Road trip for the ages

Since I spend the majority of my on-campus time in the Dan Rather building, riding to Waco for our football season-opener against Baylor with three other Houstonian staff members was nothing. There wasn't a point where I considered how different the four of us were, until we actually got on the road.

Just from looking at the photo attached to the column, it is safe to assume that I'm the token black guy in the group. Sports editor Mike Silva is the lone Hispanic and the driver as well. Sports reporter Lotis Butchko and photographer John Rudolph are the white men, but seemingly from two totally different worlds.

In case you aren't a regular reader of this paper, Lotis is an eccentric egotistical maniac with potential to be a colorful public figure some day. He's crude and unusual, and has a candid way of stirring up any mix he's a part of.

Here at the Houstonian, we consider him to be the most controversial writer on staff. Couple his personality with that of John's, a Mormon from Shepherd, TX, with rigid morals and values, and you have an interesting merger.

Keep in mind that Mike and I are the minorities sitting in the front seat adding fuel to the friendly fire. We had the perfect compilation of voices and at no point during the trip did I feel sorry for John. He was a good sport throughout it all. If we offended him, he didn't show it.

Briefly though, we'll go through all of what each of us had to endure. This, however, is the heavily edited version.

Mike decided to leave Huntsville six hours before kick-off, just so we could goof around. Within 30 minutes we'd made two stops and John's patience had grown thin. I can remember him mumbling, "At this rate, we'll make it to the game by halftime."

Meanwhile, we're making these pit stops because Lotis, after a long Friday night of indulgences, has serious physical needs to tend to. Honestly, so did I. Before anyone realizes it, the car smells like beer, cigarettes and sweat, because Mike's AC is sporadic at best.

With knowledge but little regard to John's sheltered ears, classic road trip guy discussions began to circulate. Believe me, I've thought about all of the ones that I could print in this paper, before I decided that every single one of them could get me fired, some maybe expelled.

John wasn't going to be outdone, though. Lotis had the tendency to announce disclaimers before he had something totally inappropriate to say. He would tell John, "I hope you don't get mad about this," to which John would respond, "No, I'll just think you're an idiot," as if he didn't think that way already.

I'll never forget riding through one of those small towns, when Lotis and John joined forces to share the biggest laugh at my expense. We passed an establishment that didn't appear to have a name, only across the top of the building read, "Chicken, Livers and Gizzards." I was in for it.

Eventually Mike was in on the humor as well. The trivial jokes lead to a serious question from Lotis. "Why do black people eat the strangest foods? You ever had pig feet?" Don't be alarmed, I wasn't offended, even though the answer to his question dug deep into the most racist times in the history of colored people.

The biggest dilemma came when we finally arrived at Baylor, and the popular options were to either tour the Texas Sports Hall of Fame museum or drool our 20-something-year-old minds into oblivion at the nearest Hooters.

Much to John's disapproval, we voted on Hooters, 3-1. His response to this decision was most indicative of the contrast that was before us.

John said he hated Hooters because the food was horrible and asked what I recommended. I told him to just go inside and enjoy it. But that's the difference between John and the three of us: he's gentle, kind and considerate.

Mike, Lotis and I are jerks. I'm not slandering these guys, because we've all agreed on these points. We forced John to listen to our stories, some sexually explicit and others unadulterated in different ways. Yet, we ended the trip as better friends with a better understanding for each other. I found it ironic how the common ground relied on our differences. So not only were we different, but we needed to be in order to make this work. It's a classic case of counter-racism.

We figured, by the end of it all, Mike would buy Freon for his AC and finally get his headlight fixed, Lotis will have gotten under everyone's skin and I'll finally be fed up with the black jokes. We did not, however, see ourselves tapping into John's moral code and introducing him to the strip club that we had intended to visit.