Spotlight on Carmen Mozzillo!

Father of Stang Talk. Wearer of Wranglers. According to female constituents, he has a skilled tongue. Our one and only lefty. Deliverer of many "Bird on a Wire's". Carmen is certainly one of the better golfers who is a regular attendee at the Al's Nest. His intensity has mellowed over the years and marriage definitely agrees with him. Gaumer & myself have had some of our most fun rounds with him. Usually we play together at Shawnee and have shared many laughs over the years. He's a good man and a blast to hang out with. Some of my finest memories of Carmen are:

1. Him chasing Booty around 12 Ecourts the first night we were together at the house and Booty stepping in the middle of a glass table and breaking it.

2. Going on a date to Sugar Bowl with him and Kelly Reed to Sugar Bowl the night they first met. Him spinning wheels in his Mustang after we dropped Kelly and her friend off and Kelly swooning as the rubber was laid down.

3. Carmen vomiting in my laundry the night he graduated from college at MU...finally. Then pretending that he did not vomit and that he was searching for Puddles.

4. One of my first ever rounds of golf was with Jones and Carmen in 1997. Carmen was no longer eligible to play on the MU Ice Hockey team. So we were there to get in a round prior to Jones, Booty, & others heading to the rink for a game. We played at Crossgates, which is a nice course for state schoolers. Through 4 holes Carmen was increasingly disappointed in his performance. The 4th hole at Crossgates is by the Conestoga River. Carmen was spraying the course with his drives snap hooked a few into the river, shot a few into the forest on the right, he was in a real Tin Cup mode. After his dissatisfaction with his drives, and this is the one and only time I have ever seen anyone do this, he DE-BAGGED from the golf cart, and stomped off the course. We were the furthest possible distance from the clubhouse and he was so fed up that he rolled out and started whacking back the booze. Jones and I were incredulous. We could not believe that just happened. While he walked down the fairway, Jones and I serenaded Carmen with Tom Petty's, "Don't Come Around Here No More," with emphasis on "He's giving up...STOP." To this day that song gets played at the Al's Nest or on the golf course in memory of that moment. After Jones and I finished the round, I of course did not play hockey, hung out with Carmen the remainder of the night. Before the night started we did 6 whiskey's(Jack Daniels, Jim Beam, Canadian Club, Old Grandad to name a few) at the Crossgates bar while hanging out with Booty's old girlfriend Kristin.

5. Getting arrested with Carmen for the Spring Fling. LCB descended on us and we were screwed after a huge campus wide party that we threw. Nobody ratted on anybody and I wound up arranging chairs in the SMAC for community service. At that time I was going to be a teacher and if I had this on my record I would not have been able to get my teaching certificate. It did not appear that the State was going to charge us for anything, but because my degree was in education I had to have that cleared up. Once the statute of limitations was almost up, they charged us and we all entered a pre-trial intervention program that led to a fine and community service but nothing on our permanent record. But after we had completed all of that I only taught for 1.5 yrs before switching careers. Carmen often pisses on me for that as he had to do gardening community service because I needed no ambiguity about whether or not I could be a teacher.

6. Cap wars in Avalon on vacation and smoking a cigarette. Carmen is the most advanced cap snapper I have ever seen. He can snap a bottle cap at Mach 1 and take out somebody's eye if he so desires. One year in Avalon we all got a house together and there were a big bowl of bottle caps that we added to during the course of the week and if you walked into a room he would snap it at you and leave a mark if you did not dodge it. Also, at the Princeton or at Jack's I dared Carmen to smoke a cigarette because I had never seen him do it before for $50. He puffed away like a champ. I was stunned. Guy was probably smoking since he was on Happy Days.

7. One of the topics of discussion that comes up during the Al's Nest, every single year, is when we were on vacation down the shore, is whether or not I shattered a set of sliders that was under Carmen's name one summer when we were all away together. I was in a heated debate with Cathy on the phone. Everybody was out of the house. I was sitting at the dining room table and while I was sitting there the sliders just shattered. There was no contact. I did not throw anything at them. They just broke. Carmen tried to corner me at his wedding into saying that I broke those sliders, and he has tried to solicit a confession every Al's Nest since but its not true. I did not break those sliders and I knew, and I know, that once those sliders broke that no one would ever believe what happened.

8. In 2017 was the year of my 40th birthday. After one day of golf at the Al's Nest, we went to a shanty bar that had a shuffleboard table. Instead of playing a whole game, Carmen proposed we revisit our 6 whiskey's evening from so many years ago. Instead of playing a whole game we would just play one round and the winner of the round would select the shot for the loser to do. I won the first 7 rounds and Carmen had to do 7 shots. I tried to pick easy shots like 99 Bananas, Jaegermeister, Rumpleminze, but then it wound up with an uptown downtown & Grizzler situation. Carmen could barely speak the rest of the night. Best. Birthday. Ever.

9. Probably never laughed so hard. We were trying to encourage Carmen to adopt someone so that we could get a driver to the Grandview after Al's Nest rounds conclude. Because the Jones boys, or Yashin boys are probably a few years off yet before being able to be DD's. That conversation was so intense and so hysterical and I will put in print that the potential adoptee's initials would be C.M., just like his Pop.

10. Another great ongoing joke is the "Old Man Snickering." Carmen bought a Blazer off a guy that needed brakes, brake pads, shocks, carburetor, battery, axles, new engine and re-upholstering and a host of other items and only charged him 15 grand. Gaumer and I roll every year at Al's Nest whenever someone gets taken advantage of in a deal. This story is greatly exaggerated for comedic purposes.

11. Watching him pin Mark Caracausa's legs behind his ears at 12E living room and simulate sex on him is one of the most disturbing visuals burned into my memory...yet also hilarious.