World Of - Evening Entertainment

Today, I am pleased to have my first guest post from a founding member of the "World Of". I had to make some minor changes to the post to maintain my PG-13 blog rating, but this gives you a flavor of the camaraderie among the group. Hopefully, my "World Of" followers will continue to provide guest commentaries throughout the Journey:

The “World Of” is about as diverse as a group of middle-aged, white male lawyers can be. We share a common love of golf and laughter, but otherwise we’re pretty eclectic. We have Yankees and Confederates, Right Wingers and Left Wingers (not hockey players), Jews and Gentiles, Protestants and Catholics, Rednecks and City Slickers. These differences are part of the fun, although we do observe a moratorium on political discussion. Another difference that has evolved over the years is the COs versus the Non-COs.

CO is short for “Conscientious Objector”. Non-CO, as you might have guessed, is short for “Non-Conscientious Objector”. These terms have nothing to do with war. As best I can tell, we all favor war, at least up to a point. No, COs and Non-COs have to do with who will go to gentlemen’s clubs on “World Of” trips.

In the early “World Of” years, there were no COs. We all went to the gentlemen’s clubs. At that time, the only questions were--how late would you stay out and how drunk would you get? The guys who stayed out the latest and got the drunkest declared, “The Wrong Way is the Right Way!” and its corollary, “The Right Way is the Wrong Way!” We never kept track of which way was the right way, but it was still fun to state the rule and the corollary, really loud and really often.

Anyway, around about “World Of V”, the Mouth--a very principled guy when he hasn’t knocked down 10 or 12 Budweisers--said he didn’t feel right about going out to the gentlemen’s clubs. Turtle, Smooth and Arnie quickly joined the Mouth. The COs thus were born, which simultaneously hatched the Non-COs. It was no small irony that the Mouth founded the COs, given that he had been one of the most frequent--and certainly the loudest—proponent of “The Wrong Way is the Right Way!”

It’s hard to say exactly what was the basis of the COs conscientiousness. It may be that several of the COs had gotten married and had daughters. The girls in those gentlemen’s clubs are someone’s daughters after all, and although the “World Of” isn’t exactly a hotbed of sensitivity, we do have our soft spots. Or, it may be that several of the more religious among the group had, by “World Of V”, recovered from our backsliding college and law school days, and decided it was time to clean up our “World Of” acts. Or, it may be that the innate cheapness of some of us just couldn’t deal with paying cover charges, buying expensive bad beer and being expected to throw money at women whom we knew cared about us only for the money they could fleece. Maybe most likely is that the COs were feeling older and decided they had a better chance of playing good golf the next day if they went to bed at a decent hour—“The Right Way is the Right Way!” Whatever the basis, the COs were around to stay.

I am a CO but I have to give the Non-COs their due. Led by High Right, and with strong support from the Natural, their outings have produced some of the most enduring lines of the “World Of”—“I’m not leaving this place until one of these girls takes a shower!” and “Just to show her!”—which were coined by Crimson Tide and the Big Man, respectively. The Non-COs also have a lot of courage—they have gone to some of the scariest-looking gentlemen’s clubs you’ve ever seen. Of course, it makes a big difference when you have the Big Man with you. By the way, the Big Man is not only good protection, but for some reason the girls at these places seem to really like him. Finally, I want to point out for the record that, to the best of my knowledge, none of the Non-COs has ever done anything really bad on their outings—and by that I mean something that would be relevant in a domestic proceeding.

An interesting feature of the CO/Non-CO split is that the COs have grown in number over the years while the Non-COs have dwindled. In the beginning there was usually one carload of COs. Now there is usually one carload of Non-COs. I suppose that was to be expected as the group aged…and our daughters became young women. I’m not sure what the future holds for the COs and the Non-COs as separate groups, but I continue to look forward to seeing them all every year, regardless of affiliation.

Arnie

Editor's Note: I did not join the "World Of" until about "World Of XII" and I am a CO only because I cannot stay up that late and play golf (good or bad) the next morning!