Beer tripper

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First Posted: 1/18/2014 I wouldn&#8217;t call it a ritual or a rite of passage or anything like that, but I can see how a newcomer might. It&#8217;s more of a tradition, I&#8217;d say, a little something to get us started.
What we do is we take a piece of fresh Italian bread and break it in half, then we take an anchovy and a sauteed hot pepper (underline the hot), wrap the bread around both and enjoy &#8230; even if it means wiping away a tear. With the second half of the slice of bread, we do it again.
And that&#8217;s how a meeting of the Pittston High/Pittston Area Lettermen&#8217;s Club commences.
The basket of bread and little bowls of anchovies and peppers arrive with our trays of pizza. We don&#8217;t even order them any more, they&#8217;re sort of automatic.
Now, no one needs bread-wrapped anchovies and peppers before eating a couple of slices of pizza. And no one needs all of that before ordering, say, a dish of cappelletti with meatballs or a bowl of homemade tripe (with more bread, of course) and a sausage and pepper sandwich alongside, all preceded by a &#8220;special salad.&#8221;
No, no one needs to eat like that, especially at 8 o&#8217;clock at night. But we do.
Eating is what our meetings are all about. Well, eating and conversing. And perhaps a little business &#8230; about 5 minutes worth.
The Lettermen&#8217;s Club meets on a semi-regular basis, about 4 or 5 times a year. We have a club room (The Lincoln Inn in Dupont, chosen primarily because of the aforementioned food and that they will put up with us), officers (President Jim Castellino and Secretary/Treasurer John Brogna, both for life, although there has never been an actual election) and most importantly, a &#8220;den mother&#8221; if you will, the owner and proprietor of The Lincoln, Tina Macario.
If there is a ritual associated with the meetings, it&#8217;s each member kissing Tina on the cheek as soon as we arrive. We love her and she knows it.
The Lettermen&#8217;s Club is made up of athletes who won varsity letters playing sports at either Pittston High or Pittston Area. And me. Having not played varsity sports in high school I had to weasel my way in. It wasn&#8217;t that difficult.
I desperately wanted to be part of the club after I saw them in action several years ago at The Lincoln Inn while my wife and I ate rigatoni and meatballs at an adjoining table. &#8220;I have to get in on this,&#8221; I thought. And since I wrote sports, especially Pittston Area sports, for about 15 years, I figured I had an angle. After all, guys like Jack Buck and Red Barber are in the Baseball Hall of Fame, aren&#8217;t they?
The Letterman sitting closest to me that night was Danny Brogna, which was a good thing. Not only is Danny a dear friend, but also the alpha male of the group. I&#8217;ve known Danny since high school. He was in the grade ahead of me. Danny was an alpha male back then, and that&#8217;s before the term was even invented.
I whispered in his ear, &#8220;Hey, Danny, would you consider asking the guys to admit a certain former sportswriter into the club?&#8221; I didn&#8217;t have to ask twice. And dozens and dozens of anchovies and hot peppers later, here I am.
Or more precisely, there I was Wednesday evening as we met to approve our Unsung Hero Award.
The club sponsors the award annually for a Pittston Area football player who may not have been a star but who worked diligently week in and week out for the good of the team. &#8220;Diligently&#8221; is my word. Most of the guys say it&#8217;s for the player who &#8220;worked his butt off&#8221; without recognition. But they don&#8217;t say &#8220;butt.&#8221;
A few years ago the award was named in honor of former Pittston High and Pittston Area football coach Bob Barbieri. Aside from earning a letter, an unwritten requirement for joining the club is you must love Bob Barbieri. On that count, I qualify highly.
By the way, if the sports writer thing hadn&#8217;t worked, I may have been able to get in on my wife&#8217;s coattails, or sweatertails actually. She earned a varsity letter as a majorette. When she told me how much she loved her letterwoman&#8217;s sweater, I asked her if she still had it, which wouldn&#8217;t have surprised me. That girl saves everything. But sadly not this. She said one of her sister&#8217;s put it in the washer and dryer and when it came out, the letter was bigger than the sweater.
The Lettermen &#8212; about 13 of us which is a pretty good turnout &#8212; went to Wednesday&#8217;s meeting with apprehension, by the way. A couple of us had heard a rumor that The Lincoln Inn might be closing. We wondered if this would be our last meeting there and if so, who else would have us?
Well, as the meeting broke up and the guys were getting into their coats, one of the longtime Lincoln Inn employees asked me how to go about getting an ad in the Dispatch. She said there&#8217;s this rumor going around that they are closing and it simply is not true.
When the guys heard that, they were overjoyed.
So much so that someone yelled, &#8220;I make a motion that we pay for the ad out of our treasury.&#8221;
&#8220;Yeah,&#8221; everyone shouted and the motion carried.
The unanimous vote was no surprise. What was a surprise was that someone actually made a motion. That&#8217;s not like us.

Hot peppers, warm conversation and some pretty cool news