“Ryan’s Streaks”

Say what you want about my good friend Ryan. One thing you would all have to agree on it he is certainly a man of streaks. I can recall streaks with him going back years ago. Some of them funny, others frustrating when trying to make plans with him. Most of them spring out of nowhere and have no significance what so ever.

I recall his no going into movie theaters streak one summer whenever I wanted to see a movie. I knew I couldn’t call Ryan, because of his streak. He had a no going to the beach streak one time when were about 15 or so just in time for me to come down and visit his family at the shore. He flat out refused to go to the beach or leave the house. He just wanted to watch TV and sleep. He left me sitting there my first day down all fired up to have some fun awkwardly sitting with his grandfather watching the Phillies as he slept.

Eventually I got him to go to the boardwalk for brief time. This was after watching It’s Pat the movie with commercials no less being broadcast on WPIX’s Saturday afternoon movie. Despite it being a beautiful summer day at the shore, we spend the peak hours watching a straight to video horribly unfunny movie with commericals.

The other streak included various streaks aimed at people he chose not to see. However, his most famous streak was easily his Life Is Good T-shirt streak. One fateful day Jenna, Ryan and I were on the boardwalk in Ocean City. It might have been in 1999 I don’t recall. We were in cloud 9 when we found a yellow-shirt with a stick guy on it holding an ice cream cone and stating life was good. I told him it was a great shirt and he should wear it all summer long. The joke turned into reality when he wore the shirt 98 days in a row with little or no washing. It ran from Memorial Day to Labor Day ironically most of us graduated in 1998.

There was the week or two one winter when he had a no driving streak, and snow piled up on his car as it sat idle. He would schedule plans as if he had no car.

Ryan who decided to distance himself from the crew for the most part last September might have started yet another streak. The other night I was over his house, and asked him if he had read Tucker’s World lately. He had mention he couldn’t remember the last time he read it. Than he thought some, more and admitted, he had not been on the Internet the entire month of March maybe longer. Could this be yet another streak in the making? Is Ryan going to be Internet free for the rest of 2003?

Who knows…but that sounds like our wacky Ryan! You never know what silly streak he will come up with next!