Bill Cooke (Clinton)

After a seemingly endless ride through Millard, Pachuta, Electric Mills, and Shuqualak, we pulled into Starkville just in time to catch Bill Cooke’s last set.

Luckily, classes hadn’t started yet, so we were able to snag a table next to the band. I can remember rolling 40 deep (seriously) with a roll of quarters and a fake ID in my pocket for the $0.75 Amber Bock and Bill Cooke my freshman year. A lot has changed in Starkville since those years, except for the cheap drinks and Bill at Dave's. Since we arrived at the bar with just an hour and a half left before last call, we made up for the lack of time with those cheap drinks (3 for 1 wells for $4.00). And just as the night was winding down, alcohol finally snuck up on some poor unsuspecting white couple.

The throwback weekend continued with “grill time” (where some serious Icing took place) and more cheap drinks at Mugshots. I always wondered how long it would take for me to become the “old guy” at the bar. And, at 24, I was THE old guy at the bar. I mean, these kids probably don’t even know how to complete the line “and when we think about you , it….” or who Tommy Pickles is (go ahead and Google it, I’ll wait). I witnessed the worst karaoke of Baby Got Back and a guy on top of the tables taking his shirt off. I later came to the realization that if Baby Got Back was replaced with Don’t Stop Believing, and the guy on the tables was replaced with Stewart/Beavis/Webster, it would be us during the most ridiculous summer of all time.

Between all the nostalgia, the best part of the weekend occurred next to an old house in a remote part of rural Starkville. We got out of the car with an AR-15 and a .40 caliber pistol, and there stood Uncle Tinto with his black jeans and cut off Georgia Bulldogs shirt. The first Steel Reserve influenced words out of his mouth set the tone for the rest of the day- “Shit, all I need is a pocket full of rocks to whip yo ass, Trey.” I knew this was going to be good. He then glared over at me and Matt (in our sandals, shorts, and pocket t-shrits) and said we looked like terrorists for “that al kada, al kida, ya’ll know what the hell I’m talking about”. We made it down to the range and emptied a few rounds on a life size cut out poster of Zach Efrron, before Uncle Tinto wanted to “sho ya’ll boys how to shoot”. After professing he was “45 sheets to the wind”- like we didn’t already know- Uncle Tinto emptied a few rounds of his own, and walked, or I guess stumbled, down the range to see what kind of damage he had inflicted on our High School Musical 3 star. He must have done pretty well because he came back proclaiming he had “got ole Bill Clinton right in the nuts”.