“The Next One”


Many times people will try to debate who is actually in the “crew” and who isn’t. I feel that since the term and the linear line of events that brought us all together started with Ryan, Dan, Price, Allen and myself that I have a lot more authority to say than most. I have people who are in town 4 times a year who think they can dictate the roster list to me though. It is pretty hard to tell for anyone really. Do the Arter’s count? Debatable. Are Allen, Dan and Ryan still members? I would say so. It was inevitable that we would all go our separate ways. I am still in contact with all 3 (not Allen directly but I did stop him from hitting a bar floor recently) of them during the course of the year and am part of Dan’s wedding. I think there was something in each one of these people that makes it undeniable that crew blood still flows in them no mater where they go in life. Their years in the crew might be like what Vietnam is to many vets a time in their life they would rather not talk about, but still happened them and shaped them into the person they are.

It just dawned on me the other day how important a baby Hunter is. That baby is 100 % pure crew breed. Since Jenna is the only female crew member (there is not debating that one) it is very unlikely that unless they decide to add to their family (that likely will eventually I imagine but it’s not a definite) Hunter stands as the key to the future of the crew. Hunter is from the genes of two crew members we can watch his life from the start. We all entered into the crew but Hunter was born into the crew and destined to take us in to the future.

All members of the crew are still extremely young. We will likely go down different paths and move on in life. But it’s to the point when this generation can not take any more members in whatever the current official list is will remain that way. Whoever Hunter befriends in school and in his younger years of life will be the crew generation 2. It is up to him to recruit. Hopefully he is wise enough to convince a girl to join and eventually “have relations” with her and impregnate her. In order to make it official is must be in another crew members home.

Of course according to Dan every crew member along with the rest of humanity will be slaughtered in an orgy of blood and death at the hand of machines, but providing we don’t we must groom this child for the future for the crew’s sake. I have made a list of knowledge that should be passed on to Hunter.

1. How to be virtually invisible to females for the majority of your high school years

2. How to live at home till your mid 20s or beyond.

3. About an organized league called the National Hockey League that went defunct not long after he came into existence. A league of 30 teams from two different countries that played the game similar to that of what team USA plays every four years only better.

4. About all the Philly sports legends
5. Why its important to know about movies

6. How to go long periods of time without “having relations”

7. How it is “okay” to make numerous jokes about homosexuality with your so called “heterosexual” friends. Not the mention the meaning of the word Homoerotic.

8. About the Cataclysm and that it would be vast improvement of his generally mundane and meaningless life. The eventual rise of the machines and their desire to kill.

9. To get accustomed to expectations and elaborate plans “falling through”

10. The power and magic of one little word that makes every hardship or horrendous mistake perfectly fine. “EH”