University of Toledo

26 Nov 2007. A tinted shotglass, that's a first. Procured on one of Toledo's many rainy days.

“By Sixtus, I won’t allow this ill-gotten Eden to happen now! And, of all places, certainly not in Ohio!”
TJ was finishing off his travel plaza Orange Julius as Pope Urban psyched the two of them up. Of course, Pope Urban needed no psyching up himself, for if one can’t muster some energy for the coming wrath of God, what kind of pontiff would he be? TJ, however, was willing to help but unable to grasp the gravity when all other religious scholars were assuring everyone that holy water cloud seeding was completely safe.
Pope Urban pulled their Pope Coupe Hybrid (Popemobile was in the shop) into the campus of the University of Toledo. It had been efficiently evacuated; dragon drills proved to be great preparation for the student populace.
The dragon was happily crushing the brownstone buildings to dust with its claws. Pope Urban correctly surmised that the monster’s deep blue sheen and smaller size indicated it was city-raised. However his biomythological analysis ended when an errant rock struck the hood of the Coupe Hybrid.
“It’s not safe here, TJ. And we are helpless against the dragon. Let the sorry devil demolish empty buildings. We need to find out who is behind the scenes.”
“How do we do that?”
“Head to the rocketry center of the campus.”
“And if we find no one?”
“…Well…then I guess we would need to stop the dragon at least.”
“And how do we do that?”
Pope Urban thought for a moment. “Pomegranates. I need you to get pomegranates. As many as you can fit in the Coupe Hybrid.”
“Me? Pomegranates? Why? What?”
“Dragons are a sucker for them. Been that way since the stone age. Trust me.” Pope Urban tossed the keys to TJ.
“I only have a couple dollars left from snacks.”
“We have Catholic Credit for emergencies. So what do you think this is, Touchdown Jesus? Meet me back here as soon as possible.”
TJ drove off and Pope Urban plucked a campus map from the welcome center. Got it. Rocketry Sciences. Hector Hall.
“Goodness! Where are the wayfinding signs when you need them?” He rotated the map so the top was the direction he was facing. After realizing it was the one building the dragon was avoiding destroying, he tried to run up the main steps. Popes aren’t known to run fast though. The dragon caught sight of him, dropped his tons of rocks, and sprang into a wing-assisted gallop. He bit into Pope Urban’s robe and quickly tossed him into some nearby trees. The dragon turned tail and returned to his rockpile. Pope Urban, hatless, gingerly climbed down the tree. He decided to give it another try, this time with a sunken side entrance. Ever so slowly and quietly, he even had his hand on the doorknob and was pulling the door open when the dragon returned and flung him into an even taller tree. The dragon walked up to the tree and gave a vibracious roar before returning to work. Pope Urban had to extricate himself from his robe to get down.
TJ drove up to the tree with a face full of bad news.
“Uh, I checked all the markets I could find. But no pomegranates. Sorry.”
“No pomegranates??” repeated Pope Urban incredulously. “What kind of horrid town is this?”
“What about the rocketry center?”
“Hector Hall is right there, but that winged Lucifer won’t let me in. At least I don’t have any broken bones.”
TJ scratched his head nervously. He watched the clouds grow thick. “Here come the clouds. Figure whoever this is, is going to act pronto.”
“Then so shall we. The time has come to call on Canisius.”

*TO BE CONTINUED*

A nearby rollercoaster commemorates the wanton destruction of state property.

University of Notre Dame

19 Oct 2007. The ultimate buyer's remorse here. Acquired a tumbler so bland, yet Notre Dame's bookstore puts so many to shame, in terms of store design, square footage, and merchandise selection. A classy dark green shotglass with 'Irish' in gold script, was the one that got away, my drinkware 'missed connection'.

Pope Urban Beatz LXIX landed flat on his back, disoriented. Only rarely did he fall from heights of greater than thirty feet. He slowly sat up on the front steps of Our Lady of the Immaculate Leprechaun. A thin man clad in off-white rags ran out the church's front doors.
"Pope Urban! Are you all right?"
Pope Urban dusted off his tall velvet hat.
"I'm all right, T.J. Just got the wind knocked out of me. But a little suspicious as to why a dragon is flying around South Bend, Indiana."
"I saw the dragon through the stained glass windows. He was in the back of the church thrashing around so I opened the back door a crack to get a better look. He wrestled a huge water tank from out of the ground with his claws!"
"The holy water tank? That is enough for over a thousand archdioceses!"
Pope Urban and T.J. looked to the sky. The scaly blue beast was now a hazy spot disappearing into the clouds.
"Do you think it has something to do with the cloud seeding report?" asked T.J.
"Listen to me, Touchdown Jesus. I think it has everything to do with the cloud seeding report."
******
The bigwigs of organized religion would not disagree with this point.
Biotheology Today had recently published a scientific juggernaut on the effects of high altitude cloud seeding with holy water. The results of the cloud seeding were incredible: lush rains encouraged crops, even those out of season; the airs and waters were remarkably free of particulate matter; long gone animal populations returned and those already present grew in record numbers. It seemed to be an earthly Eden on demand.
Both the religious and secular communities were jubilant. Finally a linking of science and God that could bring both philosophies together in making a terrestrial heaven a reality.
Pope Urban, however, felt he was the only one to see the potential downside. An egregious show of arrogance and hubris not unlike the Tower of Babel. The resolution, which would come sooner than later, would be pain, confusion, and bitter divisiveness.
While he told whom he could about the impending disaster, he went to personally patrol the location of the largest reservoir of holy water in the United States: the University of Notre Dame.
Guard duty did not go well.
******
"Where do you think the dragon is taking the holy water tank?"
"No idea. Also no idea who the dragon is working for. What I do know is this person still needs the proper rocketry to launch the tank, awfully cloudy weather, and plenty of brownstone for cloud seed grit to pull off what I think..." Gravity took hold of Pope Urban's jaw.
"To pull off what? What's going to happen?"
"Holy Toledo."

*TO BE CONTINUED*

The inspiration for Pope Urban and T.J.

Eastern Mennonite University

27 Sep 2007. From the tiny campus bookstore. An indoor track runs right in front of its entrance.

Some people use sarcasm to make jokes or poke fun. Others use it with hateful intentions. But the vast majority who employ sarcasm, and its self-absorbed cousin irony, have no idea of the vast cultural history and impacts of these two uniquely human ideas. Royal Bristlermartin and Peter diScala were two such rare individuals. They also carved it epic.
Amateur sociologists, amateur surfers, amateur proselytizers, and professional bellhops, Bristlermartin and diScala longed to change the world. Indeed they would, but not in any way they could ever predict.
******
As Mennonite missionaries and groms, Royal and Peter split their time between the Hawaiian islands of Maui and Oahu. They gained unprecedented exposure to the most biting sarcasm and irony working in the religious education and customer service positions. Their surfing excursions were where they could vent their day-to-day frustrations. The ocean gladly absorbed the negative energy and turned it into the toe curling waves for which Hawaii is famous. One might imagine a religious scholar as cooped up in a tiny room, with nothing but candlelight to illuminate pages and spark ecclesiastical thought, but for Royal and Peter, it was precisely the opposite. The majority of their important discussions and insights were on the Pacific crests.
******
When the Mennonite church announced plans to start an educational seminary in the continental U.S., Royal and Peter sat up and listened. Like most of history, timing made all the difference. Their reports from the mission field and desire to educate on the dangers of sarcasm and eradicate the causes of ennui were well known to their contemporaries. Any earlier and they would be too into surfing to seriously consider leaving Hawaii. Any later and they would have been far too jaded by the perpetual battle against hopelessness to believe they could make any realistic change.

They were ambitious, not naive.

Their bare ambition showed when they applied to start their seminary in an epicenter of sarcasm and irony: a pseudo hippie enclave and college town. Ideally they would have gone to Berkeley, California, as it housed both hippies and undergraduates, but the church hierarchy was not eager to pay Bay Area rents. Undaunted, Royal and Peter continued their search. Their final choices unfortunately were not in agreement. Royal chose a college town: Harrisonburg, Virginia. Peter wanted a hippie enclave: Salem, Oregon. Both cities were within a few hours of the shore so they could frequently visit the surf that so inspired them. Royal saw his stalemate with Peter was not going to end anytime soon. Time was working against them as there were dozens of other seminary prospects being considered. He filled out the requisite forms for establishment in Harrisonburg and sent them off. He figured starting one of their locations would be better than none at all. His guilt assuaged, Royal left for Virginia. When Peter found out, Royal was long gone, never to speak to Peter again. Peter did not give up though. Several decades later, Peter founded the Western Mennonite Sarcasm and Surfing Seminary. Both the Western and Eastern S&S were educating on the evils of doubletalk and committing to eradicate it. But thanks to its early start, Royal's school is now the preeminent institution in the church: Eastern Mennonite University.

The young theologians discussing The Boardless Surfer, Jesus of Nazareth

University of Maryland, College Park

7 Sep 2007. From the Comcast Center volleyball concession stand, filled with a Sprite-flavored beverage (may have been Sprite).

The University of Maryland mascot was named when President Theodore Roosevelt would ride full speed on his gelding, Chrysanthemum, up and down the streets of northeast Washington, D.C. Though he was simply giving tours to visiting dignitaries the quickest way he knew how, the spectacle would give permanent terror pains to the elderly professors and residents of the College Park neighborhood.
"Terror Pains?" replied the President. "Bully! I cannot think of another phrase better suited to describe the symptoms of your unfortunate gridiron opponents!"
An opium-addled newspaperman reported on the opening game of the football season using the term but mangled it into "Terrapin", a slow-moving land turtle (as opposed to the fast-moving land turtle).

Terror Pains? Bully!

University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill

1 Sep 2007. Big ol' tumbler from Kenan Stadium.

The state of North Carolina got its nickname when Queen Caroline, visiting the American continent, stepped in a pile of oxen manure. Since the epithet "ox s*** heeled" did not roll off the tongue and was also quite vulgar, the euphemism "tar heeled" was how Caroline described her dreadful visit. The colonists decided to take back the insult and proudly use it as their own. The Queen, offended (she was perpetually offended), would have nothing more to do with the place and ordered a new colonial charter that named the Carolinas after King Charles instead: Charleyshire. Charles asked with a roll of his regal eyes, "What in the name of consumptive dysentery does an illiterate farming village matter to you? It might be named Cackalacky for all I care!" A royal passenger pigeon carried the news to the New World. The colonists happily adopted this new nonsense phrase into their vocabularium. This triple dose of shock proved too much for poor Caroline. She died in 1737. National mourning failed to commence. Today, the Tar Heel State has adopted offensive habits (e.g., baby blue) as a continuation of this nose-thumbing to authority.