Chipmunk Waffle Waffle Chipmunk

 All relationships - immediate family or friends or with your significant other - all have their own language, developed organically over time. Janet and I will often ask each other, "So, are you getting in the box?", which is a reference to the classic Italian film Mafioso. It essentially means, are you in or not? - or have you been drawn into something against your will? If you're not in on the formation of the linguistic shorthand it sounds like gibberish. Back in college my friends, when discussing beautiful women, would say, "She's some of it," which eventually evolved into "She's most of it," or "She's a remarkably high percentage of it." I don't think any of us remember who came up with the phrase - or, for that matter, exactly what "it" was. For years my Champlain friends and I would always say "phrasing" whenever anyone said something, unintentionally, which could be interpreted sexually. This was a direct reference to the TV show Archer, and we used the term faithfully, even folks who had never seen an episode. Recently, on one of my Thursday sleepovers at Kevin's, we were talking about the Minnesota radio station that Kevin loves (the one that has the They Might Be Giants marathon, that Kevin fixes his schedule around - like a true fan, he takes the day off from work to listen). Kevin will email them quite a bit, and they sometimes respond online, and I'm always telling him that I can foresee this as his post-retirement gig. Anyway, he was telling me about the teenage daughter of one of the station's biggest supporters, who will share emoticons as reviews of restaurants and movies (probably trying to help the terminally uncool older folks become slightly more cool). One of them was to type in Chipmunk Waffle Waffle Chipmunk, which was, at least at that moment, the highest ranking you could get. This quickly became shorthand between us on a text chain to affirm our support for a proposed plan.

This picture could stan in for a lot of the Thursday night excellence - watching the Phillies or CFL or listening to music. I can't tell you how much I'm going to miss this guy.

I have no idea why Chipmunk Waffle Waffle Chipmunk equates with highest approval rating, but it has become a standard means of communication - at least between two old dudes.

The Actual Last Trip to the Whammy Bar

 Last week I posted on what I feared was going to be our last trip to the Whammy Bar, our Friday night tradition. As it turns out, there was one last trip (we're flying out Wednesday, inshallah) as my great friends Kevin and Kerry came out. 

There have been so many goodbyes, which has been both good and bad for my heart. Kerry asked me what I was most looking forward to, and what I should have said is, "An end to all the goodbyes." The ones with Gary and Ali may kill me.

The Fugitive

 Yesterday I had the tremendous pleasure of meeting my friend Sheila Liming for coffee and Proust down in Montpelier. She's closing in on her completion of Proust's In Search of Lost Time, and we wanted to get together to discuss The Fugitive (the sixth volume) before I disappeared off the earth. I'll definitely miss her, and not simply because she's the one person I met at Champlain who is happy to get together to discuss Proust. If you're looking for some interesting and thought-provoking books to read, definitely check out some of Sheila's.

Here she is nerding out over the fact that we had underlined exactly the same passage (actually, we had done that many times in the text, as might be expected from folks who share a love of literary works in general, and Proust in particular, would).

The passage in question (Marcel reflecting upon the death of Albertine): 

"Since her memory was linked to every season, the only way of forgetting it would have been to forget all of them, even if it meant that I would have to learn to recognize them all over again, like an old man who has suffered from hemiplegia, learning to read again; I would have had to renounced the whole universe. Only a real death of my self, I told myself (were it not impossible), would be capable of consoling me for her death. I did not realize that the death of the self is neither impossible nor extraordinary; it is accomplished without our knowledge and, if necessary, without our consent every day, and I would suffer from the repetition of every sort of day that not only nature but accidental circumstances of more conventional arrangements could introduce into a season."

Joining the Club

 There's the Circle of Excellence - that is, people I've dragged to CFL games, and that is 20 right-thinking individuals - and then there is the Inner Circle of Excellence - that is, people that I've dragged to multiple Canadian cities for CFL games, and that, until this summer, included only three people: Kevin (after this month, eight of nine possible sites), Sanford (two, almost three), and Andy (three). Now, however, the Inner Circle is expanding. Cyndi travelled with us on the first leg of the Manitoba/Saskatchewan Doubleheader of Excellence, and now she can claim two CFL cities (Montreal and Winnipeg). She'll be joined at the end of the month by Erik with two (Montreal and Ottawa).

Cyndi, of course, added her own energy to the trip, expanding Kevin and my usual routine of exploring every diner in the new city. Here she is dragging us to the Winnipeg Zoo, a brilliant idea on a 95 degree day, right before the Blue Bombers game (obviously, not concerned with her aged friend's failing legs). Sadly, she escaped from the dinosaur.

Devil

 This last weekend Janet's great friend Erin paid us a visit, and she brought me this utterly epic gift. Janet patiently puts up with our mad discussion of our shared loved of horror movies and cryptozoology. This time Erin brought me a great Jersey Devil t-shirt, which is definitely making its way across the ocean.

Obviously, on one of my trips back to the US in the years to come I need to head down to the Pine Barrens in New Jersey.

Billby

 On my mad trip through Canada and the Midwest a few weeks ago I was able to see my friend Bill, not once, but twice, which was a tremendous gift. When I dropped down into the States from Ontario, my first stop was in Rolling Prairie, which is where Bill was living when we met oh those many years ago. I can remember visiting him there over forty years ago. Since then, Bill was able to buy back most of the land that his family used to own, and now has his own forty acres (although no mule). He was my best friend in college, and I'm happy to say that we're still dear friends all of these decades later.

ON the morning I left we went for a long drive around his property, and he walked me through all of his projects - which exhausted me just hearing about them.

It's such a lovely spot, and I can definitely see why he's drawn to it. He's one of those folks who I will sincerely miss when we move overseas. I think over the years he and his wife KV have come to visit me more than any of my other friends, and if you're going to track down someone in Vermont they must truly be your friend.

Jazz

 This trip was utterly exhausting - and my legs are not at all happy with me - but it was well worth the effort. My last stop was to drop by Cincinnati to see my old friend Dave, which was, as expected, wonderful. Whenever I see people, both on trips like this but also as I pass through my daily life, I become more and more aware that I will never see some of them ever again. This made this trip more than a bit bittersweet. If the Italian government and court system plays nice and we actually make it to Sicily, I just feel that I'm not going to come back much. I've been blessed to have so many extraordinarily smart, interesting and kind folks in my life, and the thought of never seeing them again breaks my heart.

Dave and his new puppy, Jazz. Obviously, the ghost of Dudley still haunted the place, because Jazz did his best to skeletonize my arm (which was, as with his predecessor Dudley, mainly my fault). Jazz is apparently 1% Polynesian Street Dog, so he wasn't taking any shit (although he's sweet as can be).

A Gift of Excellence

 Of all my friends (and, again, I have more friends than I can justify), the one who is respected for giving the best gifts (and for being an all around great friend) is my friend and office-mate Erik. Yesterday he gave me my retirement gift, which were two metal Minnesota Vikings bookmarks. Amazing. Of course, the best part of the present were the incredibly heartfelt comments from Erik and his wife Laura in the card, which I will long cherish.

On the back of both he had "Audeamus" engraved. It's the made-up motto of Champlain College, which has been a long-standing inside joke in our office. I guess it is inspiring to base your goals on "We Will Dare," or whateve3r we translate it as. Mainly, the joke is based on my belief that once you give something a label, especially a self-generated one for publicity, it certainly has no meaning - and I don't think we've had one "daring" moment since we crowd-sourced the motto (unlike the days of Champlain, when that was what we were known for). I told Erik that since the Vikings are featured the motto be the Latin equivalent for "we will fail", which is think is something like deficiemus. Still, it's a sweet gift.

Loyal Fans

 Usually, when I'm crashing in my friend Kevin's spare room on Thursday night in the summer, we always follow a dinner at one of various and sundry restaurants and a trip to Al's for ice cream, we head back to watch the Phillies (KA's favorite team). However, this last Thursday the Phillies were off, so what were our options? Well, as true CFL fans, the obvious thing was to watch a recap of the 2025 Grey Cup (which, of course, we watched live in the very same room in November). 

With the CFL season starting, and the expansion of our CFL fantasy league, the preparation is intense. It also now looks like we're adding a game in Ottawa to our already full slate of games in Hamilton, Winnipeg, and Regina.

BOE Temporary Relocation

 On Friday we had a glitch in our usual Breakfast of Excellence schedule. As is well-documented, we always meet for breakfast at 8:00 at the TASTee Grill, but when we arrived all four tables are spoken for. We waited for a bit, but eventually had to track down an alternative option. This made us all sad, because we love to give the TASTee Grill as much business (and love) as we can (plus, they have great food). We settled at some new place, which exists, along with a bank, in the skeleton of the old Pizzeria Uno. It was a bit off-setting because it's right on the edge of the neighborhood where I lived when Jen and I were together, and we ate dozens of meals there over the years. However, it was more bittersweet because I'm going to miss these guys so much. I will definitely not be counting down the diminishing BOEs with CFL players, as I'm in a state of denial about the passing of this most beloved of traditions.

From left to right: John, Sandy, Kevin, Erik, and Kelly. It was a nice meal, although paying two separate times for a refill on coffee ensures that we will not return (truthfully, what variety of savagery is making someone pay twice for coffee?; I mean, if you order two lattes, then I think the separate cost is justified, but paying separately for a second coffee?). 

88

 Don't worry, I haven't decided to stay at Champlain, and in the process push the countdown back up to 88 days (although, oddly, I think some of my friends - and even a few students - would push for that decision). Instead, this is an unexpected - and remarkably thoughtful - retirement from my friend Chuck. We have a similar schedule on Mondays and Thursdays in the morning, so we often take the opportunity to gab. He met me yesterday with a wrapped present, and inside was this absolutely amazing Alan Page jersey. As Chuck has known forever - although I don't know how it ever became part of the discussion - Alan Page is my all-time favorite football player. Page is the first defensive player to win MVP honors, and that was in an age before sacks were an official stat, so you can just imagine how dominant he had to be without a counting stat to justify his case. He's also a member of the NFL Hall of Fame. Maybe more impressively, he also graduated from Notre Dame, and eventually law school, and served on the Minnesota Supreme Court for years. It's amazing how few people know his story - and it's shameful that the NFL doesn't promote him more when talking about the game.

And it's even autographed, so this is over the top nice of Chuck. Of course, as my friend MK pointed out, this also means I can never wash it. I guess this also means that I have to start rooting for the Vikings again (although misery lays in that path).

The Champ Is in the Building

 My friend Katheryn, who is on sabbatical, finally rolled into my office to pick up the Wanker trophy (marking her conquest of the Twin Peaks Football League). I had told her office mate that if the trophy sat in my office one more day that it would revert to the previous champion, who was, let me check my notes, me. In my popular retelling of her arrival that is the answer to why she showed up then.

Considering that I wouldn't be in the country at the end of the next TPFL season she took responsibility for engraving and mailing it to the next winner (I showed her the business card of the engraver tucked away in the base). She discussed the difficulty of mailing it to Sicily, but I told her that if I won next year it would be enough for her to have my name engraved upon it - and then leave it in her office so she could stare at it every day. I told her that the shortcut would be for her to simply win it every year, in which there is never any problem with mailing it - which was her plan anyway (being the most wildly competitive member of the league).

Ketchup or Catsup?

 I'm chronicling a very odd moment from yesterday's Breakfast of Excellence, my routinely scheduled Friday morning breakfast with my friends at the TASTee Grill. At a certain point, after we'd finished our traditional meals (we actually never order, we just sit down at the waitress brings the same four selections) when Erik pulled out a penny and asked me to pass the ketchup. He wanted to determine the date, which I initially thought related to a discussion of the value of that particular vintage of currency, but I think he was then going to ask us what we thought the most important thing that had happened in that year. So, why the ketchup? Apparently, ketchup, because of its acidity, was/is good for cleaning coins (or at least pennies), and Erik assured us that he used this method all the time when he was growing up in Burlington. Kevin then assured that this was well known, and I had to admit that once again the Indiana education system had failed me. I decided to capture this moment in time because I thought it said something about lovely, odd, organic nature of long-term friendships. None of us thought that it was odd at that moment that Erik decided to clean an old penny with ketchup, and it immediately launched us into this meandering discussion of somewhat related subjects, including Sandy relating his father, a very successful attorney, and his decades-long quest for found coins and elaborate theories on the best places to find them (he didn't collect coins, rather, he just saved them in a special pile and used them to occasionally take his wife out to dinner; he took her out to eat at many times, but the coin-generated meals was an acknowledged special treat). I cannot do justice to how much I will miss these guys next year.

I didn't get to ask whether or not the cleaning required ketchup or catsup because, in the end, the penny was so damaged that the date could not be recovered. It was so light that it almost had the weight of a similar circle of cardboard, weird. 

Hell Has Frozen Over

 Actually, here in Vermont I think Hell is getting ready to freeze over, but more on that in a few posts. The more immediate, and unbelievable, example of Hell freezing over is the fact that IU won the college football championship last night. Now, I don't give a tinker's damn about any college sports (and, as I've often opined, I think it's an incredibly destructive force - at least on the level of big time college sports - that has done terrible damage to the American university system), but I am happy that IU won, mainly because I have friends who are big fans and I know it gave them joy. It's almost impossible to get your brain around since, until two years ago, IU was the default answer for: What is the worst college football program of all time? Seriously, they had lost more games than any other program. And now they completed the first 16-0 season. Bizarre. I remember visiting Jack at IU in college for the Nebraska game, and we were joking about whether or not they were going to add a triple digit to the visitor's end of the scoreboard.

Jack and Juju's kids pooled their resources and bought tickets so that these proud IU alums could attend the championship game. 

 

Straight Down the Line

 The pain and sadness of my end is mainly alleviated by being surrounded by extraordinary colleagues and some of my best friends. Chief among them is my amazing friend Erik. With our (hopefully temporary) declining numbers we don't even have to share an office anymore, but neither of us could imagine that happening. We simply get along too well. In explaining to my students on Monday where my office is I told them that I shared an office with Professor Esckilsen, mainly because we're the two biggest film whores on campus and we spend most of the day talking about French actresses that we love and commiserating over idiot student stories. My kids understood.

The classic film noir Double Indemnity was playing on the ceiling of our office when I came back after my first class, a gift from EE. 

Smoking Bishop

 Yesterday my excellent friend Steve popped into the Breakfast of Excellence to give me a wonderful birthday gift. It was a collection of recipes for all the drinks that appear in Charles Dickens stories. This is an epic gift!!

As all right-thinking individuals recall, after his time with the ghosts, Scrooge invites Bob Cratchit for a bowl of Smoking Bishop so that they can discuss his family's future. 

Holiday Breakfast of Excellence

 Going an tire month (that is, our Christmas break in the unreal world of academia) without seeing my friends is, of course, impossible (what happens next year is anybody's guess). Consequently, it was necessary to schedule a Holiday Breakfast of Excellence at the TASTee Grill. As usual, the topics of conversation were varied and excellent, including an inspired discussion of what makes a great biography.

Sanford, appearing as either an Old Testament prophet or a Marxist theorist.

Erik and Kevin, two regular members of the BofE, enjoying the holiday festivities.

A rare appearance from the excellent Steve.

Afterward I had to make a quick run by Santa's for some homemade Christmas cookies and frozen scrapple (appropriate for a Philadelphia-born elf).

Mike in Madrid

 It's funny the pictures that don't make this blog, at least until years after they should have. Here's a picture that I snapped over a decade ago on the Spain/Portugal trip that I led with my friends Mike and Kelly. We disappeared into the streets of Madrid in search of a bar with the NFL package, and, clearly, we succeeded in our quest.

I guess I had never posted this previously because we're clearly in a bar, although I can't imagine any parent who would send their kids on a student trip to Madrid and not assume that a bar (or several bars) would be in the offing. That said, that trip featured about the most nerdy, in-bed-by-ten group of students on any of the dozen trips I ran.

Grey Cup Excellence

 There was a time when my son and I would be making a Shaw's run on Grey Cup Sunday and we'd make some comment, parodying the mad grocery store rush for Super Bowl Sunday, that everyone must have done their shopping early. And then I began my years-long quest to bring the beauty of the CFL to my friends, although I suspect they might consider it an annual ritualistic dragooning. Now that I've brought nineteen different people to CFL games, in six different Canadian cities, the Grey Cup is a thing. For a couple years my excellent friend Craig would host an annual Grey Cup soiree (one time I drove across the blizzard in a wretched storm to buy a motherlode of TimBits for the game). This year I think  an evolving group of folks watched several games together, topped off by Kevin (who, despite his protestations, is a huge CFL fan) hosting a Grey Cup party. It was an Event of Excellence, as one might assume (and not simply because we saw a rouge). The Alouettes are our hometown team, and the Roughriders are not one of my four favorite CFL teams (although after this summer's Saskatchewan/Winnipeg doubleheader I might change my mind), but I was quite happy with the Roughriders victory.

I brought a wealth of CFL swag to celebrate the combatants: the Saskatchewan Roughriders and the Montreal Alouettes.

Erik and Kevin, two CFL game veterans, were enthusiastic participants.

Marcelle and her brother Roger are consistent attendees of Lake Monster games, but have taken blood oaths to attend their first Alouettes game next summer.

Can a game start better than 1-0? It's a testament to my success in winning over my friends to the CFL that immediately after the scoring of the rouge I received multiple texts from around the country with one word: "Rouge!!"

And then there's that magic moment when the Mounties bring down the Grey Cup. It says something wonderful about Canada that one of the Mounties was a Sikh, and that everyone, quite rightly, just viewed it as another day in the week. Sadly, in Trump's America, the racist, xenophobic rants would start firing up the social media hellscape.

And Kevin, who, as we all know, is a great cook, whipped up some killer poutine. I'm already sad that I won't be in-country for next year's Grey Cup (unless I make the most amazing secret mad dash over, because, well, it's the Grey Cup FFS).

Kevin's Happy Day

 Every year my excellent friend Kevin takes the day off to celebrate his favorite band, They Might Be Giants. I know I, at one time or another, shared the story of my clumsy They Might Be Giants beginnings with Kevin. Year ago, probably at the Saint John's Club, a group of us were sitting around talking about music. In the process of making a point about the subjective nature of music appreciation (and all art, for that matter), I pointed out that my ex-wife loved They Might Be Giants, but that I had never warmed to them. I did not know that they were Kevin's favorite band, and he was rightly appalled by my philistinism. Almost immediately a They Might Be Giants concert ticket with my name on it showed up - and then another. In an odd way, I think it was actually the true beginning of our friendship. Anyway, every year a radio station in Minnesota holds a They Might Be Giants marathon, with all sorts of cool, appropriately quirky surprises, and Kevin takes the day off to happily listen. He even cancelled out on the weekly Breakfast of Excellence for the occasion. This, as a Tradition of Excellence, clearly trumps the Breakfast of Excellence, and I vouchsafe his decision.

This is literally the happiest I ever see him. What a great tradition.