A week after Carlos and I played TUGs at my house for the first time, I started my junior year (11th grade) in high school. I usually rode the school bus back and forth each day, as I didn't have my own car yet and lived too far from my cousins to get a ride from either of them. Riding the bus was enjoyable, though, as most of my friends lived on the same bus route as I did and many of them also took the bus.
Morgan was now a freshman and George a sophomore, so we often sat together on the bus. Tom and Carlos were also freshmen and joined us as often as not. These two had met recently during one of Carlos’ visits to Morgan’s house (Tom lived between them) and had become friends as well. I wouldn’t have been surprised to learn that TUGs had become part of their relationship but there was no indication of this.
Michael and Brian rode the bus with the rest of us at first, but David had gotten his own car by then and soon was driving them to school himself. My cousin Randy was a senior who also had his own car, so we rarely saw him on the bus at all unless he was having mechanical difficulties or was short of money for gas. Ron and Al had purchased cars as well; each took turns driving the other to school. Sho had gotten a car the previous school year and drove Ichiro to school. Walter and Gary had already graduated. My remaining friends were not old enough for high school yet.
So riding the bus wasn’t the huge reunion with friends I'd expected it to be, but George, Morgan, Carlos, and Tom were enough to keep me company on the rides to and from school, and I saw and interacted with many of the others during school hours. For example, Ron and Al were in the same grade as I was and we often ended up seated close together in “Home Room”.
However, though we chatted amiably enough on the bus or in classes about matters of common interest to teenage boys, the subject of TUGs was never among them; that was something one simply did not discuss in public where one could be overheard. But Al and Ron remained friendly with me and I was hopeful that there might still be renewed TUGs activity between us at some point.
As it turned out, though, my first conversation with anybody about TUGs after school began was with Carlos, and it was on the very first day of the school year.
Being two grades apart, we didn’t have any classes in common. However, we had lunch period at the same time. Once we realized this on the first day of school, we immediately sat at the same table together as far from anybody else as we could get. Tom was also in line. a bit behind us; it took him only a minute to get what he wanted and join us.
As soon as Tom sat down, Carlos quietly asked me, “Can Tom and I visit you after school today?”
I looked rapidly from Carlos to Tom and back to Carlos again. “Umm… okay, sure,” I replied quickly, just before several other students joined us and made further conversation all but impossible. But I was certain I knew what Tom and Carlos wanted to do.
Sure enough, mere moments after I got off the bus with Tom and Carlos and led them into the house, they had ropes in their hands and were tying me up. I’d only managed to give my dog a quick petting after his usual exuberant greeting before I was bound hand and foot, laid on the bed, and straddled by my two friends; Carlos astride my chest and Tom on my belly.
“I take it you two have been talking to each other about me,” I remarked dryly. This seemed obvious as they were clearly at ease doing this together.
“Actually, it was Morgan who told me about Carlos joining the ‘club’,” Tom told me. Of course, he was using the term “club” rather loosely as, strictly speaking, there was *no* club as such any longer. Whatever loose organization we'd ever possessed had completely disintegrated by this time. However, Tom was still talking; this overrode my normal inclination to point out errors of this type.
“So Morgan introduced me and Carlos,” Tom continued, “and both of us tied him up and played with him for a while. After that, you were a natural topic of conversation.”
This seemed too obvious to require a response, so I merely grunted in agreement.
“Morgan wanted to come with us today too, but he and George had chores,” Carlos added. “Maybe when we get together tomorrow, we can really make this interesting.”
I cocked my eyebrow at his choice of words: “when”, not “if”, we got together the next day. I didn’t comment aloud about this, however – I decided simply to enjoy the moment.
Sure enough, on the way home the next day, Morgan got off the bus with us at my house. After giving me the chance to pet my dog, he joined the others in tying me up as soon as I got to my room. And then there were three of them sitting on top of me for a pleasant two hours before my mother came home and they had to leave.
After this, for a considerable while, the four of us would get off the bus at my house, Carlos’s house, or Morgan’s house an average of two to three times a week. If we were at Morgan’s house George would join us too. Usually the guest of honor would be the one whose house we were staying at (which was mine about half of the time).
Like my mother, Morgan’s parents both worked for a living and were out every weekday until past five; this gave us plenty of opportunities to play TUGs at his house. Likewise, Carlos (who lived only with his mother as she was divorced) had the house to himself after school; his mother worked weekdays as a housekeeper.
Tom's parents were different; they worked at home tending their farm. We therefore went to his house after school only rarely because of the lack of privacy there. In addition, Tom sometimes couldn't join the rest of us playing TUGs because of a heavier load of farm chores he had to do than the rest of us, though by this time his parents were cutting him more slack than they used to for the sake of his social life.
Weekends were different as far as Tom was concerned. Most of the time, Tom’s parents were away much of the day on Saturday (for business reasons of some kind) and so some of us would get together at Tom’s house for TUGs fun. On Sundays, it would be George and Morgan’s parents who were away visiting relatives (often their company-loving grandmother). And so many times, unless George and Morgan were compelled to join the visit, or their sister Julia was visiting home from college, we'd adjourn to their house on Sunday for the same purpose. My house was unsuitable on weekends because my mother was often home then… and sometimes her new beau Bob would be there visiting as well.
Weekends were therefore better than weekdays because we usually had more time for an extended TUG. On warmer days, we'd go outdoors somewhere and one of us (usually but not always me) would either be tied upright to a tree or staked out on the ground and subjected to the worst torments the others could dream up and actually dare to do to a willing (or semi-willing) victim. As the weather got cooler (but not *too* cold) the torments would include the victim being clothed just enough to cover his modesty but little else… and then liberally dosed with water from a nearby pond.
If I was the chosen victim I'd often get sat on too; not only because I liked it but because it helped warm me up. I was also chosen most often because I'd put up without complaint with things no one else would. But sometimes doing it to somebody else was more fun for the others *because* I didn’t complain; the howls of outrage from the victim were part of the fun for the others too.
As the school year progressed and the outside weather got colder, our TUGs activities during the weekdays became less frequent and weekends became more of a certainty. Little Fred began joining us on occasion when we were at Tom’s house, though it was usually Tom he tied up and tended to rather than any of the rest of us.
In addition, Stevie and Matt rejoined our circle and started attending the festivities as well; they offered their own house for our base of operations when Matt's mother happened to be out for the day (as she often was). Matt was always one of those who was tied up on these occasions, but he usually had me (and often one or two of the others as well) for company.
Josh and Craig sometimes joined us when we convened at Stevie and Matt’s house; I rarely saw them otherwise.
Ron and Al occasionally visited me as well, or I visited them when none of the others were around. However, these visits were usually TUGs-free and became rarer over time. I am unsure why, but they seemed to be steadily losing their interest in playing TUGs – at least, with me. By the end of the fall semester, they stopped this altogether – though we remained friends for the rest of our high school years. We still interacted socially at school fairly often, but ever afterward it was as though there had never been any TUGs between us at all. I tried asking about it a couple of times, but they always changed the subject abruptly (though politely). So we never talked about TUGs again.
Sho and Jirou remained friendly with me at school. However, Sho seemed to spend all his time with J.J. and Jirou visiting a new circle of friends in his own grade, so my relationships with these three cooled as well – at least, for a while. Things would eventually heat up between us again, but that’s a story for another time.
Randy continued to remain friendly in school but, like Sho, he seemed to develop new, stronger friendships with his classmates (seniors in this case). So I almost never saw him outside school except when my mother and I visited his mother at their house; he never came with his mother when she visited us. This made me feel a little lost; I started to miss his (and his older brother Walter’s) tie-up-and-torment pranks keenly.
I missed Sho, Al and Ron even more; though they weren't relatives of mine, they were closer to me in age than any of the others were.
David and his brothers remained friendly and interested in TUGs, but I didn't get to visit them very often, and of the three, only David visited me and even then only occasionally. Michael and Brian took to visiting Jirou more often, while David was active in various sports, in the Boy Scouts, and with other activities that kept him too busy to spend as much time with me as before.
However, David remained interested in TUGs and still enjoyed tying me up when he had time for a visit. He even remained somewhat interested in other, more intimate games with me as well… the only one of my friends besides George and (occasionally) Brian who was interested during this time. But these games were less intense and rarer than they used to be.
Matters continued in this way until December, when there was a sudden upheaval in my life… my mother and Bob decided to get married!
I felt as if the entire world had gone insane. Bob was going to be my stepfather! My only knowledge of stepfathers (or stepmothers, for that matter) came from Grimm’s Fairy Tales, where they usually turned out to be spectacularly rotten people. None of my friends had step-parents, so they couldn't offer me any worthwhile guidance on the matter. My father had had a stepfather (and a stepbrother who he’d gotten along with better than he had with his own full brother), but he was deceased and couldn’t tell me what that had been like. I didn’t particularly like Bob to begin with, he had no children I might make friends with, and now I was afraid things would just go downhill.
Mom and Bob decided to get married in the middle of December and spend a week on a honeymoon up in Canada. The only real sticking point was where *I* would spend the week; the only thing we all agreed on for certain was that it wasn’t going to be with *them*!
At first Mom wanted me to spend the week with my Aunt Yvette and my cousins Randy and Walter (Walter would be home from college). But while I'd have enjoyed that the previous year, the recent coolness of my cousins toward me made me unenthusiastic about the idea this time. Besides, I was 16 now; from my point of view, surely I was old enough to take care of myself at home for a week!
Mom and Bob pointed out that I couldn’t drive to get groceries. I responded that it would be simple enough to stock up on groceries, and though I wasn't in Mom’s league I *was* a good enough cook to feed myself. Aunt Yvette could always check on me every so often, and I could call her if I needed anything. Surely that would be easier for everyone concerned than her having to put me up for a week – to say nothing of boarding my large and rather frisky dog as well.
I think it was the point about the dog that convinced Mom. Aunt Yvette loved dogs; in fact, she used to have one. However, she was used to quiet, well-behaved poodles. Not big, frisky retrievers who demanded frequent petting, had boundless energy, and shed all over the place!
And so I got my way and had the house all to myself for the week. The wedding would be on the Friday before Christmas vacation (I had an excused absence for the day), and Mom and my new stepfather would be home on Sunday the following week, the day before Christmas Eve. There would be no school, so I’d be home alone all day with presumably just Blackie for company most of the time.
Not once did it occur to me that I'd set up a remarkable opportunity for myself. Not until the week actually arrived.
It was a very nice wedding – at least, for something that was going that was going to change my life in so many ways. However, I enjoyed it about as much as I'd have enjoyed being in a rickety building during an earthquake. But I put on a brave front, smiled at everybody, and kept out of the way as much as I could manage.
My Aunt Yvette and cousin Randy (also excused from classes for the day) were there, of course. Randy, who was apparently bored, kept me company for the most part – proving friendlier on this occasion than he’d been since mid-summer – and this helped me shake off feelings of gloom and doom.
The reception was a relatively modest and mercifully brief one. It was still early afternoon when Mom and Bob drove off to begin their honeymoon. I expected to get a ride home with my Aunt Yvette but Randy had driven to the reception in his own car and offered to take me home instead. There was no reason to be suspicious under the circumstances, especially as we’d had no TUGs together in several months, so I readily accepted.
“So, how do you like your new step-dad?” Randy asked me cheerfully on the way home.
I rolled my eyes and made gagging noises; this seemed eloquent enough to express my feelings.
“Don’t like him much, huh?” Randy replied just as cheerfully, but without any apparent attempt to needle me. “He’s an all-right guy, though. I’ve known him for years. A bit of a stiff, but he’s all right. Still, I’m glad he’s not going to be *my* step-dad!”
“Thanks,” I replied dryly. “That makes me feel *so* much better!”
“I know what’ll make you feel better,” Randy said with a sly grin. “Want to have a tie-up when we get to your house? I’ve got the time if you do.”
This was the first time Randy had expressed any interest in spending any time with me – let alone playing a TUG with me – since mid-summer. As I'd honestly missed having TUGs with him, I agreed without hesitation. He smiled and nodded, and I smiled and felt better than I had all day.
We arrived at my house, where Blackie greeted me (and Randy) with his usual vigorous canine fanfare, and we went up to my room where I began to change out of the suit and tie I’d worn for the wedding.
“Aw, don’t bother with all that,” Randy said as he opened my secret stash of bondage materials without even bothering to undo his own tie or remove his jacket. “You can change clothes afterward.”
I’d only managed to get my tie, shoes, and jacket off and had unbuttoned my shirt before Randy came up to me, jokingly pushed me down onto my bed, made me lie down on top of it in the usual spread-eagle, and handcuffed my right wrist to the bedpost on my right. With a few brisk movements, Randy circled around me and my bed and quickly and efficiently cuffed my remaining hand to the other head-post and then secured my feet to the further bedposts with a couple of pieces of rope (I had no cuffs that would fit my ankles at the time).
Without a word, Randy immediately climbed onto my bed, straddled my chest, and playfully began slapping my face with both hands. He was, incongruously it seemed to me at the time, still wearing his shoes, suit, and tie – the first time I’d ever had a TUG with someone wearing full formal wear when it wasn’t my birthday.
Oddly, it somehow felt more thrilling that way. Even so, I couldn’t help but ask, in a sly sort of way, “So, aren’t you going to make yourself more comfortable?” After all, I was used to seeing him wear considerably less than this when he was playing TUGs with me, and, frankly, I enjoyed looking at his slim and athletic form when it had less clothing concealing it.
“Nah, I’ve got to get home now,” Randy said to me with a laugh and, without warning, got up off of me and started to walk out of my room… without freeing me!
“Hey! Wait a minute!” I yelped in some surprise, too stunned to be certain whether he was joking or not. “What about me?”
“Don’t worry, you’ve got other company coming!” he told me cheerfully as he hastened down the stairs. “Bye!”
“What? Wait!” I called out in disbelief and frustration. “HEY!!! Come back here!”
But Randy was already out the door, and though I was probably still vaguely audible from outside he simply got into his car, started it up, hooted the horn a couple of times, and drove away.
I swore out loud to myself. *Now* what was I going to do?
Blackie wandered uneasily up to my bed, whining a bit with concern as he sensed my mood; but all he could offer me was moral support. There was certainly nothing he could do to get me free.
I didn’t have long to wonder what prank my cousin had in mind for me this time. After just a little while, I heard the school bus stopping at the road in front of my house. “Why the heck is it stopping here?” I asked Blackie in puzzlement. “I’m not even *on* it!”
For an answer, Blackie went to my window and began to bark. Moments later, I could hear familiar voices talking and laughing outside. It was George and Morgan.
I expected that I'd need to yell for help when they knocked on the door and wouldn’t be able to come in. I was a bit slow on the uptake. They didn’t knock; they simply opened the front door – which Randy had purposely left unlocked – and walked right in. I could hear them clearly as they headed right up the stairs to my room without calling out to me or talking between themselves. They simply approached, laughing quietly, as if it was their own house they’d entered rather than mine.
They opened the door of my room and came right in, looking not a bit surprised to see me alone and secured to my own bed. “Hi, Jase!” George said to me cheerfully as he and Morgan took off their jackets as casually as you could imagine. “How was the wedding?”
I stared at them, goggled-eyed and in slack-jawed silence for a moment. “You…” I sputtered and had to start over. “You two knew about this, didn’t you?” I accused them.
“Sure we did,” Morgan replied happily as he removed his shirt and T-shirt – revealing his fit, athletic torso underneath – and then straddled my chest precisely as Randy had. “Randy set this up with us weeks ago!”
“Should’ve known,” I groused, though actually I was feeling much happier by this time. I complained more because of the casual way I’d been set up (yet again!) than the (to me, pleasurable) consequences of it.
“We thought you’d like it,” Morgan said happily as he began torturing my face in the usual ways; twisting my nose, flicking my ears, and so forth.
“Some of the others are going to come along for a visit while you’ve got the house to yourself, too.” George told me as he removed his own shirt and then proceeded to tickle my feet, which of course made me laugh like the Joker from Batman. “I thought *that* would make you happy,” he added wryly as he continued tickling me and I continued to laugh almost insanely. Morgan meanwhile started tickling me along my ribs; this rendered me incapable of any coherent response because I was laughing too hard.
Seeing that I was in a better mood and had some friends with me, Blackie went to his own doggie bed and took a nap. He was used to this kind of thing by now.
There was no intimacy involved, but Morgan stripped down to just his boxer shorts before long while George wore gym shorts and a tank-top. The two brothers kept me pleasantly under their control for the next few hours while we watched TV in my room. They cooked me a TV dinner and fed it to me by hand while each had a sandwich for himself. Morgan fed Blackie for me too, as I was obviously unable to feed him myself.
It was just before seven o’ clock when they finally made preparations to go back home. It wasn't until they started to put their coats on that it began to dawn on me that they were making no attempts to free me of my captivity.
“Hey, you’re not going to leave me handcuffed to my bed while I’m alone all night, are you?” I asked with genuine concern.
“Of course not, Jason,” George told me with a grin that made me suspicious, and still making no move to unlock my bonds.
“…But?” I asked suspiciously after a long pause.
“You won’t be alone,” Morgan told me with a grin as he put on his cap and gloves. “Carlos is going to spend the night with you. He’ll be here any moment. Don’t worry; we won’t leave until he gets here, just in case he can’t…”
He was interrupted by Blackie rushing suddenly downstairs and barking at the front door. A moment later I could hear someone scraping snow off their boots outside, come on through the front door, close it, and take off their boots. Blackie, meanwhile, could be heard running playfully about, as he often did when one of my friends came in, and I heard sounds indicating that whoever was downstairs was petting him. I relaxed, as Blackie reacted differently with people he didn’t know; friendly as he was, he’d have continued barking if it was someone he didn’t already know was a friend.
“That you, Carlos?” George called downstairs.
“Si!” Carlos’ now-familiar voice answered. “Be up in a minute. How’s everything?”
“Just fine!” George answered. George and Morgan then turned to face me. “Have a nice night,” George told me.
“Try not to get athlete’s face,” Morgan told me wryly. Then, before I could reply (if indeed I’d had anything to say), they went downstairs, exchanged a few quick words with Carlos, called “Good night!” back up to me, and headed out the door. A moment later Carlos walked up the stairs and greeted me at the door as he came in.
“Enjoying your Christmas vacation surprise so far?” Carlos asked me as he proceeded to remove his shirt.
“Umm, yeah… it’s quite a surprise all right,” I replied in agreement as he casually sat on the edge of my bed and began to pull off his boots. “But how long are you guys going to keep me chained up like this? Not that I mind!” I added hastily, “But I’ve got to go to the bathroom!”
“Oh, we’re going to keep you like this all week while your Mom’s away,” Carlos told me cheerfully. “Not just us, either. Randy, Stevie, Tom, David, and Brian are all going to come by and take turns keeping you company and entertain you, too. Randy thinks Walter might stop by too. As for the bathroom, don’t worry, amigo; I’ll take you there myself after I’ve relaxed a bit!”
And with that, Carlos climbed up on top of me, sat on my belly, planted his still sweaty socked feet on top of my face, and watched a repeat episode of Star Trek on my TV.
Once the program was over, Carlos freed me from my bonds so I could take a quick bathroom break. No attempt was made to keep me partially restrained or on a leash like my cousins used to do; he simply escorted me to the bathroom, let me do my business in private, escorted me up again, and chained back me back down the moment I returned to my bed. After all, we both knew I didn’t want to “avoid capture”, and he was more interested in making me smell and worship his feet than in humiliating me in other ways.
Removing everything he wore but a set of briefs, Carlos resumed sitting on me and using my face for a foot-stool as we watched more TV for a while. Afterward, when it was time for lights out, he lay on top of me as we slept. Other than a little hugging, though, there was no physical intimacy between us.
Even so, a relevant part was quite hard much of the night.
The next morning Carlos released me briefly for another bathroom break, tied me back to my bed, and straddled my chest while hand-feeding me breakfast. We then watched some Saturday morning TV programs for a while until Stevie arrived just before lunchtime to take over for Carlos. Then, with a wave and a jaunty “Adios,” Carlos left me to the tender mercies of my next guest / babysitter.
Still just shy of being thirteen, Stevie was by then almost two inches taller than me but was still many pounds lighter than I was and otherwise looked his own age. He was about as tall as Rusty had been but even skinnier, weighing perhaps 140 at most. He reminded me of Rusty in other ways, too, even though he had little physical resemblance to Rusty and was, as far as I know, unrelated to him. It was at about this time that everybody began to call him “Beanpole”.
Unlike Carlos, Stevie insisted on keeping me tied up virtually every moment he was with me. Bathroom breaks were still private, but I was kept hobbled and my hands cuffed in front of me (unless I needed to wipe myself) whenever I went inside the bathroom. Instead of keeping me in bed for lunch, Stevie tied me to a kitchen chair while I ate (it was sandwiches Stevie had brought himself). We watched TV in the afternoon and then went for a walk in the woods together. I was hobbled and leashed and walked with my hands cuffed behind my back. Blackie went with us, of course, and ran free wherever he wished to go.
It was pleasurable to be kept so tightly under the control of a boy nearly four years younger than I was, so I obeyed Stevie better than Blackie obeyed me. Unlike many of the others, though, Stevie wasn’t into torture; so usually I was left un-tormented for the most part except for the occasional foot tickle.
Randy took over for Stevie late in the afternoon, and Walter – home from college for the holidays – dropped in for a while as well but couldn’t stay. Randy stayed overnight and kept things lively and interesting in his inimitable fashion. He left me standing inside my own closet – gagged, blindfolded, almost naked, and with my arms held suspended above me by an iron pipe that ran just a few inches underneath the ceiling – while he watched TV. Fortunately I was tall enough that I couldn’t be held semi-suspended off the floor on my tip-toes that way… even though that was clearly his original intent.
Tom took over the day shift on Sunday. Unlike the others, he let me stay untied most of the time. He apparently figured I needed a break from being tied up or lacked the nerve to keep me bound like the others did. So we played checkers, took a walk, shot some hoops, and watched a football game on TV. I was no football fan but he was, and he sat on top of me the whole time so I didn’t complain.
But after this pleasant start, things rapidly went south. Tom had tied me to a kitchen chair and was just about to feed me dinner when the phone rang. Tom hesitantly answered the phone himself as I was quite literally tied up with other matters. I’d expected him to bring the phone to me so I could talk with whoever was on the line – figuring the caller was Mom or one of my friends. Instead, Tom uttered an astonished “What?!”, turned pale as he listened to whoever was calling, replied “I’ll take care of it right away!”, hung up, and hurried over to me.
“That was Walt,” Tom told me as he hastily began to untie me. “Your brother is coming home on leave! Walt saw him as he passed through town. He’s just up the road and he’ll be here any moment!”
“What?” I yelped, even more astonished – and chagrined – than Tom was. “What’s *he* doing coming here while Mom’s out?! I wasn’t expecting him at all!”
The sound of Blackie barking outside told me that I’d soon find out. Fortunately Tom had gotten me untied by this time and we were able to hide my bondage materials and all other evidence that anything unusual had been taking place.
My brother Ike came in through the front door; announced only by the canine reception committee of one dog, who seemed much gladder to see him than *I* was at the moment.
“Hi, Ike,” I greeted him with a half-hearted attempt to sound cheerful. “How come you’re here while Mom’s away for a week?”
“Because Mom *is* away for a week and she thought you’d be lonely all by yourself,” Ike told me somewhat more cheerfully.
“Oh!” I replied, lamely. “That was thoughtful of her,” I almost added, even more lamely; but I kept this thought to myself.
“And because I wanted to spend Christmas at home instead of in a naval barracks.” Ike added wryly.
Well, even *I* couldn’t blame him for *that*.
Although Ike used to play TUGs with me himself when we were younger (and in fact he’d introduced them to me and played them steadily with me from the time I was 5 and he was 9), I wasn’t really expecting (or wanting) him to want to play them with me now. So I didn't let him in on what Tom and I (and the others) had been up to. Instead, we simply talked about what he’d been doing in the Navy and so on. It was a pleasant enough conversation – the friendliest we’d had in years, actually, as we’d not been on good terms since I’d turned 12 – and I soon managed to get over my disappointment that his arrival had spoiled things so badly.
Ike would be staying in the room that had been set aside for him, which was upstairs and next to my own room. With him around, the upstairs was no longer my sole domain and any further TUGs my friends had planned for me were therefore aborted. For a while, this made me even more resentful of my brother than I’d been in years, and I couldn’t even give myself the satisfaction of telling him so.
But though Ike had inadvertently spoiled my plans by volunteering to come home for the Christmas holidays to keep an eye on me, our relationship soon turned more cordial than it had since I was 12. We’d both matured somewhat, I suppose, and we were able to put past differences behind us. He’d even brought me a few musical cassette tapes as a Christmas present, including a couple of albums by the Moody Blues, one by Jimi Hendrix, and two others by a proto-heavy metal band called Uriah Heep. I was notoriously difficult to buy presents for, but I enjoyed all the tapes and listened to them several times while he was visiting. I don’t recall what I gave him, but it probably wasn’t as nice as his gift to me.
We had many pleasant conversations during his stay, both before and after Mom and Bob came home from their honeymoon. But we never once discussed our own TUGs history and there was no hint from either of us that the other was still interested in the subject. If Ike suspected I still played TUGs with our cousins or with any of my friends (and in hindsight I think he probably did), he never said anything about it. More importantly, though, he never mentioned any of that to Mom or Bob either.
But now, with Bob living with Mom and me, my TUGs life would never quite be the same ever again.