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 And we've entered the penultimate week, as we close down my four plus decade teaching career. Classes were good yesterday. In my COR 303 classes I taught the students a bit of paleography, to let them know in addition to understanding how historians approach their decisions-making process, they should also understand what we do on a day to day basis. It's one of my odder assignments, but one which has always proved popular with the students. And last night we watched Terrestrial Verses, and then I'd declared it Champlain College If Day - in honor of Winnipeg If Day - and asked the students how they would express the danger of creeping authoritarianism (like Winnipeg's 1942 If Day, I told the students to imagine that they took over the campus and show people what it would actually mean if we fully passed into an authoritarianism regime). They didn't do an extraordinary job, but they came up with some interesting ideas. I have come up with so many odd assignments over the years, most of which worked better than the ones that I had devoted more time to planning. I will miss that creative process after I shut it down.

Thanks to Vernon Adams, Jr. for loaning me his number 3 for the Countdown. I've actually seen Adams play a couple times, which, considering that I've attended over twenty CFL games I suppose that shouldn't be too surprising. Adams was born in Pasadena, California and played college ball at Eastern Washington and Oregon. He went undrafted by the NFL and attended rookie mini-camps with the Seattle Seahawks and Washington (at the time) Redskins, but never received an offer. He headed north, and began a peripatetic career with stops at the Montreal Alouettes, Saskatchewan Roughriders, Hamilton Tiger-Cats, Montreal Alouettes (again), BC Lions, and Calgary Stampeders. I've seen him have some great games. He was the starting QB in last June's freeze bowl game in Calgary that Kevin and I barely survived. Adams did not have a great day that day, but nobody did, including us.