Mosquitoes,
Welcome to the great year of 1999! I hope you all partied just like Prince would want you to. We, as a team, had a great 1998 and there are many memories that will stay with me for the rest of my life, so I want to thank all of you for being part of our team and making it so wonderful. We have found two wonderful drivers, Tom and Marsha Towlerton. How many people could plan the flat tire between McDonalds and a liquor store? The beer bag was again a workhorse and we found that beans are really the best chaser for a good shot of vodka. I’m sure there are many other stories that I wanted to include, but since I can’t find my pictures at the moment, I can’t remember anything else that went on. Maybe that had to do with all of the beer we consumed?
With the New Year upon us, the first thing we need to think about is the Brrr ride in Perry, IA. This is held on February 6th and starts early in the morning that Saturday at a bar (believe it or not) called Mike’s. This ride seems a lot closer with the wonderful winter weather we had over the New Year. Make sure that you get your snow tires on your bikes! Normally, there is a big gathering on Friday night, but that information won’t be available until a later date. There will also be a bike ride held June 26th, that is sponsored by Team River Ratt. You can reach Scott Lucas at 319-264-8117; he is the head honcho of the River Ratts. We will also post this information on our web page if you would like to look it up there. These will both be a great time, so if you need more information it will be posted on the web page as soon as we find out. You are always welcome to give me a call and I will help you the best I can. If you do provide me with any information, make sure that I write it down, or I could forget.
I would like to welcome the newest Mosquito into this world. His name is Jace Chamberlin. He is the son of Jason and Andra Chamberlin. He was born on December 22nd, so congratulations to you guys!
The bus managed to visit all of the Hawkeye games this last fall and preformed well, unlike the team. We must say goodbye to a legend in college football in Hayden Fry! Next year the Mosquitoes and the bus will have to tailgate with coach Ferentz and the Cornhuskers for the first game. Good Luck Hawks! Speaking of the bus, the owner, Majerle, is now living in San Diego and because of that would like to pass the bus onto another member of the team. In order to help out the team, please consider being the bus owner. You can buy this for $1 if even that, and it will not cost you any money. Team Mosquito takes care of all of the costs, and really all that you have to do is to have the bus in your name. I am being serious about this. All you have to do with the insurance expense, registration, etc, is pass that along to me and the team will cover the costs. Another incentive to being the bus owner, is that you can have your $110 RAGBRAI fee waived for each year you own the bus. Please call me on this if you have any questions, or think you might want to do this.
We are so on the ball that we already have a motto for this year’s shirts. The phrase is "Scratch Where It Itches". Does that sound familiar? Many of you have heard that for years coming from our old football coach Hayden Fry! We are still looking for artwork, so if anyone would like to provide us with ideas, we are always willing to accept them
Here is a little story that will help all of you realize how cool our team really is and how valuable Mosquito paraphernalia is. Our good friend Scotty Stevens of the Red Eyes has one of our key chains, provided by Bailey Recognition Products, on his bike bag. Inside his bag was about 10 rolls of film that he took while he was
over in Europe biking. He had the bag off of his bike and set it on top of his car. He forgot the bag was up there and drove off. (This could also be a product of too much beer over the years). Can you imagine losing all of your pictures from a trip like that? Anyway, the bag was found and had the Mosquito key chain with the Baileys phone number listed on it. Some nice person called that number and eventually returned the bag to Mr. Stevens. Needless to say, he was very grateful. Where would he have been without that key chain? All I have to say is that Team Mosquito Rocks and continues to work toward the betterment of mankind!
As usual, we will start the year with our $10 Mosquito fee. Please pay that to Team Mosquito, as we always need money to get things rolling for the year. This can be sent to 2970 Winston Circle, Marion, IA 52302. My phone # is 319-373-0514. For all of you who have Internet access, the Mosquito Web site is located at
http://www.teammosquito.com. If anyone would like to suggest improvements for the team or the bus, again, feel free to let me know.Good luck in the year of 1999 and I hope to see all of you at the Brrr ride or at least hear from you during the year. I really enjoyed all of the information that I was presented last year, so keep up the good work. Take care and bite on!
Blaine McLaughlin
Team Mosquito
