One of the best parts about my crazy Polish family is that I have had the privilege to get much closer to my cousins than most people do, and because of this one of my best friends is a family member: Joe Klick. Joe and I have been tight for as long as we have known each other, which is basically my entire life, and in those decades we have made, and continue to make, memories that I don't think I will ever forget. We've crashed into a ditch in the middle of nowhere in Canada after a weekend of boarding, we've partied like rock stars in South Haven, we've gotten drunk with our aunts and uncles on holidays, we went to MSU together for a couple years, and we played crossfire when we were little kids...this guy isn't my cousin, he's Polish brother.
The memory I'm going to go with is one of the most recent ones, which happens to also be one of the best for the sheer awesomeness of experiencing it first hand. So I went to visit Joe at his new apartment in Kalamazoo and at night we went to the bars, had a good time then came back and decided to keep the party going. First we had a few cigarettes outside on his back patio and drank a couple Brooklyn beers, shooting the shit and just enjoying the nice Michigan summer. After that we go up to his apartment and decide we need some music to go along with our beer drinking and chain smoking, thus we set up his bombastic stereo system and start blaring some awesome music...with the windows open...at 2:00AM. We're having a great time playing NHL on XBOX 360 and jamming out to Subterranean Homesick Alien by Radiohead when all of the sudden I see a light come in through a window in the back of his apartment. I ask Joe if he saw that, he said no, and we were drunk so we moved on. A few minutes later Joe gets up to grab another beer and the light is shining into the window right next to me, so I look outside and what do I see? A cop with a flash light. After the initial freakout, the guy turns out to be pretty cool and just tells us to turn it down, but the amazing part is that he was out there for at least fifteen to twenty minutes which can mean only one thing...our music was fucking awesome.
We then woke up the next morning to find a note on the front door from a neighbor complaining about the noise. This wasn't just any note though, they guy made a drawing of the building with an arrow pointing to where the sound was coming from. He also described the music as "Ungodly loud" which I thought was an awesome touch. This initially seemed like the worst possible scenario, but when we hang out we make memories for a reason. By the end of the day we were over at the guys place eating barbecue and taking part in some recreational activities...and that there is a hell of a memory.
Love you bro, cheers to our awesome, crazy ass family.
-Andrew
