More Crazy Bernie.

This is shortly before the bananas incident.


This is shortly after.

Look at those things! I think it's gross to eat bruised bananas like that when they haven't been tucked in nicely between my sweaty banana for over two hours. Bernie. What in the world.


Bino later recounted this moment: "Bernie squeezes HARD. Like, my shoulder hurt after that. He was digging into hit as hard as he could."

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I forgot to include another part of our night with Crazy Bernie. Bear in mind, this was in Croatia. English is not the first language there -- a fact which always seems to trouble Brits, no matter which country I encounter them in. It's like they still view the world as if the sun has not set on the Empire. But it has.

"Where are you from??" Bernie demanded of the Asian-looking waiter who had innocently walked into our side alley outside of Fresh.

"Canada," he said in a tone much more courteous than the one which had prompted his response.

Bernie, who was "pissed" at this point ("pissed" means "drunk," not "angry," in Britain), either didn't hear or wasn't trying to hear the answer he was given.

"Speak bloody English!" he yelled, clearly demonstrating that anyone with slanted eyes cannot possibly understand the international language of the 21st century.

"Chill Bernie," I said in a hush tone. "He's from the same country your wife is from, man."

Everyone was staring at us now, wondering who in the world had brought the 60-year-old loudmouth.

It wasn't Bernie's fault; it was the booze. I think, being around two 22-year-olds, Bernie felt as if he had to hang. But he didn't last long before he lost his grip.

The cliffhanger came about a minute later, when he struck up a conversation with the people across from us, who actually were speaking "bloody English."

"Where are you from?" he asked in a slurred voice, leaning forward from his perch next to me in the alley.

"New Zealand."

"A Kiwi?!?!?!" Bernie exclaimed.

I had spent my entire trip up to that point trying to decipher whether or not the term "Kiwi" was socially acceptable. Everyone from a country that has the Union Jack in its flag seems to use it; but people from the Union Jack-flag countries are typically not the ones you want to preside over a PC seminar. After the "Speak bloody English" debacle with the Asian-Canadian waiter, I was worried that Bernie was getting a little too rambunctious.

I shot a glance over at Bino; neither of us knew where this was going, but we both knew -- from intimate knowledge of each other's fighting history -- that we sure as hell weren't gonna have Bernie's back in any kind of scuffle that may ensue from his provocations.

"You're bloody ignorant!"

That's what Bernie said, after the "Kiwi" remark.

Oh, no....

The Kiwis, not trying to have a fight on their vacation with a drunk old man who was just running his mouth without casus belli, were able to simply ignore Crazy Bernie. I couldn't tell if it was because, as the bigger men, they were above such ridiculousness, or if it was because they had just seen him pull four bananas out of his pants -- bananas which had been camouflaged to perfection -- and didn't know what else may be down there. Some sort of semi-automatic weapon? A pair of nunchucks perhaps? They weren't trying to find out; and neither were we.

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Meeting Bernie was great, because it parlayed into excellent conversation-starters, not only that night at Fresh, but the next night as well, when Bino and I went to happy hour with less money still in our wallets than Oliver Twist had to his name at his economic nadir. And isn't that what all people desperately search for when they're at a bar: Conversation-starters? Thanks, Bernie.

The next day, as Bino and I were saying our goodbyes after an awesome six-day rendez-vous in the "Pearl of the Adriatic" known as Dubrovnik, my former roomate shot a glance over at the airport shuttle bus he was about to board.

"I think that's Bernie!" Bino exclaimed.

"No way," I said incredulously, not able to get a good look from my post-up spot on the ground. "Go check."

He ran a quick reconaissance mission and returned.

"Bernie!"

I was a tad jealous that Bino would be able to have a continuation of the entertainment that the old man probably provides to everyone who crosses his path. But then again, I really wasn't at all. One night of Bernie is all I need.

I'll let Bino's words, as written in an email to me that very night, describe "Bernie, Part Deux:"

All morning, getting packed up and walking to the bus station, I was thinking to myself how I hate saying goodbye to good friends, and that I wish I could have pulled off a funny joke to lighten the whole ordeal. Well, Bernie was again an impressive traveling companion. Neither he nor his wife would leave me alone, and the person sitting next to me on the bus even offered to switch seats so we could sit together. I've renewed the promise to email them, and Bernie left me with the great image that, though he was out of bananas, his wife was taking food (including figs) onto the flight, and that I didn't want to think about where she was hiding them.

Anyone who knows the Original Beach Kid, Wes, knows that Bernie is what he will become 38 years down the road, with Lizzie sneaking figs onto the airplane for him.