16 Nov 2009. The recognizable image and ubiquity of the deer in the U.S. make it popular on seals and coats of arms. But it is rarely a sports mascot despite its speed, strength, and knives on its head. A pro basketball team has taken 'Bucks' and Fairfield is trying hard with 'Stags' though even that sounds a bit shady. Limited, wussy synonyms are holding the deer back. Yet on the feline side we have panthers, tigers, lions, cougars, wildcats, tiger-cats, and bearcats (which is totally made-up, where are the beardogs, the eaglemoose, and the sharkdeer?).
*vomit*
"Gggghhhhh." Benny remained stooped over, one hand on the hefty planter of mountain laurel, the other over his stomach. Light snow started gathering on his back. He looked up and saw his neon green work.
"Frakking ABSINTHE. I will never, never, never, NEVER drink like that again."
Blue light flickered off the street sign ahead. Benny recognized the light pattern without having to turn.
"Please no cops. Please no cops. Don't want another drunk in public. I just want to sit here in this...what is this...bank parking lot for a little while more."
The blue lights mellowed to green. Benny rubbed his eyes and commanded them to
"See normal!"
but the lights stayed green. He finally turned around to face the law.
Sure enough, it was the cops. A green and white police cruiser with a green light bar and...green headlights? It momentarily mesmerized Benny.
"Never seen one of those."
The driver side door opened. The aviatored female cop asked her rhetorical questions quickly and authoritatively.
"Someone called in a report of alcohol renunciation at this location. Do you know anything about this, sir?"
"Uh, I don't have my phone. What is a renunciation?"
"Did you recently swear off drinking, sir?"
"I...I don't know. Maybe." Benny glanced at the side of the cruiser: GREEN FAIRY SHERIFF. Green Fairy?? Was that by Mystic? That was a good hour away!
The cop suddenly produced a clipboard from nowhere. "Take a listen: 'I will never, never, never, never drink like that again.' Sound familiar?"
"Are you going to arrest me or not?"
"You will be visited tonight by our cervine patrolmen. They'll handle it from here. Have a good night." The cop scribbled a few notes on her clipboard and drove off.
Benny stood, blinking. He didn't know where he was, or what happened that night. He did know he was not waiting for any other cops. Before he could start off in any non-face-first direction, a sharp pop made Benny jump. A light at the bank's entrance had burnt out with the piercing of...an antler. Its attached voice came straight from the frat house.
"Whoa! I'm still not used to these things. Got 'em last week, you know. My first renunciation. I guess I did pretty well." The deer admired his rack in the bank window.
"What's going on? What did I drink??"
"It's not what you drank, dude, it's what you promised not to drink. Do you have any idea what your life would be like without alcohol? How many good things have happened to you because of it?"
"Anybody see this? I'm getting lectures from TALKING DEER HERE!!"
"Relax, dude. Just go with it. Now climb on up, it's time for some show and tell."
The deer flicked his head. Benny's feet gave out from under him. Instead of bruising his tailbone, he flew up onto the deer's back. Benny grabbed onto the green-velveted antlers.
"Whoa, whoa, whoa! Easy on the sweet antlers. Hold the scruff, thanks."
Benny looped his arms around the deer's neck. The deer walked into the empty street. He started up into a gallop.
"Didn't our officer tell you I was coming, dude?"
"..She...I don't know...I'm not in my best mind right now."
"Yeah, but who ever is?"
The deer leaped over some shrubs. It didn't land, instead rising higher in the snowy sky. Benny wove his fingers together, putting a skinny-boy death grip on his ride.
"Jeezum crow, ghost deer! What is happening!?"
"I already said, show and tell. And my name's J.M." - the deer affected an over-the-top macabre voice - "your Spirit of Liquors Paaaast."
The deer and rider appeared in the middle of a cafeteria. The tables were lined with chafing dishes and young people, both reflecting the flood of fresh daylight.
"Recognize this?" asked J.M.
Benny answered, "Sure, it's the dining hall back at Fairfield."
"More specifically?"
An older student dressed in black walked past. "There's my old roommate, Trevor. Hey Trevor!"
"Don't worry about that, they can't see us. Pay attention, Benny. Look." J.M. nodded to the end of a long table. Trevor sat and started chatting with a blonde. The body language said they had just met.
"Cynthia! I think, hmm, I think this is - "
J.M. and Benny stepped back as the younger Benny walked past them. Young Benny was carrying a tray and sat next to Trevor. Young Benny waved hello and started in on his stack of waffles.
"Yes! This is where I first met Cynthia. Surprised she talked to me after this. Not my finest moment."
"Oh, no?"
"Look at me, still swaying, face first into my breakfast. Too much whatever from the night before."
"Jagermeister."
"Huh?"
"You had 7 Jagerbombs the night before. Pretty strong performance. Benny, if you hadn't had the urge to stifle your hangover with a super stack of dining hall waffles, you'd never have met your future wife. You follow yet?"
"Because of...Jagermeister, that's why you're here? Why not thank the waffles?"
"I don't see the ghost of Aunt Jemima parading you around. Waffles don't factor into the next one. Cassie will take over from here, dude."
"Who's Cassie?"
Benny looked over his shoulder. A golden stag motioned J.M. away. The floor dropped out from underneath. The people and plateware melted into wisps. The walls collapsed and the light shrank from view. Benny found himself atop his new friend.
"Cassie, huh."
"Mucho gusto." Benny was surprised to hear a feminine voice from a 12-point buck.
"I didn't think lady deers had antlers."
"No es realidad, Benny."
"Right."
Cassie and Benny landed on an open grassy area. Cement paths criss-crossed the lawn. Towering above them was a larger-than-life bronze sculpture of Fairfield's stag mascot. Benny dismounted and got his balance. He pointed to a building a couple hundred yards away.
"That's the dining hall there. Did we really need to travel through space and time? We could have just walked."
"Silencio. Mira."
Benny shut his mouth and looked. The moon and emergency blue lights illuminated two people walking toward the statue. Cassie and Benny backed off.
"Okay, okay, the dining hall thing was a stretch, but this - this definitely has alcohol to thank."
"¿Por qué?"
"You didn't have to bring me here, I remember this vividly. Maybe not clearly, but vividly. Does that make sense? I don't care. I had just returned from Spring Break in Cancun. I brought Cynthia back a souvenir, but the tequila was to help me with my courage as well."
"¿Tequila?"
"Yes, it was - " Benny smirked at Cassie. "Ha! It was Cazadores! Verrry clever."
"Aquí es donde usted pediste que Cynthia le casara."
"And she said yes."
"Tu recuerdas muy bien."
"Of course I remember it well. I've always liked this deer statue. Very classy. Classy for Cassie. Hey, you're a deer. What do you think of it? Is it anatomically correct?"
Cassie grunted a deer laugh. "Es muy grande."
"What's big? The statue, or the antlers, or...?"
Cassie winked.
"Ha! No es realidad, right??"
"Sí."
Young Benny slipped the ring on Cynthia's finger.
They kissed and embraced.
And faded from view.
"EVENIN' BENNY!"
"No need to yell!" Benny was now grasping a shaggy black mane. He tried to raise his head to see who was driving or where he was going.
"Keep ya head down now! I knob a lot of renunciations, I don't want to knob you!"
The thick coarse hair matched the thick coarse Scottish accent.
"And I'm shoutin' to warm up your ears, coz it's gonna get LOUD!"
The hairy deer sped across the night sky. He descended toward a sparkling rainbow of pinpoint lights. The lights grew bigger. Building outlines came into view.
Benny and deer #3 were not slowing down.
"Hey, deer, sir, hey. Hey, uh, my stomach's still not 100%. So, please watch - "
The new deer spastically dipped, spun around the now-visible hotel complex, and stopped on a dime in the loading dock. Benny was rocked off onto the concrete.
"Oof. You enjoyed that, didn't you?"
"Always do. Name's Glen, not that you'll be using it. You're on your own for this one."
Benny didn't respond. He was taking stock of Glen's mess of antlers.
"Wow, 64 points? I didn't know that was possible."
"How many talking deer do you have to meet to realize this isn't real? Now get to that night club!"
Glen turned tail and booted Benny in the backside. He fell into the waiting freight elevator. The doors closed and brought him down, down, down. When they opened, he wandered to the end of the hall. Scattered matchbooks on the ground told him he was in the Mohegan Sun casino. Cocktail waitresses were walking in and out a pair of double doors. He pushed his way in. Thumping house music assaulted his eardrums.
"The night club at the Mohegan Sun? What is this all about?"
A guy in a too-big sport coat wobbled past. He held the waist of a glammed-up blonde in one hand and a bottle of Glenfiddich in the other.
"Cynthia?"
Benny, finally getting used to his invisibility, defiantly followed his wife and her companion. All three stumbled into the men's bathroom.
The freight elevator dinged hello. Benny, in his 'borrowed' sport coat, and Cynthia, in her little black dress, staggered out under power of bouncers.
Glen watched, puffing on an Arturo Fuente.
The bouncers and the couple exchanged shouts. The couple finally ended up shuffling across the parking lot.
Ghost Benny took the next elevator up. He confronted Glen.
"Why would you show me that? That was the single most embarrassing thing I have done. What's worse, I don't even remember any of it!"
Glen dropped his cigar and stamped it out, staying silent.
"Let me understand this now: J.M. shows me when I meet Cynthia, Cassie shows me proposing to her, and you show me getting thrown out of an Indian casino for having sex in their night club bathroom? One of these things is not like the others, Glen!"
"This one is a little less clear." Glen cleared his throat, lowering the volume. "But you really aren't seeing the common thread here?"
"What common thread?"
"Hmm. We may have jumped the gun then. Thought you knew."
"Thought I knew what?"
"I'll let her tell you."
Glen disappeared in a puff of smoke. The Mohegan Sun followed.
Benny, back in Fairfield, blinked his eyes. He shivered. A light layer of snow had gathered on his hair and sweater. He slowly pulled himself up the fence of...his house. He couldn't remember leaving the bank parking lot. Making his way in the front door, he kicked off his shoes, trying to be quiet. He didn't try hard enough. They knocked against the bannister with a thunk.
He swished with mouthwash in the front bathroom before heading upstairs.
Cynthia headed him off.
"Benny? Is that you?"
"Cynthia?"
Cynthia came out of the bedroom. "What happened?"
"I lost my phone. I'm okay though. How are you doing?"
"I'm fine. I got some news for you."
"Uh oh, good news doesn't come in the middle of the night."
"It came earlier today. I tried to call and tell you!...I'm pregnant!"
"Pregnant? Pregnant! We're having a baby! That is good news! That's amazing! Ohh...."
"What? What's wrong?"
"Nothing's wrong. Hey, when were we at the Mohegan Sun last?"
"The casino? That was our anniversary, almost a year ago."
"Not quite a year. Nine months ago!"
"Nine months? You think that - "
"I know that."
"Great. We'll never be able to tell our kid his conception story."
"I'm sure he or she will be totally fine with that, Cynthia."
"Let's just stick to the stork story."
"Okay, the stork. Or the deer. Three wonderful, magical deer brought us our baby. One was green and talked with a surfer accent, one was a Mexican doe, and one was a 64-point Scottish buck."
"Uh, sure, why not. Benny, are you feeling well enough to celebrate? We still have some scotch left if you are."
Benny instinctively opened the upstairs liquor cabinet. His smile disappeared for a moment. He paused and looked closer at the bottle. He turned on the mini spotlight to examine the deer logo on the Glenfiddich bottle. He caught himself counting antler points again. He blinked and closed the cabinet door.
"Changed your mind, Benny?"
"Yeah, not now. I want to remember this celebration."
Benny clicked off the cabinet light and led Cynthia into the bedroom.
Outside, in the early morning snowfall, three deer grazed through Benny's front yard.
The bedroom light above them flickered on. The deer took notice.
After a few minutes, the light faded away.
As did the deer.
26 Jun 2009. Laramie was a surprise. The only Division 1 institution in the Equality State boasts a fine collection of stone, wood, and iron architecture, all in the school's brown and gold colors. License plates, commemorative quarters, football-punted pint glasses - the bronc buster icon is everywhere in Wyoming! What would Wyoming be without cowboys?
A helluva lot less interesting, I can tell you that right now.
I don't doubt that, but...who are you?
They call me Char.
Any what do you know about Wyoming?
Ha! What do I know about Wyoming?
No need to repeat the question.
And no need for me to stick around and help you with your little website. I know that someone with your manners would be run out in a heartbeat, that's what I know.
Hold on. I apologize, we got off on the wrong start. Please tell me about yourself.
All right then. I go by Char. I live in Chugwater.
Are you a cowboy?
Ha! Everyone in Wyoming's a cowboy. But I know yer meaning, in which case I'd have to say no.
Even with the hat?
It takes more than a felt hat to be a cowboy. No, I run the Powder River Bar. We're on Main Street across from Cody's Auto Care. Or rather, Cody's Auto Care is across the street from us.
So you're a bartender?
At nights I am. During the day I tend to my handiwork. Metals, mostly iron, inspired by Mr. Frederic Remington.
Rodeo scenes?
More like the old American West. Kind of romanticized. Larger than life.
I saw several sculptures like that on the campus in Laramie.
Then I'd bet you saw my best work. The life size rider on Ivinson Avenue.
I did! That's yours?
Proud to say that it is. People tell me how lifelike it is, but they don't know the half of it. This one fought back. It sculpted me! I was working on the mane - hair, rope, anything thin is always tough to work with on account of the heat required to mold it. Makes it so brittle. So of course, this piece of the mane bends down and falls off, bounces off the hoof, buries itself in my shirt. It burns through my shirt, giving me a souvenir of the whole experience.
Wow. The scar kind of looks like a stretched E or M.
From my point of view, I like to say it's a W. Makes more sense. Listen, I'd like to go on, but I have to open the bar. They don't wait to drink, so I'd rather them not have to bust down the doors.
Any last words for our readers?
Of course - Powder River, Let 'er Buck!
Char's work
24 Jun 2009. Look at that glass, freckled with dogs.
My memory of li'l DeKalb is unfairly clouded by the most awful traffic I have ever experienced, coming in and out of Chicago. Construction, unfamiliar territory, driving an unfamiliar vehicle, darkness, an ill-timed full bladder, and speeding (DePaul?) demons all contributed their part. All that was missing was a midwest ice storm. Running out of gas would have to substitute. Bless you, DeKalb highway oasis!
The Lewis and Clark expedition, on their way to their winter quarters with the Mandans in Dakota Territory, spent a night in Illinois Country. The lack of deer and other sustaining protein combined with smuggled adulterated whiskey made some of the enlisted men a bit wacko. Usually, in accommodating land with friendly Indians around, this would be only a nuisance to efficiency.
But with desperately hungry brown bears forced out to forage, recklessness was life-threatening.
Sergeant Ordway was one culprit.
He was hungry, cold, intoxicated, and he missed his matronly wife.
A sleeping bear caught his eye. No, Ordway did not mistake it for a huge steak, Looney-Tunes-style. His whiskey goggles showed him his dear wife, Hildegard.
He ambled over with a big, dumb grin, looking for a kiss. Captain Lewis saw Ordway's unarmed approach. It wasn't his duty to psychoanalyze his men, just to protect them.
"Ordway! No!!"
Lewis couldn't load his own rifle quick enough. The bear was smooched.
Mauling, surprisingly fast for such a large beast, would follow.
Lewis got his shot off and downed the animal, but Ordway was already gone. His sacrifice earned a meal of bear meat for the magnificently-hatted corps.
The town of DeKalb, Illinois, was later founded on the spot where Lewis and Clark lost their friend and comrade. DeKalb, in fact, was a shortened form of the burial cross' warning to others: "Don't Ever Kiss A Live Bear."
NIU's Huskies owe their name as well to Ordway and his love of big hairy women.
The NIU hotel should serve bear. Bear steaks, not meaning they should be guests at the table.
7 Aug 2008. Northwestern is another brilliantly planned and beautifully arranged campus, crowding the coast of Lake Michigan. Where did the purple wildcat mascot come from? It's hard to say, but I'd like to think it had something to do with a cornbreadus-interruptus safari on the Chicago River.
Young Theodore Roosevelt was riding the rails of the Union Pacific from his fledgling ranch in North Dakota back to his home on Long Island. He sat smiling, extremely satisfied with his recent trip. He had accomplished his main goal, bagging a bull bison, on the final day before departure.
On one side of him was Bill Sewall, a longtime friend and companion on the frontier. On the other side were two men looking at a biology textbook and discussing a local issue.
"By the river? Are you sure?"
"If he said he saw it, he saw it."
"Amazing! With all the raucous construction about only makes it more unbelievable."
TR broke in. "Pardon me, sir, but may I ask the unbelievable event of which you speak?"
"A Northwestern Wildcat has been spotted by the Chicago River! One has not been seen anywhere in thirty years! It had been presumed extinct."
"By the Chicago River, you say? Thank you very much." TR turned to Sewall. "Bill, where are we right now?"
"In Chicago."
"Chicago! By criminy! Stop the train!"
"The train is already stopped."
"Good, good. How much time before departure?"
"Almost three hours' worth."
"Bill, I feel a bit of residual luck. What say we test it out?"
TR, never at a loss for energy, was determined to bag the cat.
******
Armed with a textbook illustration courtesy the friendly passenger, TR and Sewall, still clothed in fringe buckskin and armed with flintlock rifles, rowed the urban waterway in a rented canoe.
"These steam powered behemoths are deafening! Keep your eyes sharp, Bill!" shouted TR as they paddled past a cadre of earth movers.
The duo spent the next hour hunting the wandering cat and admiring the adolescent metropolis of Chicago. The constant din of steamshovels made their heads buzz. It also prevented them from hearing the warning cries from the shoreside laborers.
Bill Sewall began to tire of the cityscape. To him it was much duller and more interminable than the giant dirt dimples of the Dakota Badlands. He was about to request they give up on their impulsive hunt when he spotted it. The Northwestern Wildcat was crouched underneath a bridge, muscular and shimmering grey-blue from the sun's reflection.
"Brilliant sighting, Bill. And what a sight she is!"
TR began to load a tranquilizer ball when a piercing whistle sounded.
"Oh no, the train! Bill, I thought we had another hour!"
"We do. That's not the train whistle."
"Then what is it?"
"I don't know."
After the siren stopped, so did the construction equipment.
"That's better. Our ears were taking a pounding," said TR.
Roosevelt finished loading his rifle, steadied it and took aim. A soft mass bounced off his right temple. He looked down and saw a soggy chunk of yellow cornbread.
"What the...? Bill, hoisting rancid cornbread again? Not now."
"I didn't do it."
TR looked behind him. A small crowd of workers were hooting something fierce. One was breaking off pieces of his lunch and throwing it at the canoe.
"Well, they are excited to see the rare cat, but there is no point in assaulting us like pests."
The crowd all started pointing downriver.
"What?? No, the wildcat is here under the bridge. We have him cornered. ...What? I say, just stop all the commotion!"
TR thought of firing a shot to silence them but feared it would scare off the animal.
The men on the side timed their next shout together: "GET...OUT!" The cat ran off.
TR was furious. "What in the name of the devil is the problem?"
Bill Sewall motioned him to sit back down. "Do you hear that, TR?"
Their ears picked up another distant sound, not one of machinery, but of...water. Rushing water. Growing louder. And coming from...Lake Michigan? Everyone standing on the side had scattered by now.
TR put down his gun and took up an oar. "Let us also...make...haste!" he gasped in between strokes.
"Aye!"
The canoe was twenty-five feet from the river's concrete edge when they saw the source of the noise. A dirty deluge was crashing towards them, only seconds away from drowning them in a mixture of lake water and typhoid.
TR and Bill Sewall paddled for their lives, homing in on a waterlogged rope attached at the street level.
Twenty feet more till the edge. Four seconds till the wave.
Fifteen feet. Three seconds.
Ten feet. Two seconds.
Five feet. One second.
Bill Sewall was at the front of the canoe. He leaned forward and grasped the rope. TR leaped from the aft, hoping for the rope but coming up with a handful of Bill's rifle strap. They both held on tightly and took a deep breath. The mess slammed into them. They were stripped of all their equipment save for their clothing and rifles. They were hammered with debris. Their nostrils filled up with gunk. Their instinct was to plug their nostrils but realized one hand would not be strong enough to keep them from flying downstream. So they contended with mud migrating up their noses.
The current started to die. It weakened enough that they could pull their heads above water. They gasped and spit and coughed. They made efforts to keep the water out of their mouths while gulping air. In spastic clumsy motions they pulled themselves up onto the street. It took them several minutes to gain the energy to speak.
"Bill, did we get tossed topsy turvy to the other side? Wasn't the current heading east?"
"It was the current that got reversed I think."
"That is very curious. An enviable feat of engineering I should think."
"Pity about the wildcat."
"Yes. But it was a bully good hunt!"
TR and Bill Sewall returned to the train, smellier than ever.
"Oh there you are! We started to think you would not make it back," said the man who lent them the textbook photo. He stared at the puddles forming on the train deck.
"My heavens! What happened to the two of you?"
TR was still breathing heavily.
"Kind sir, can you believe the unbelievable?"
Just another average day for Theodore Roosevelt.
25 June 2008. Found at an off-campus store. The glass is thin and fragile like those Blue Moon pilsners you find at corporate bars. Don't know how it came home on the plane intact.-A good Jesuit would never go on a service trip and make a jackass of himself.-A noble Jesuit would never insist on getting drunk to incapacitation while on such a trip.-A mature Jesuit would never throw a tantrum when they are restricted from wandering about the bad part of Chicago at night lest they be murdered.-A kind Jesuit would never exclude their hosts from an impromptu New Year's party in the host's basement.-An intelligent Jesuit would never overfill their jell-o tray with vodka which would then prevent it from solidifying.-A proud Jesuit would never set said tray on the ground and drink out of it with straws as a group.-A polite Jesuit would never vomit in the host's basement without cleaning it up.But even a good Jesuit makes mistakes.
10 Nov 1812. John Paul Jones was caught naval gazing.
"Admiral, what are your orders?"
"Excuse me?"
"Your orders for the second fleet. Are they ready sir?"
"Oh, yes, coxswain. Communicate our need for additional rations and supplies. We must be prepared to sail at 0400 and engage at 0600."
Admiral John Paul Jones, Jr. of the young United States Navy was aboard the first fleet watching his approaching reinforcements. It was agonizing knowing that he would get absolutely no sleep during the one night he needed it most.
Unfortunately he was relieved of this worry!
All men on the deck of the USS Annapolis heard a loud but distant boom. Jones was the only one to hear the faint post-blast sizzle that told him this was not mere cannonfire.
The coxswain screamed, "Hit the...uh, wooden...ground!", adrenaline poking holes in his emergency vocabulary. Everyone fell facedown on the deck. Everyone save for Jones, who remained standing. A large blackened mass slammed into the main mast and dropped, still smoking. The midshipmen slowly got up to their feet.
"A dead animal? What does this mean, Admiral?"
Jones kicked the beast. He scanned the horizon.
"Prepare the first fleet for combat immediately. The British have fired the warpig."
******
Capt. James Cook, Jr. of the British Royal Navy and half-Hawaiian blood, grinned with anticipation. His soldiers had been offloaded onto the Virginian shore for a last-ditch ambush attempt. Cook loved traditions. He especially loved the brash intensity of the warpig, the Hawaiian warriors' martial warning. He was proud of his added twist, firing the burning boar from a cannon.
******
As non-porcine artillery began to rain down on Jones' first fleet, he contemplated why the British were retreating from the Chesapeake Bay. They must have suffered heavy losses in Maryland, so despite the shorthandedness of the first, the second fleet would make quick work of Her Majesty's sailors in the open waters of the Atlantic.
Successive blasts knocked the mizzenmast down, snapping a dozen thick ropes and hurtling iron moorings into Jones' thigh and midsection. He was pinned down. Debris continued to fall. He knew his ship would be reduced to planks, if it remained afloat at all. He had great confidence in the second fleet, but not in his own chances of survival.
"Admiral!"
"Leave me be, coxswain. I have done my duty. Go do yours."
"What shall I tell the men?"
"Tell them - and tell Cook - we have not yet begun to fight!"
1 July 2006. I had heard awful things about this campus. Strictly a commuter school, no school spirit or atmosphere, sports coverage is lost in the Atlanta metromix. Perhaps GSU administration is listening to those cries - they are building and building and building. They are launching a football team, creating new on-campus housing by the barrelful, upgrading their sports conference from Atlantic Sun to Colonial, and flaunting their presence in the national academic rankings (especially in business and law). Their athletic logo is still a work in progress. Pounce is a cartoon blue panther who is not quite sure whether to be fierce or adorable. This frosted blue pint glass gives the apparent date of the school's founding - I suppose that is what the "13" signifies? It is frosted on the inside too so it's relegated to being a display glass and not for everyday use, though I'm sure it is perfectly safe and would not give me peanut cancer.
3 June 2006. It has been half a year since the last item was added to the CCP. This entry takes me to a state I had never visited before. It was summer break so there was an awkward stillness about the beautiful campus that abuts the Mississippi, but whose pedestrian bridges are flooded with nasty flies at night. Even the turn of the century grain mills look hip and retro. After returning from Minnesota I had heard that there are only two tolerable months to visit: May and June (or was it June and July?). I didn't plan it that way, but we saw the best of the Golden Gophers' home in Dinkytown. On the pint glass, Goldy is running away from a swarm of black flies on his way to a Lake Calhoun. Fun fact: the men's and women's ice hockey teams have two seperate arenas.
5 Nov 2005. Richmond gets a bad rap sometimes, and so does VCU by association, due to street crime. But they've done better recently and VCU has improved their campus as well. Nothing too noteworthy here, whether it be the bookstore, campus, ram-less cup design, or backstory. So here's a fictionalized summary of what happened:
Out of the muck of the James River crawled a man-beast. This man-beast was created one drunken night when a lonely vintner in Albemarle County got too friendly with one of his pet goats. Horrified at what was birthed months later, the winemaker took it far, far away, to a completely different culture: Richmond, Virginia. The city people of Richmond would be able to dispose of it in a cold act that the Charlottesville citizen could not bring himself to commit. In the rain, he set the little half-goat on the banks of the James, not permitting himself to look back as he walked away. In his mind, he was simply allowing nature to take its course. The waters above engorged the waters beneath. The abandoned crate held tight to its hideous cargo as it was swept away. Little did anyone know that the goat-human hybrid was hardier than most other goat-human hybrids. It survived the storm and landed on Belle Island, subsisting for many years on grubs, weeds, and chicken offal from KFC. It allayed its boredom with discarded books from Richmond's closed libraries. The fearsome beast's liberal education and growing interest in the world around him led 'Rammy' - as various news reports on his sighting would call him - to seek funding for a land grant institution. The welcoming people of Richmond, unaccustomed to a man-beast as they may have been, were glad to see a local interested in the education of its people. Years of administrative toil lay ahead, but they would soon pay off. Rammy was overjoyed when the doors finally opened to Virginia Commonwealth University. He served as its first president and athletic mascot.
12 Oct 2004. Rae Ri! Ol' VPI! Hokie Hokie Hokie Hi! The Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University is located in Blacksburg in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, whose autumn vistas will long remain in your memory. Cassell Colisum, home to their basketball and volleyball teams, has steep concrete arches that would provide a good venue for Spider-Men- and traceurs-in-training. If my shoes only had a little more traction...! The classic VT logo that appears on many licensed products due to its simplicity in design and color graces this pint glass, with 'Tech Triumph' (school song? fight song?) on the reverse. My favorite pint in terms of layout.
The last day of July 2004. Down by the river in Huntington where West Virginia meets Kentucky and Ohio for a threeway in God's country. A quiet blanket lay over the town for these were the pre-McConaughey days. The pint glass was very informative, just short of a graduate thesis. The only thing missing from the design was a cartoon drawing of their bison mascot (their team name is not just the Herd, but the Thundering Herd).
We are! Marshall!
31 July 2004. Another rainy day. It was a weekend morning in Lexington and the campus bookstore was closed! Could I possibly secure a cup from an off-campus vendor and still include it in the CCP? Oh what a conundrum! I decided: Yes. Well, we found one that was open - if I remembered the name I would gladly plug them here - and I picked up my first imprinted pint glass. The good thing about pint glasses is that they are the same size: pint sized.
Making it as far as the official bookstore only to find it closed had happened before. Literally, the day before in Nashville at Vanderbilt. But I was not resourceful enough 24 hours earlier to find an unofficial store. This occurred many times afterward: UMass Boston, Northeastern, Texas El Paso, VMI, and Missouri State. At that last location in Springfield, I had found a campus convenience store where MSU Bears mugs were on display. I could reach through the slot in the metal barrier and HOLD ONE but could not pull it through. (Don't worry I would have left money if I had been able to take it home.)
