The story of Craig

Let's a try a little something new. Since this site is starved for content during the college basketball off-season, I got to bust some new shit out. Even though I'm a much bigger NBA fan than college ball fan, apparently my blogging game is vice versa.

Anyways, the following is a little article I'm writing exclusively for Where’s P-Mac about the life and times of Craig Waterman, a baller on many levels. I figure if I write a few bullshit, non-conventional articles about people I know it should keep my writing quasi sharp. Will this be the new face of journalism? Probably not, but at least it should provide for some enjoyable reading on a small-time blog.

"That's him," I shouted. "That's the kid from my English class!"

The kid from my English class, Craig Waterman, was jumping up and down on Lute and Bobbi Olson Court like Miles Simon in ’97 as he had just won a University of Arizona-themed Vespa.

Craig turned the key and started the ignition of the varsity-red colored Vespa in a State Farm sponsored contest during halftime of a Wildcats game.

As the ignition started Craig pumped his arm, which was proudly adorned in a collection of in paper bracelets, which are given out to the first 700 fans at every UA home game. Craig never took the bracelets off during the season.

At the time I barely knew Craig. I knew he was a big Chicago sports fan, which is pretty much all it takes to justify your thug with me.

The story of Craig picking up the scooter is actually better than my recollection of him winning it.

“I just showed up to (the McKale Center) and told them I won the Vespa,” Craig said. “They took me to a back room, opened a closet door and gave it to me, they didn’t ask for ID or anything.” That’s right after paying his $250 in taxes to Uncle Sam, Craig was just handed a new scooter with no advice as how to ride it.

“I opened up the instruction manual and figured out how to start it,” he said. “The hardest part was getting the kickstand up; that took me about 20 minutes.”

Craig then took a practice lap around the parking lot before hopping on to Speedway Blvd. and driving it home.

To say Craig’s house is odd would probably be an understatement. He lives with 13 other people in a large white house just east of 4^th Ave.

As I walked through the gate surrounding his fortress, I met a shirtless man who appeared to be in his mid-twenties walking out a guest house on their property.

“Hey, what’s up Bebber,” Craig said.

“Who’s that?” I asked.

“Oh, that’s Bebber. He lives in the guest house with his fiancé.”

“Of course he does.”

As I walked in Craig’s place, there were four people sitting within two feet of a 20-inch television playing Mario Kart for Nintendo 64 in a room far too large for a 20-inch TV.

Then I walked into Craig’s room, which he shares with a roommate. The most gangsta thing about it: an Andres Nocioni poster which had fell off the wall and was now crumpled up underneath his bunk bed.

His room also had a fireplace, which was blocked by his roommate’s desk.

“There’s like three fireplaces in this house,” Craig said.

He then took me outside to see his Vespa, which was now fairly dirty, had a crack in the front wheel-well and was missing a rear-view mirror.

“Yeah one of my retarded friends crashed it into that wall,” said Craig, as he pointed toward a wall a few feet away.

Craig is apparently the nicest kid ever because he lets pretty much anyone ride his scooter.

“I figure I won it, so I hate being a dick about letting other people ride it.”

Craig took me for a spin around the block as I sat behind him on the scooter. He then let me take it out by myself.

I’ve never drove a scooter or anything like it in my life. My closest experience was probably riding a Razor scooter in middle school. As expected it was fucking incredible.

Craig talked about how badly he wanted to take it back to Glen Allen, Ill. a suburb of Chicago, where he resides in the summer.

Unfortunately it would cost too much to hook up a trailer hitch to his 1997 Volvo A20, his car by the way has the cassette version of the single “I wanna be like Mike” in his deck at all times.

Even though we had only known each other for a semester and we’ve only hung out a couple of times outside of class, he offered me his scooter for the summer.

I declined because it seemed like too much at once and fortunately/unfortunately he ended up loaning it to his friend this summer who totaled her car.

In the words of my friend Owen Beitner, "Craig is good people."

There’s probably a whole lot more great things about Craig that I'm leaving out like this, this, this and this. Oh yeah and this.