It’s good to have buddies — especially buddies willing to dole out personal time, talent, or treasure for the good of the communal whole.

The Pub Crawl Committee is proud to include many such folks.

Mark Drain is one of our especially committed comrades. Not committed in the committed sense, you understand. As in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest committed. But he’s pledged allegiance to our cause, one could say.

So when Mark speaks, we sit still and listen.

After our directional series of crawls (see online archives for North, East and West End adventures), Mark and his extended circle enacted their own South End tour – WAY south end, like Pana south end. And back. But that’s a story for a different day. Mark did get us speculating, though, about the company we keep.

Every buddy plays a different role. Your best buddies deliver dependably for the good of the group. Mark’s role on the Pana Pub Crawl was Designated Driver – the most important Buddy of all, as everyone realizes near the end of an evening.

Therefore, this issue’s pub crawl is not pubbish, per se. Instead, we take a breather from the compulsive mapping to examine this question of Buddyship. What kind of Buddy is crucial to a good time?

Read the complete "Crawl Buddies" in the October/November '07 issue of Decatur Magazine, now available at all Kroger locations.