The Owners' Manual | Issue 20 | Winter 2021

My closest college friend is Emmy-award winning method actor Michael Chiklis although I must admit we have lost touch since I last spoke to him by phone when he called from his house next door to Richard Dreyfus in L.A. I have many stories but the one I’ll share is when Mike (whose nickname is “Chik”) played three different roles in shows during our senior year and Mike had to have unique haircuts for each role.The first was a Medieval warrior and he had to have a Mohawk . Mike came to my apartment and I applied sufficient quantities of beer to make him comfortable while I took a razor to his head.The second role was a 60-year old balding guy (imagine pattern balding leaving a partial ring of hair around the back of his head from ear to ear. More beer was required to prep. Mike for succumbing to the razor for that hairstyle because the last thing you want as a college senior is to look like you’re 60 years old. Lastly, Mike played a part that required complete baldness. I forget the role, but once again, Mike was in my apartment consuming beer while the razor was carefully applied!

John Carroll, Meriden

In 2016 I was participating in local grassroots drifting (motorsport) events with a group at a new track in New Hampshire called Canaan Motor Club.The location and track style/ versatility attracted professional race teams to rent for testing and practice. During one of the events the Subaru

Rally Team was on site finishing a week of testing with driver Bucky Lasek before a race. Bucky was not only a professional driver but also a professional skateboarder with something like 20 X Games medals that I watched growing up. It was really fun to see a real race team, cars and trailer set up for testing and how they operate; Bucky also seemed interested in what we were doing and walked the pits to check out cars and talk to drivers like a normal person. What makes this story interesting is not just meeting Bucky Lasek. Being that drifting is a motorsport not widely accepted by some facilities and Canaan being a brand-new track and management, random drivers meetings throughout the day were common.These were usually to talk about what was going wrong, too many offs, oil leaks, coolant leaks, spins, crashes etc.Around lunch time the manager called a drivers meeting that began like any other, telling some drivers to cool down and take it easy too many tires off track and finished by saying “who drives theVolvo?”.All my friends look at me, I am terrified and reluctant to speak up because I believe I’m about to get publicly shamed for doing something wrong. I raise my hand and say it’s me, Bucky walks in front of the group, hands me new signed race shoes and says he enjoyed my driving and car.The track manager knew exactly what he was doing and set it up to make me feel that way. Huge relief I wasn’t kicked off the track and lots of laughs. My friends still joke about the shoes.

Dan Bycenski, Hartford

issue 20 // 29