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My first HOCO as a Western student and it was a weekend to remember!
He said
This week or weekend specifically was a big one on Emelia’s radar for some time: her first official Homecoming, or HoCo as it has been affectionately shortened down to, as an official Western student. Western has a pretty big reputation for having some legendary and some infamous Homecoming years where things border on getting out of hand. Emelia and her besties by virtue of our location pretty much on campus vicariously joined in last year wandering through the neighbourhood – mostly just people watching and seeing what it’s all about. But, this year she was actually going to go to some of the parties.
The plan was gather at the house and use it as home base, and then Danielle as “Mom Uber” as they moved from party to party. They learned very quickly how overwlemiong it can be and how our neighbourhood can slow to a drunken crawl at times. Because I worked the close on Friday and then a sort of close on Saturday Danielle was really the ear on the ground for all the kids did, but for the most part it sounded like they had a blast. The only bummer was that Emelia who wanted to go to the football game couldn’t find any one to go with her. Belle isn’t currently a student and would be allowed in without a student card, and Bri had the unfortunate luck of having a shift at her part time job. At the end of the day they learned about pacing themselves and got enough experience to know some dos and don’ts for next year. But for the actual rundown I will leave that to Danielle as she got it first hand.
Today was a ride that was on my radar for some time. With having Sundays off at work and my race season complete, I had been focusing on getting out to as many of my club rides as possible with the LCC with the free space on the calendar. And while I had of streak of going three for three so far this month with the club, and today was another day I was available, there was a ride I was not going to miss: Bluewater Ganfondo a race series I do was hosting a RIDE for RYAN – a memorial ride for Ryan Trusler who we tragically lost this year much too early. Ryan and his wife Anita were the captains of Team Cowbell for the MS Ride, but also the organizing committee for the BIG Granfondo. This is how I meant them and became fast, friends. At any rate the second they announced the ride, I signed up.
The ride was 28 km from Mike Weir Park in Brights Grove/Sarnia out to Stonepicker Brewing in Forest. Knowing that it was a point-to-point ride and that I couldn’t have Danielle act as my SAG vehicle, I was going to have to park at the start and ride out to Stonepicker, and then ride back after, to get the Jeep back. That was until I had the epiphany yesterday of doing it in the reverse: drop the Jeep at Stonepicker and ride from there to the start, so the ride and then be at the Jeep and closer to home! And that’s just what I did. The best part about it was hearing from my pal Swanny, a very close friend of Ryan’s, who told me Ryan would be proud of me for making the smart decision to ride it that way! So I did. And it was a great ride! Over a hundred riders showed up and shared in some very special moments doing what we loved, that Ryan also loved. And when I was ready to wrap up I watched everyone else forge back out on their bikes while I got in the Jeep and drove home.
She said
This week was fully focused for Emelia on HOCO prep. Last weekend she and the girls went to a party downtown and met a group of guys that invited them again to a party at their student house downtown Friday night. But before I get into that I will back track a bit. As I just said Emelia and the girls were at a party last week and they met some guys. Emelia and one really hit it off and have been chatting away since. Emelia is pretty guarded when it comes to guys and she honestly has very strict standards. So the fact that this guy cut through all that and they hung out this week and have been talking a lot might mean that her standards were finally met at least to see what would happen.
So back to Friday. The guy that Emelia has been talking to invited Emelia and then the girls to the party at his friend’s house right downtown. I got the girls all organized and then made the slow trek downtown. A drive that last week took me 10 minutes max this was a much longer drive. It was wall to wall students and a sea of Western purple clothes everywhere. After surviving student frogger I finally got to Kent Street where the party was. The street was packed, I made a quick drop off of the girls and told Emelia to text me when she got in the party. She messaged right away and said that she got in and was good. After a slow drive home I got settled in and within ½ hour I get a text from Emelia saying can you come get us. Well the party quickly got out of hand and it was shut down almost as fast as it started.
The girls in that time had met up with more friends, too many for me to drive them home so the girls started the slow walk home. One of the girls was drunker than the others and it didn’t take long before there was a call for one of the moms to get their child and Emelia and Bri got back to our place and Emelia crashed out for the night. She stayed up chatting away late into the night and made the most of a shortened night and she was ready and dreaming of the next night.
The next day I woke and it took hours before I heard a sound from Emelia. The girls at that time started the planning for the big HOCO night. Our house being so close to the university it made sense that we were the central hub for the girls to start their prep and head out for the night. The night was a bit of chaotic night that resulted in a lot of back and forth gathering intoxicated university students and getting back to our house. Emelia ended up being the nursemaid and mom of her friends. In the end it was a crazy weekend, Emelia in spite of the end seemed to live her best life and I know is feeling more and more each weekend that she is taking in all that is a university student.