To:  The Dookie’s

I am happy to invite you today to what will go down in history as the greatest demonstration for eternal youth in the history of adulthood.

A half-score and two years ago, some great Americans, in whose symbolic shadow we stand today, commenced the inaugural Dookie Tournament. This momentous faux-sport celebration came as a great beacon light of hope to millions of maturing twenty-something’s who had been seared in the flames of withering adulthood. It came as a joyous daybreak to end the long night caused by the realization of their fate.

But this decade or so later, the Dookie still is not free. A dozen years later, the life of the Dookie is still sadly crippled by the manacles of growing-up and the chains of responsibility. A dozen years later, the Dookie lives on a lonely island of mellowing in the midst of a vast ocean of dependability. All these years later, the Dookie is still languished in the corners of American society and finds himself an exile in his own land. And so we’ll meet this summer to dramatize this incredible opportunity.

We have also come to this hallowed spot to remind America of the fierce urgency of Now. This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of Peter Pan. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of aging to the sunlit path of immortality. It would be fatal for us to overlook the urgency of the moment. This sweltering summer of the Dookie's legitimate discontent will not pass until there is an invigorating weekend of freedom and drunkenness. Nineteen ninety-nine is not an end, but a beginning. And those who hope that the Dookie needed to blow off steam once and will now be content will have a rude awakening if an annual tournament is not held. And there will be neither rest nor tranquility in America until the Dookie is granted his yearly rights. The whirlwinds of discontent will continue to shake the foundations of our families until that bright day in July emerges.

The non-Dookie community has come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom.

We cannot walk alone.

We cannot turn back.

I am not unmindful that some of us arrive out of great trials and tribulations. Some of us have come fresh from narrow jail cells. Some have come from seedy bars or shady “massage” parlors.  And some of us have come from areas where we quest -- quest for the American Dream. You have been the veterans of creative suffering. Continue to work with the faith that unearned suffering is redemptive. Go back to Las Vegas, go back to Orlando, go back to Lower Burrell, go back to Natrona Heights, go back to Braeburn, go back to the slums and ghettos of our cities, knowing that somehow this situation can and will be changed.

Let us not wallow in the valley of despair, I say to you today, my brothers.

And so even though we face the difficulties of yesterday, today and tomorrow, I still have a dream. It is a dream deeply rooted in the American dream.

I have a dream that one day we Dookie’s will rise up and live out the true meaning of eminence: that all men must strive with every ounce of their being to hold on to their youth.

I have a dream that one day on the rolling hills of Burrell, the sons of former Dookie’s and the sons of former non-Dookie’s will be able to sit down together at the table of brotherhood.

I have a dream that the son’s and daughter’s of Dookie’s will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by their participation in Dookie but by the content of their character.

I have a dream today!

I have a dream that one day, down in Alabama, with its vicious ageists, with its governor having his lips dripping with the words of "grow up" and "you’re an adult, act like it" -- one day right there in Alabama little Dookie boys and Dookie girls will be able to join hands with little non-Dookie boys and non-Dookie girls as sisters and brothers.

I have a dream today!

And this will be the day -- this will be the day when every Dookie will be able to sing with new meaning:

My Dookie 'tis of thee, sweet weekend of debauchery, of thee I sing.

Been patient all year, sure could use a beer,

So let’s all give a cheer, let the Dookie tournament ring!

And if America is to be a great nation, this must become true.

And so let freedom ring from the prodigious hilltops near the country club.

Let freedom ring from the desert basin of Southern Nevada.

Let freedom ring from the heightening Alleghenies of Pennsylvania.

Let freedom ring from disney-fied central Florida.

Let freedom ring from the curvaceous slopes of Mount Washington.

But not only that:

Let freedom ring from the Hill District.

Let freedom ring from Compton.

Let freedom ring from every hill and molehill of your mom’s ass.

From every mountainside, let freedom ring.

And when this happens, when we allow freedom to ring, when we let it ring from every village and every hamlet, from every state and every city, we will be able to speed up that day when all of Humanity, Dookie and non-Dookie, will be able to join hands and sing in the words of the old Dookie spiritual:

                It’s Dookie at last! Dookie at last!

              It never rains on Dookie.  And it’s Dookie at last.

                                                                                                MLK(8-28-63)/Pudge(’10)

Dookie XII:  July 9^th, 10^th, and 11^th.

The games will commence on Friday July 9^th at 6:30pm in the bar of Wildlife Lanes (please arrive at 6). 

Saturday starts at the Hare house at 9:30am (please arrive at 9).

Golf will be at Joke Lake again, with a tee time of 10:30am (please arrive at 10).

Please complete online participation survey (coming soon)

And post messages (i.e. talk trash).

The RSVP is $150 and is due by the ides of May.