Well it was the winter of '99 and we had the pleasure of working with a bunch of morons! After Don left the cem, the powers that be decided to change everything and brought in new people. We lasted 3 more months and after 25 years, on April Fools Day '99, we folded up the tent and bid adieu to Calvary Cemetery! Who woulda ever thought! We are talking a quarter of a century and in a blink, it was over!! So.......ROAD TRIP!!!!! HAHA We visited Lenny in California for 10 days and hung out. Doing nothing in particular, just enjoying the break. And back to Utica to....look for a job? Huh, what a strange concept. Before long I was at St. Agnes cemetery with Jack and Jim and Keith and Bill. Jack was a great guy to work for and I had known him almost 30 years. And it was fun working with the other guys and this strange summer passed into fall. BUT of course there was some stuff going on of merit I didn't wanna miss. Ed Ved played at the Tibetan Festival in Wisconsin and cousin Rick said "Come on out"! Why not. Spent a long weekend in Chicago and saw a blond Ed Ved perform. And a few weeks later, NEW PRETENDERS MUSIC!!!! VIVA EL AMOR Chrissie had just married a Columbian sculptor so she was inspired to sing and tour. A short Pretenders tour opened at The Bowery Ballroom and Hey I figured General Admission=Front Row so got into NYC at 3pm and no line!!??? WOW Guess the devoted fans are waning. Anyway ended up a coupla feet away from my raving fave Chrissie and totally enjoyed the best Pretender show I ever saw!!! And met for the first time Pretender fans extraordinaire and co-authors of the world-renowned PRETENDER ARCHIVES, Taunia and Lisa!! And at the prompting of JB, I ended up in Myrtle Beach to see The Pretenders at The House of Blues on a HOTlate July weekend. Same weekend saw the imfamous Woodstock '99 in Rome, a stones throw away from Utica! And that was a hot weekend! No I did not attend Woodstock '99 cause I was Pretending in Myrtle Beach with JB. Ah what the heck, might as well go out in style. The Pretenders tour was ending and so I drove out to Cleveland. Great city, lousy show. Too short and Chrissy was too distracted. I remember that big old ship chugging up the river and Chrissie was stunned? stumped? whatever. I continued thru Philly and visited Jim and Karen and we continued to Atlantic City for the last shows. A major disappointment. So bad I didn't even go the 2nd night! Drat! The summer was over! Wow! I had a great time! Hey Jack thanks for giving me a little leeway cause I did have a wonderful summer. Summer maybe was over but there still was a ton of traveling to do. The job had another month left and I was planning to take the winter off and .....whatever!!!! It must be nice to have no responsibilities. As Autumn began we made the old California trip earlier and expanded the borders to whereever that neat Mustang? would take us! We started in Oakland for a Raider victory over Chicago, sorry Sean, and off we went! this was a sightseeing trip to see what was out there! Off to Kings Canyon National Park for the largest trees around and down 5 and thru those dusty towns of Bakersfield and Barstow and Baker and the largest thermometer in the world and on to Las Vegas to meet Uticans, Paulie and Joy, and up to Utah to Zion National Park and over to Arizona for the Hoover Dam and back up the Pacific Coast highway(it rained) and through to Sacramento and Coloma GOLD!!!!! and out to Lake Tahoe and....get on a plane and go to Seattle and....wow that was enough for the first day! Was that the end! No way! We are gonna take the end of the millenia in style! A few weeks later back we went. Seems the Who were playing as the WHO!!! NO junk, just WHO! Can one believe it? Does one Care? So off to Las Vegas again!!!! Do we live here? Ten dollars to see the Who. And up to The Bridge School Benefit for a bill of The Who AND Pearl Jam!!!! And Sunday a Raider game!!! Back to LA with Lenny to do our usual terrorizing of Deb!hahaha And one night while eating our traditional Baskin-Robbins fare, a lotta commotion outside got us piqued. Seems they were filming ROSWELL, some tv show I never heard of! Yeah I get back to Utica and watch it and now I am a confirmed Roswellonian! OK I am dizzy now! I never realized the wonders we witnessed and how much of a world is out there! O h well it was now November and we came home! How that is possible...It was not over yet!!!! Seems that the House of Blues in Chicago was gonna host the event to end the nineties....2 nights of The Who!!!! Only 400$ or was it 5? Back out to Chicago with Who fans the world over witnessing this one-time GREATEST BAND IN THE WORLD.... a little older grayer slower but I geuss The Who nonetheless...BUT an added bonus!!!!ED VED is opening with C Average and the music is great and his anecdotes even better! AND HE SINGS WITH THE WHO!!!!!I NEVER saw that before... and that was that . It is December and mere days separate us from some cataclysmic catastrophy...Y2K.....Deb invites us to greet the new millenia in California!! We'ld be fools to get Deb angry so....off we go. With our favorite and long-time friends Deb plans the party of her life...and she gets sick!!! It is 2000. We are in California and the future is uncertain and what a .....every adjective in the book....DECADE!!!It is over! PEACE