7 Things (Floridays 1990 Edition)

I have spent the best part of the last two weeks telling stories from our Floridays 1990 trip from Springfield Friends Meeting to Walt Disney World. I wish I had more pictures to share, but I took slides for our post-trip slide show, and those slides were lost in one of my moves. Still, here are 7 more things that stick out in my mind from that adventure:

1)  We had many great "performances" while at Disney.  There was Heather Beggs and Mike Mercadante dancing in front of the "Chinese Theater" that houses The Great Movie Ride.  There was J.J. Carter delivering his line to David Letterman- "Hey Dave, why don't you ever do anything educational?"- at Superstar TV.  But the performance of the week had to belong to Kelly Allen(pictured, on left) and her ongoing portrayal of Lucretia Soul Disney Murphy Johnson, who could never figure out "who da hat be wif" and who was constantly on the lookout for Tyrone Mouse- "cause he's a liar!"  Best supporting actor awards go to Wendy Mattocks and Jennifer Woods, also pictured.

2)  Russell Farlow ran out of money on about the second day and was constantly trying to borrow from his friends.  At the awards ceremony following the trip he was awarded the Brother, Can You Spare A Dime Award.

3)  Jon Moran (pictured, along with Bryan Dowling) celebrated a birthday while we were in Orlando, and we did a birthday meal at the Olive Garden.  I remember it was fun and that we had a great time, but I it seems like we were there forever.  There were 60 of us, and they just couldn't seem to get our food out, our drinks filled or our checks out so we could leave.  Jon may have aged a year while we partied...

4)  One night, after a very long day at the parks, we arrived back at the Gold Key Inn only to find that we had lost Dana Oxendine.  We were searching and getting a bit frantic when someone discovered her asleep in the back of the Suburban that Butch Moran was driving.  Given that Butch had been accused of falling asleep at the wheel on occasion, it was a miracle she could sleep that soundly!

5)  I have been on a lot of youth trips in my life, and on most of them there is one room that develops a smell that is, as my friend Alan Brown used to say, "taint"-  as in, "that jus' taint natural!"  The award for worst smelling room ever (mostly from very natural causes!) goes to Jamie Robinson, Danny McCorquodale, Ken Hill, Jeremy Godwin and (part-time) Todd Farlow.  They blamed it all on Jeremy's stuffed animal Stinky (who still takes trips with Jeremy on occasion!).  Danny took most of the credit for himself...

6)  On the afternoon we spent by the motel pool, Tim Harding (our trip pastor), Robin Thomas and I wandered across the street (Well, sprinted!  You don't wander across the Orange Blossom Trail and live to talk about it!) to an A&W Root Beer store.  Those were without question the best root beer floats in history!  They made them with Breyers vanilla ice cream and put them in frosted beer mugs.  We had more than one that week I can promise you!

7)  The New Mickey Mouse Club was popular in 1990, and the show had produced a spin-off band called The Party.  One of the guys was named Chase Hampton.  He was spotted at the Magic Kingdom one day by some of our girls- Jennifer Simmons, Emily Beggs, Elizabeth Tillman and others- and was then pursued until they caught him and got his autograph on their hats.  The restraining order took effect the next day...  (Thanks to Emily for reminding me of this story- I love hearing from all of you!).

That's it for now!  See you tomorrow for more Floridays 1990!