June is a strange month for me. It means different things.

Growing up, I started working when I was 13. During the summer (i.e., starting in June), I worked for my uncle/brother at an auction on the West side of town. It was a good 25-minute drive out there, and when you’re 13, it’s like a cross-country trek. Every day. Twice.

During the week, it was even better because we’d drive all around Rockford, the Park, Winnebago, anywhere where there was stuff to pick up and bring back for the Sunday auction. We went and got it. That was our job. On Tuesdays, we’d drive into Chicago and spend the day picking up stuff that was damaged. The auction had a deal with State Farm Insurance to pick up its stuff, things that were smoke-, water- and fire-damaged, and bring them back to sell and try to recoup some of the money.

The more I think about it, that pretty much was child slavery by definition. I mean, I was ‘free’ to do it, but I was 13, working as part of a three- or four-man crew and getting probably a quarter what the ‘men’ made, didn’t have any set hours, just worked ’til it was done’ and got paid cash under the table. Don’t get me wrong, the $4 an hour I was making was good money in the mid-1980s, especially for a fat 13-year-old who would have not had any money if it wasn’t for being taken advantage of. So be it. I was just thinking out loud.

Anyway, ever since then, June became the month that I associated with making money. School was out. Chores could be done around the house after work (or never). And I didn’t have to babysit if I wasn’t at home. Win. Win.

This kept up through college as I did seal coating/black topping for seven summers (not including that random summer assembling computer circuit boards with Rush’s mom; am I the only one who sees my life splinter off in so many directions?). That, for the time and my age, was decent money. Now, if I had any clue how to save money, it would have been that much better. But I wanted to do what teenage guys do, which is buy things that 1) were cool, 2) could get you in a chicks’ pants or 3) both.

Since none of that applied much, I mostly spent it on beer.

Then June became something different. A couple years after college, it became this time for indulgence. Which is strange because if there is one word I’d use to equate with college, it’d be indulgence. Or memory loss. I forget which.

What was I saying?

Oh, anyway, so this must be over the top if June became something else. The reason for the indulgence?

We call it CCMP. Sometimes it’s ‘The Symposium’ or ‘Poker Weekend.’ Either way, and no matter what anyone calls it, it’s capitalized. Always. It’s a proper noun and demands such respect.

[SIDENOTE: what kind of word is ‘noun’ anyway? It’s supposed to describe a part of the English language and yet sounds more like a vegetarian spread in a Greek pastry]

It started with two guys, bored out of their fucking minds in the middle of god for-fucking-saken Iowa.

If you don’t know my stance on Iowa, here it is: It should be annexed by Minnesota and made a state park. It does not need to be a state. It’s mostly lifeless and inhospitable. And that’s the good part. The rest is like being Kevin Costner in ‘Waterworld’ except you’re surrounded by corn instead of water and the precious commodity is not land or dirt, but instead anything cool. There are some good people in Iowa and I desperately hoped they’d get out some day, because living a whole life there is cruel and unusual punishment.

So we were in Iowa for jobs. Well, Aaron had a job and I was a janitor. This worked well because I had ‘mutually’ agreed to leave my last job in Chicago and needed something else to do. And Aaron, who was the hall director at the college in town, needed a rumor spread about him throughout campus that he was gay, so it was all good because I showed up, started living two blocks from campus and had his apartment key and used his laundry room.

[SIDENOTE: I use ‘college’ and ‘town’ loosely here because combined, the population of the hamlet and school was about 500. Yes, they rolled out the one stop sign during heavy traffic periods like during bailing and picking seasons and when the cows get out. Literally, it was 1995 and we had BREAKING NEWS interrupt Friends to say that on Highway 13 near Elkader, there was a break in Old Man Cheney’s fence and the cows were in the road. I can’t make this shit up, people. I just can’t. Seriously, who breaks into Friends if it’s not the start of another Iraq war? WTF?]

As we had absolutely no prospects of fun on a regular basis, it was often discussed that we should try to get a poker game together.

Actually, I’m not painting a fair picture of Aaron here. He did try to start a monthly gathering, try to do something he thought was fun and loved and that fit his personality to a T. I just wasn’t into the capes that much, so Dungeons and Dragons didn’t do it for me.

Back to the poker game.

We ended up getting a couple games together with co-workers or local people, but it wasn’t like home. We had been playing cards with the same fucks since junior year of high school. Almost any time we were home we could count on seven, eight, 10, 12 guys to show on no notice and play cards all night long. Nickel, dime, quarter went a long way for some people. And I enjoyed hanging out after losing, or typically just borrowing more money. On average, this took just an hour for me to get to the ‘Hey, Aaron, how much are you up?’ point.

But, all of this required us to go home to the Park. That part wasn’t bad. That ride along Highway 20 is kinda pretty by Galena, especially at the Lookout. Other than that, all you have to know is that you ended up back in Iowa when it was done. It was like leaving hell and then getting talked into going back.

Fuck.

Well, what do you do when you are in a bad situation?

What? Get out of it? Find a new and better situation?

Where the fuck did you grow up?

Hell no. Where we’re from, you drag your friends kicking and screaming down to your level, subdue them with your type of agony. It’s what we do.

With that came the formation of the CCMP.

This was 1995. The first two Poker Weekends were held at my apartment two blocks from campus, and about 1 1/2 short blocks from where, while completely smashed on Jager, I body-slammed the then-380 pound Boo after he de-panted me while I was talking to a chick through the first-floor bedroom window. This wouldn’t have been awkward if I had known he had de-panted me. I guess it wasn’t that awkward, I mean I did realize it after a few minutes.

It was my apartment, one of the many residences I have graced in the past 21 years, that had the bathroom door ripped off the hinges in year two and which became the everlasting resting place of the green goo drink that Dwin made, which actually–and factually–ate through a plastic cup. Thanks, Yukon Pete.

There was flying licorice, the raw meat incident, potato launcher versions 1 and 2, the Sidewalk Poker Chip Scandal of ’95 and the formation of the Rules.

The event has morphed into something more over time. It’s not just a weekend, it’s a lifeline. It’s the one time each year you know what to expect, which is to expect nothing and watch everything because anything is bound to happen.

[SIDENOTE: seriously, does anyone know who brought that pogo stick last year? I had the longest ride and plan to re-set the record this year if we can get it back.]

It’s about friendship, about where you’re from and what’s good with this country.

Outside of traveling with sugar-mama, there isn’t anything I’d rather do than spend the last weekend of June in a Legion Hall in Alphahull. And even at that, sugar-mama accepts that that weekend is off-limits to anything but poker. Unless there’s a funeral, and then that’s somewhat dependent on if I really liked that person. So watch it Adam.

[SIDENOTE: yes, that was the obligatory sugar-mama ass-kissing; not that sugar-mama needs it because she’s cool and gets it, but still, better safe than sorry.]

It’s my boys. It’s my past. I’m gone from the Park and will never end up back there full-time, but I know one weekend a year, I’ll have that feeling again. That feeling that June brings.

I have one tattoo that has the letters CCMP as part of it. By the time the 2011 CCMP kicks off, I will have raised the ante as I will have a second (and it’s going to be fucking sweet, and huge). Some may think it’s stupid. Others may think I’m just crazy.

I think it’s what we do.