo I must have gone to Stanford twenty times for Junior Olympic tournaments. It was nice to walk around the campus, especially the giant eucalyptus groves.I checked into the Marriott hotel at about 4:00 pm and had time to kick back and watch tv for a while before jumping into the shower to get ready for the party. The invitation said it would start at 6:00 pm, which seemed early if it was ending at 1:00 am, so I waited until 7:00 pm before making Burdur Escort the short walk across the parking lot to the restaurant.Upon entering the restaurant, I noticed it was one giant room with a long ?L? shaped bar, the kitchen behind the bar, a pool table, an area for dancing, and a small stage where the DJ was set up. There was a table with balloons and a banner reading, ?Happy 60th Doug!? At the table, there were pre-printed name tags for the guests, with a small note about how we knew the birthday boy. Mine read, ?Jack, frat bro