I want to hang out with this guy

"If you were to pick someone in history and hang out with them, who would it be?" Everyone has been asked that question. I've had my students write about that as kind of one of those "filler" assignments. You get the traditional answers like MLK, Lincoln, Jesus, not too many ask for Buddha, more ask about Hitler, sports figures, politicians, even Wyatt Earp-the whole spectrum. I was writing this morning, coffee was hot and the dogs asleep on my feet when I started to think. There are a bunch of people I would want to spend a day with, Winston Churchill for example. He would be a kick. I mean, just look at this guy. He knows secrets-you can just tell.

I think it was because Trace Adkins was playing on the CD that caused me to come up with this one-the apostle Peter. Now, don't change the channel. I'm not going to proselytize you. Don't worry about that. Just ride the pony with me for a minute and see if you don't agree.

Peter, one of the Big Twelve of Jesus' 'cabinet', was a sailor. Today, sailors are still pretty rough around the edges. Sure, you get a bunch of them coming out of the Naval Academy and they are all spit and polish, but I'm talking about a true sailor, like on 'Deadliest Catch.' You know the kind, they smoke hard, drink hard, don't wash, don't shave, and when they cut themselves, they find some fishing line and sow themselves up while they bite down on a leather belt-those kind of guys. You hit them in the face with a wrench and they just smile at you. Right at that moment, you know you made a wrong move somewhere in your life to get you to that particular spot on the time line.

Now, go back 2000 years and picture yourself working the docks around the Sea of Galilee, basically, a very large lake. You're living from hand to mouth. There is no Walmart. What ever you have, you have to make out of a tree or rock. You are a very early version of a blue collar worker and when people try to take your stuff or mess with you, you don't " go get your GATT and bus ta cap", you get into a fight using big sticks, clubbing each other until one of you backs down. Then you go find some fishing line and sow yourself up-biting down on a leather strap.

Peter, I am sure, was one of the first users of the 'F Bomb' or whatever that word or phrase might have been in Judea two millenniums ago. When he relaxed, he probably went home to his family or sometimes a neighboring sports bar and had a skin of wine with some buds and talked about how bad the fishing 'sucked' or whatever the Hebrew word equivalent was for 'sucked'. Kind of sounds like the docks in Boston, the warehouse at Henley's Shipping and Receiving, ANY construction site, etc.

The early writings, I think, cleaned up Peter's response when he was recruited and merely have him follow the rabbi, but I think there was some initial response similar to 'WTF' or again, the Hebrew equivalent. From then on, what we know about this guy is he had a paradigm shift in thinking about who he was. It would chase him for the rest of his life until he was killed for it.

But along with that, there was still the Peter I would like to hang out with.

I think today, Peter would love to go to a sports bar and drink a beer-or three, and have a plate of nachos with those green jalapenos on it. I think he would be a great listener and although he doesn't tell 'blue' jokes anymore, like he did before the teacher fellow became a part of his life, he still tells jokes-clean, but really really funny. He was the inventor of the joke starting with "A priest, a rabbi, and a lawyer walk into a bar...."

He would love to tell stories and even make some up. You look at him, sipping your beer, and say out loud, 'you're full of crap on that.'

"No, I swear," he would say, and then spoon a slather of nacho and peppers into the salsa and shove it into his mouth, getting half of it on his chin whiskers. He might or might not use the paper napkin left by the waitress on the table."I swear, that fish was as long as the boat," raising his right hand to heaven, a sure giveaway the man was lying to you. He would comment about what ever story you told and when you described something and tried to make it sound bigger than what it was, he would, if he knew you well enough, say in a whisper, "You're full of shit," with a big smile. That was Peter, a fisherman, a working man, a guy I think much like the rest of us.

I don't know if he would like baseball, definitely not basketball unless they changed the rules and allowed a forearm shiver every once in a while. He would love football and tolerate hockey. He would be a Pittsburgh Steeler's fan because Pittsburgh is a working man's town. Boston would run a close second because of the seafaring. Unfortunately for you, if you went to a game where Pitt was playing, he would paint himself the team colors, take his shirt off, and show you during the game. He wouldn't be obnoxious, like calling the refs' names or saying things like "My dead grandmother could call a better game than you, you stupid (insert Hebrew equivalent to F Bomb here)" but he would be loud-real loud. Still, he would be fun to go with.

He'd drive a truck. It wouldn't be an extended cab but one from the seventies with those side vent window, no A/C, and an AM radio only along with a gun rack holding two fishing poles, a fly rod and a regular rod-just in case he wanted to stop at one of the canals and wet a line. Old habits are hard to break.

Yep, he would be fun to hang out with. And If I could hang out with two, it would be Sir Winston and the fisherman. Wow, the three of us out for dinner, Peter and his beer and Churchill and scotch. We'd be smoking cigars-those big fat ones and telling lies and listening to Peter and the priest jokes. After a couple of drinks, Sir Winston might have a comment or two about the men around him.

"Look at that weak chin daffer," Winston would say, just loud enough so the man could hear.

"You talking to me?" the tall skinny guy with the Polo shirt turned up would say to the old man.

"Why, no-no I am not necessarily addressing you but undoubtedly talking about you, my good man. I was just wondering, did you have the mandible removed from your face to allow your lower lip to slide into your neck like that? And if so, why?" He would finish the sentence with a draw on his cigar, his eyes squinting to slits.

"Winston, stop it," Peter would say, half laughing because, all three of us would be sitting there looking at this lodge pole of a man and in our minds wondering about the same thing at what our friend pointed out. "Please, forgive my friend," Peter would continue. "He has a working bowel obstruction that causes his Tourettes to flare. Please-" he turns to the bartender while addressing the man with no chin-"let me buy you another drink of whatever you are having there."

The lodge pole man nods as if he had won a great victory and takes the offer, then moves down the bar to recover his free drink. Churchill's eyes never leaving the man's face.

"Winston," I would start after the man moved down the bar and out of ear-shot "what are you thinking? He had friends, this is a nice spot, we're three middle-aged men and you're trying to get us into a bar fight."

"I could of taken the tanker," he would say puffing on his cigar, sipping his third neat scotch, and looking down the bar, remembering the days of his youth when he was a calvary officer in the Light Brigade.

"Yeah, fifty years and a hundred pounds ago. Geezus, Mary, and Joseph," I would say.

"Hey."

"Oh, sorry Peter."

"Now, what was I saying, oh yeah, a priest, a rabbi, and a lawyer walk into a bar...."

Yep, someone would be going to jail that night!