MODERN DAD | By Jon Show
Oct. 7. I’m not a fan of people who change. If I like someone then I like who they are, and if they change, well, they aren’t the same person, so who knows if I’ll still like them?
I’ve been friends with the same group of seven guys for nearly 35 years. We grew up in a small coastal town in Massachusetts and very little has changed about any of us. They are as follows:
Mazanec (Mazzy), Marrone (Bones), Lawless (T), Taylor (Taylor), Murphy (The Murph) and Zach (Zacho). I am called Show.
Our nicknames are not very creative.
Going Fourth
The Murph and I became friends in the fourth grade when I moved from Minnesota. The first time he came over to my house we played soccer because he loves soccer.
Murph kinda grew up in his own house and kinda grew up in all our houses because sometimes he needed a place to stay.
He was a soccer star in high school and college. He coached after college and owned a house painting business before being stabbed in back one night by two Albanians in the parking lot of a bar.
Now he works in industrial sales and recently relocated to Huntersville with his family.
Fifth Element
Lawless showed up in the fifth grade from Connecticut.
Big time ginger. Big time sports fan who likes to swear at TVs. There are network executives who spend less time watching sports on television than Lawless.
He grew up with a crush on T Boz from the music group TLC. I believe that’s where he got the nickname “T” but it also might just be because his name is Tom.
Lawless once showed up to a final exam in college and the teacher thought he was in the wrong room because he had never attended the class. He was allowed to take the exam and passed.
He lives in LA and owns a voiceover agency. His clients include Mr. T, Shooter McGavin, and the actor who does the Farmers Insurance ads.
Sixth Sense
We picked up Mazzy and Taylor in the sixth grade.
As a child, football comprised at least 90 percent of Maz’s identity. Probably 100 percent. In middle school one night after weigh-ins he was asked to leave an all you can eat spaghetti buffet for eating too much.
Maz’s basement was where we hung out on weekends. At some point in high school his house became a fully functioning casino with slot machines and at least two poker games a week.
He grew up with a sister, three brothers and his dad (all big football guys). The oldest brother once got mad during a Notre Dame game and bounced his sister’s cat off the wall.
Big Notre Dame fans.
Taylor hasn’t left his home wearing shoes in 35 years and he’s always at least ten minutes late.
As a child he had two dogs that roamed the streets day and night. They were very much loved by his family but to this day I still have no idea who cared for them on a daily basis.
My kids call him Double Ear Infection Flu Guy because that’s what he was diagnosed with at the Minute Clinic the last time he came to visit us.
Seventh Heaven
Marrone showed up in seventh grade from some other town in Massachusetts.
Preacher’s son. The comedian in a group of comedians. The guy you can drop into a party who will immediately have everyone dying laughing through a mix of mockery and self-deprecation.
Marrone developed clumsiness during a growth spurt in middle school and never grew out of it. No person on earth has ever walked into more walls.
I once stole his car in the middle of the night, filled it with balloons and put it on the school lawn for April Fool’s Day. He responded the following year by setting my dog loose in the cafeteria, where it ate someone’s lunch and peed on a kid’s backpack.
Eighth Amendment
Zach capped us off in the eighth grade after we played a pick-up tackle football game between our group and a rival group of friends. We won. Zach joined our group. This statement is equally accurate and ridiculous.
Zacho is the resident free spirit who is prone to disappearing and sometimes just not appearing at all. During T’s wedding he went missing for three hours because he decided to attend a different wedding at the hotel.
Zach is the guy who says impossible things like, “Let’s go to the cape tonight and see if we can find a party,” and then you get there and actually find a party and wake up on the beach at 6 am.
Change is Overrated
All of them came to visit for a weekend last month except Zach, who couldn’t make it.
Taylor missed his flight and arrived the next day after a 14-hour layover in Dallas.
On Saturday night Marrone cracked a joke that began with, “One of my ex-wives.” He only has one but married her twice.
Mazzy wasn’t planning to drink because he needed to reduce swelling in his hands so he could remove his wedding ring for an impending hand surgery, but it slipped off the morning he arrived so he began the visit with a bloody mary at 9 am.
Lawless stuck around to watch football on Sunday. He dropped the F word in front of a child at a sports bar, and when he realized what he’d done, apologetically responded with the S word.
Murph and I capped off the weekend playing in our Sunday night soccer league, where he scored the winning goal.
Never change, fellas. Never change.
Jon Show lives in Robbins Park with his wife, who he calls “The Mother of Dragons.” Their 13-year-old son is “Future Man” and their 10-year-old daughter is “The Blonde Bomber.” Their dog is actually named Lightning.
