Most people assume Memorial Day is just another cause for a three-day weekend, long enough for a little extra sleep and a bit more partying, but there’s more than one way to get down for the first of the long summer weather weekends.
has something worth doing during a long holiday. All you have to do is get off the recliner and go out and do it.
Heading Out to the Old Ballgame
With major league baseball’s regular season now fully underway, there’s no better time to buy tickets for a few outfield seats with your pals so you can get line-drives hit at you at an incredible rate while you stuff as many hot dogs in your face and nachos down your gullet as your body will allow. Don’t worry; if you start to choke, you can just wash it down with overpriced plastic cups of domestic beer. Go team! No matter where you live, you can enjoy a game, major league or little league, but nothing beats the smell of ballpark babes and men sliding through the dirt into a head-on home plate collision. And peanuts – peanuts are good, too.
Jack Kerouac-ing
No, that does not mean getting drunk and having sex with young, impressionable girls in the back of a car that you may or may not own, but it could. Jack Kerouac, aside from being one of the greatest novelists of our fair country, was an adventurer who lived life on the road and documented his great discoveries. So too can you explore the wild blue yonder while documenting its majestic moments, stunning sights and outhouse mishaps with the least-complainers of your road trip buddies. No matter where you hit the road in America, there’s a series of road trip destinations awaiting you, so pack up the car, put gas in the tank while it’s at an incredibly high cost and cruise your summer ride towards the nearest backcountry road.
“Into the Wild” Without the Death
Taking the road trip to the next level, camping is a memorable Memorial Day weekend must. Every man – to some degree – enjoys the idea of leaving his worldly possessions behind to play homeless for a long weekend, knowing he can come back to roost whenever he likes, so it seems fitting to e
njoy the fruits of camping after a long hike during an extended weekend. Cooking your food over a fire, turning off the phones and enjoying the peaceful sounds of nature right before your campsite gets ransacked by wild boar because you were too ignorant to cover up the meat seems like a nice way to find solitude in an otherwise loud, obnoxious weekend.
Hook, Line and Drinker
Fishing is a gentleman’s pastime, mostly because women have no patience and they like to have us out and as far away from the house as long as possible. She’s assuming you’re getting drunk on a boat with a good chance of screwing up and drowning so this year surprise her by coming home early – perhaps sober, probably not – and slapping dinner that you caught yourself on the table. Hopefully they’re not baby minnows and hopefully you don’t surprise her while she’s necking with the gardener. Love is in the spring air!
Wine-O Excursions
For the inner alcoholic that’s expected to make an appearance over the weekend, why not serve him a responsible portion of crushed grapes instead of the standard case of beer? Although sitting in a folding chair crushing Buds until your skin turns bright red and your chair collapses can be fun, going on a wine tour can be better because it keeps you on the move, lets you enjoy a little of mother nature’s naughty nectar and can be filled with truly Instagram-inspiring sights to share with people who stayed home and watched their mothers do more keg stands than them while sporting an American flag bikini. And if you don’t know a damn thing about wine, other than it makes you impotent and hungover when you chug it, check out the official Mandatory Simple Wine Guide for men.
Flopping Around in the Water
Memorial Day is the unofficial start to the summer season, sending out vibrations of sun, sand and David Hasselhoff, which in turn channel our inner surfer, wakeboarder and filthy riverboat tuber. Although we’re far less suave than Kelly Slater when it comes to agility on moving water, it’s good to get out there and have fun tossing and tumbling like a fish that forgot how to swim. So get on a good board, visit the best beaches and water parks near you and see if you can’t swim out without losing your trunks this year.
Overcooking o
n the Grill
Every man with a grill likes to consider himself an expert barbecuesionist on the side, but when it comes to Memorial Day, the sun, fun, girls and good times are a lot to distract a man from his grill. It takes a truly expert barbecuesonist to focus on the end goal and deliver a perfectly grilled feast for his far-from-sober guests and the random floozies who wander in off the street. Although the reality might be some half-cooked hot dogs without enough buns to go around and hamburger soaked in lighter fluid, anything to keep these kids from passing out face down in the pool is a noble gesture as a party host. And girls like nothing more than a man in uniform, that is, your mother’s old apron with the lace trim and pockets for your beer koozie.
Skirt Chasing
It wouldn’t be an American holiday without some traditional sloppy celebrating and lady skirt chasing, would it? Nothing goes quite as well with a nice cold beer on a beautiful holiday afternoon than some overly confident, potentially inappropriate dirty talk to a strange girl who you’ll never get to know. Here’s to smiling first, then unashamedly saying all the things you know you shouldn’t in the name of love and second base when the sun is smiling on you and there is no work to be done. It isn’t until Tuesday in the office you’ll get an email from your friend asking how his dog got pregnant at your party.
Gambling With Pants
Although a weekday away from work seems like a perfect excuse to not wear pants, it’s somewhat behooving to get out of the house and try something rare, like hitting the track and watching some magnificent beasts race with a fancy summer drink in hand. Whether or not you’re a betting man, the odds of a good time are a sure thing at the horse track, even if you do have to wear nice pants. Now if you can find a horse track with fancy drinks that doesn’t require pants, you’d really be onto something.
Blacking Out While Doing Any of the Above
If all else fails, you can give them another try while dousing your liver in booze and giving it the old drunken college try. Anybody who can’t have a good time doing these things, sober or otherwise, might have an incredible threshold for fun, in which case nude base jumping might be the only solution. Otherwise, it might mean you’ve lived a good life and it’s time to call it quits. Happy Memorial Day Weekend!
