Gary Coleman died today after suffering a brain hemorrhage. I remember watching Diff'rent Strokes all the time when I was a kid, even all those "extra special" episodes where you were supposed to learn something.
Of course, the highlight of his career was when he appeared as a security guard on the Simpsons. 
So, good-bye, Gary Coleman. You will be missed.
I hate to continue being the Debby Downer (apologies to all those Debbies out there...never mind, they're too busy in Dallas to read this blog), but since today is Eric's funeral, I thought maybe I should at least continue to be respectful. However, as much as it pains those of us who have lost a friend and loved on, we must continue on. Life continues. And part of life means the useless highly interesting study of a language that has been swallowed by history.
In a time like this, I would normally go into a long, boring highly interesting description of Roman funerary practices. However, they were...well, funerary. Suffice it to say, the Romans believed in an afterlife, even in the pre-Christian days. They also believed in ghosts. In fact, the Latin word for ghost is lemur, lemures (pronounced "lay-myoor, lay-myoor-ace"; ghost, ghosts). Linnaeus, he of binomial taxonomy fame, chose the name "lemur" for the prosimians found on the island of Madagascar because, like ghosts, you saw lemurs at night. Ha, take that, King Julian.
Okay, all this talk of ghosts and such is sad and more suitable for the end of the month. *sniff, sniff* I smell a Halloween-oriented Latin lesson in the offing! I can feel you all trembling with anticipation.
No, instead of focusing on Roman customs surrounding the dead, I'm heading north and west, to that island filled with those savage Hibernii. Yes, it's true, the Irish are a bit touched in the head, but we love them nonetheless--mostly because they're too short to do serious harm. Aw, little red-headed savages, swinging away feebly against the air while we hold our palms on their foreheads.
Dammit, did I get off track? That's so out of character for me.
Anyway, we all know how the Irish deal with death: they lose to Michigan! Wait, wrong Irish. Rather than focus on the sadness of the loss of a friend or family member, the Irish celebrate the life of the individual who has shuffled off this mortal coil. And they do that in the only way the Irish know how to celebrate: raucous drinking.
Now that I've worked through the mourning and the sadness, it's time to focus on the happy memories that my friend brought me. And, to that end, I say:
There is a phrase that was originally Greek but got translated into Latin in the early part of the fifteenth century. De mortuis nil nisi bonum (dicendum est) is a phrase that, literally translated, means "Of the dead, speak nothing but what is good." Originally, it was meant to ward off vengeful spirits, angry that you were defaming them after they had died. In modern parlance, we tend to apply it toward saying only good things about a person when they've died, remembering that which made us happy and trying to either ignore or forget what made us sad or angry or any other negative thoughts. It's a phrase that could definitely be applied to this past summer as we sort of let slide accusations of child molestation and deadly drunk driving accidents.
Well, maybe not his awesome Venture Brothers shirt with the Monarch on it. I only know this because I tried to get him to give it to me. I was unsuccessful in my attempt to fleece him of a treasured pop cultural garment. 
It's dark. It's cold. It's raining.
Pretty much matches the mix of emotions swirling inside me right now.
My nephew died this morning. I don't know when, I just know it was early. My father-in-law called me at 7:00 am to tell us, and I called my wife at work to let her know. We then had to tell the kids and they took it with a mixture of emotions. My daughter was sad; my son was happy that little John McMillan would become an angel. I think that thought kind of calmed us all.
Without getting into the medical side of it too much, John McMillan was born with some calcified spots on his brain, much like my sister. Whereas my sister would have a seizure or two or sometimes three a day, my nephew had them about every thirty minutes, and that was if he was lucky. My sister-in-law and brother-in-law faced some really tough decisions--ones I thank God every day that I never had to make--and they filed do not resuscitate papers back before Christmas. While we had been expecting this phone call for months, it didn't make it any easier. The only good thing was that it wasn't too much of a shock to the kids because we had explained it to them a long time ago.
My wife went down to Atlanta to be with her family--naturally, on the day the biggest blizzard of the season--and definitely the worst in the past six years--hit the southeast. I'll be here with the kids for the next three days or so. Sorry, it's really snowy and crappy, otherwise, I'd throw a kegger. Fuck, I might just do that anyway and just invite myself.
Also, I want to say now...while I've never met most of you folks, I know what kind and caring people you can be. This is one helluva blog community we've built up around ourselves, and it's one that I'm very thankful to be a part of. So, I want to say thank you ahead of time, because I know that you're all going to offer prayers and thoughts and kind words for me and my family. My wife reads this, too, so I know she'll appreciate it, as well. Thank you all, because you're awesome and you'll make me feel better. I'll try to get back to my perky self soon, but in the meantime, I'm going to work through some sadness.
Here in the States, it's Memorial Day. This is the one day a year that we set aside 
and thank the men and women who have valiantly set aside their everyday lives and served their country and her citizenship by either protecting her interests home and/or overseas. It's also the "unofficial" start of summer, but here in the South, that happened weeks ago.
Anyway, my personal connection to the military is several pronged: my cousin Chris served in Afghanistan, my uncle Larry served in Viet-Nam and my grandfather Obe served in WWII. I'm not alone in having connections to the military and its veterans. If you're a member of my generation/age group, then you probably had a grandparent or two who served in WWII. I'm sure we've all had classmates and friends who have served in Iraq and/or Afghanistan. A lot of people have had to endure not having their friends and loved ones come home from their military services; I've been fortunate, and no one in my family has died in the line of duty.
I know very little of any of my family's exploits overseas. I haven't talked to my cousin much since he returned from Afghanistan, and I've never really talked to my uncle about Viet-Nam. My grandfather, also, was rather tight lipped about the tours of duty he pulled in Europe. I guess killing people will make you not want to talk about it. I do know, however, that I had a great-uncle (Clarence, I think it was) who fought in the Battle of the Bulge (or the Battle of the Ardennes), and while he was fighting in it my great-grandfather passed away (on my birthday, no less), and that has been pretty much the most tragic war-story my family has had to endure: Great-grandfather Ivan died without knowing if Uncle Bud (his nickname) had survived the war.
My wife's grandfather was also in WWII, and he served in the infantry. In fact, he 
was part of the gunnery corps, and (if I remember correctly), they marched up the Italian peninsula, liberating Italy. He eventually made it to Nazi-occupied territory because as he was crossing a battlefield, he came across a German officer and liberated his corpse of the sabre he carried at his side. It's a fucking beautiful sword, with a big, ugly swastika on the pommel stone. When I saw it for the first time (my wife's uncle now has it), it suddenly turned the Nazis into a real enemy, and not just someone who appeared in John Wayne films and history books.
Speaking of John Wayne (my grandfather's favorite actor), he had a role in one of my all-time favorite war films: The Longest Day. I love that movie. It recounts the D-Day offensive from the pre-dawn hours to the fight on the beaches. Whenever I watch it, I think about my grandfather being in one of those planes flying overhead giving aerial support to the troops on the ground.
My grandfather was in the Army Air Corps (a forerunner to the Air Force) and he was (if I remember right) a belly gunner for a B-17 Flying Fortress (like the "Memphis 
Belle"), and he flew a total of 96 missions over Western Europe. His goal was to get to the 100 missions mark (also called the "Century Club"), but he had been shot down too many times, and so the top brass prevented him from flying anymore. Two missions later, the crew he would have been assigned to was shot down with no survivors. On the return to the States, he was bumped from a flight back home by a ranking officer and had to make the return on a boat. The plane he would have ridden back on went down with no survivors.
Those stories are fairly frightening, but the one story I heard my grandfather tell of his service in Europe really was frightening (there was another story he told, but it was about the first time he had ever seen a transvestite). In one of his bombing runs 
over the mainland, his plane got shot down. It was over the Benelux countries, and I don't remember which (probably Belgium), but as he and his crew were parachuting to safety, the wind caught him differently and took him into a different area. He immediately ditched his parachute and hid under a bush, where he saw the other members of his crew get captured by the Germans and gunned down on the spot. The Germans than began searching for him, but they went back and forth looking for him for the rest of the afternoon and never found him. Finally, as darkness fell, they abandoned the search and went elsewhere. When he felt it was safe, he began to pick his way through the underbrush. As he was moving along as quietly as possible, a hand reached out from under a bush and grabbed his ankle. He thought he was dead. Turns out, it was a member of the Belgian Underground, and they helped get him back to the lines where he went back to England. I think he might have actually flown a few more raids after that, but I'm not certain. Apparently, the night my grandmother died, he sat up with my mom and told her everything he saw in Europe. Unfortunately, she didn't write them down, and has since forgotten them. He died in January of 1989. Sadly, this is the only story I'll know about his time in the war, but it is one helluva story.
So, if you know a veteran of any of our wars, think about them today. If you know someone who lost a loved one in any of our military actions, think about them, too. As I said earlier, I've been lucky that none of my family has ever not returned home from military action. I'm not going to get on a patriotic soapbox here, but whether you're a supporter of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, please think of the people who are out there fighting and remember the bravery and nobility of those people who have offered their lives up as the ultimate sacrifice for our country. I know I'm thankful for all they've done.
Do you remember what you were doing ten years ago, today? I don't remember, either, except that I know I was four days away from graduating from St. Joseph's College. 
I'll hazard a guess and say that I was drinking beer while on the toilet shitter in the Gallagher 1st middle stall, drinking a beer in my dorm room, Gallagher 117, doing something stupid and druken with partner-in-crime Will Shannon, and probably planning another clumsy, awkward pass at Jamie Bach[1] later in the day. I think I might have also destroyed a phone against the exterior of Gallagher Hall later tonight, and I'm also going to guess that there was, at some point, a drunken trip to the Trail Tree in or Grandma's late in the night for either a Big T Trucker Sandwich or Biscuits and Gravy (and an eggy sandwich if a certain priest-to-be came with us).
The reason for waxing nostalgic is that today is the 10th anniversary of Kerry Wood striking out 20 Astros in Wrigley Field. This instantly put his name on the baseball map and made us all wonder just how many World Series rings he would bring to the North Side of Chicago[2]. Unfortunately, as productive as Wood was/has been striking guys out, he's been just as productive when it comes to injuring himself. Elbows, wrists, shoulders...everything on Wood's body seems to have broken down at some point during his career. Blame Dusty Baker if you want to (and I do), but some of Wood's injuries have been completely non-baseball related, such as injuring himself in a hot tub.
Despite all this, Kerry Wood remains one of my all-time favorite Cubs players. I don't know why, either. Maybe I'm still locked in the nostalgic hope of seeing him 
achieving his potential. Maybe I keep thinking that some day he'll wake up, hop out of bed and decide that today is the day he's going to strike out 20 batters again (which would be really difficult, since he's been relegated to the bullpen these days). Maybe because his marvelous feat of 20 strikeouts came in those waning days of my college career, when things were looking most hopeful and promising and I had the whole world figured out. Maybe seeing Kerry Wood pitch takes me back to a happy place that I have locked away inside of me. I don't know, but he is, without a doubt, my favorite baseball player. Here in the Triangle, there is a city called Cary and, in Cary, there is a road called Cary Wood Dr. Ever since I saw that, I have looked for an affordable house on Cary Wood Drive, just to say I live there, because that would be so fucking cool, and all because of Kerry Wood.
Wood's career has been one of unfulfilled potential. However, if you look at the recent spate of baseball news and think back, Wood (from Texas and a high-strikeout pitcher) was compared to Roger Clemens (from Texas and a high-strikeout pitcher). It was thought their careers would follow similar paths and Wood would be racking up Cy Young's along with wins and World Series titles. Fortunately--thankfully!--it seems that Wood is nothing like Clemens, as the injury-prone body and extended stays on the DL would point toward a lack of using steroids and HGH, and, well, there doesn't seem to be a string of trashy women with hordes of skeletons stashed in their closets following Wood around.
For all the bad that has surrounded Kerry Wood's career, I'll never forget looking up through my Miller-Genuine-Draft-inspired haze and saying, "Holy shit, Will, this guy's struck out 20 batters. Hand me another.[3]" So, Kerry, here's to you, man. Happy Anniversary.
[1]: In case you were wondering, she looks a lot like the Snorg Tees girl, just with a smaller chest and incisors and a stronger proclivity to wearing knee-high stockings and very short skirts.
[2]: That would be a big, fat 0 and counting...
[3]: Obviously, nowadays, it would be most appropriate to toast Kerry's feat with a 120 Minute IPA from Dogfish Head Brewery, as it's 20% ABW. That's 1% ABW for every strikeout. I can do math, me.
In the depths of my Nerdvana from this past weekend, I didn't realize that Charlton Heston had died until my wife told me about it Sunday evening.
I'm not going to talk about what a great actor Heston was, nor will I touch on his political life, but I will say that perhaps my favorite movie he's been in (and his 
filmography is extensive)was Ben-Hur. In the eighth grade, we watched Ben-Hur in conjunction with my social studies class as the teacher was a huge fan of the Roman Empire, and there were some Roman things in Ben-Hur, I guess. It fascinated me. This was before I really had any idea that there were grand, great stories on film, but this was one of those moments when my mind began to open up to the possibilities of life beyond the Police Academy movies. The movie was just that good, that well-done that I instantly fell in love with it. I've watched it a handful of times since, and always I have the same thoughts on it.
However, Ben-Hur was not my favorite character played by Heston. Oh no. For that, you would have to look to Colonel George Taylor, the astronaut played by Heston in Planet of the Apes. Why this character? you may ask. Simple. Taylor was from Fort Wayne, IN, which is the city I associate with my hometown (more people have heard of Fort Wayne, IN than they have of Markle, IN, which is a sleepy little village about 22 miles south of Fort Wayne). Another notable fictional character from Fort Wayne, IN was Fawn Leibowitz, who was the girl killed in a car wreck in the movie Animal House. While I was still living there, there was an indy band that toured the area from Fort Wayne named Fawn Leibowitz. I suppose that had more drawing power (and was far more humorous) than a band named after George Taylor.
Rest in peace, Mr. Heston. You'll always be remembered for your incredible presence on the screen as well as the trivial fact of one of your character's home towns.
A couple of people I consider "friends" passed on recently, and I haven't been able to commit my thoughts about them to this vast, wonderful electronic media yet. I use the term friends loosely--too loose, perhaps--because I did not personally know either of them, but over the years I had gotten to know them through their written word. Their books and articles and general publications had been influential on me in a variety of ways, especially when it comes to my own writing. I am, of course, speaking of Michael Jackson and Robert Jordan.
Michael Jackson was an English writer and journalist. Above all, he was a lover of beer, and this brewaphilia is how I came to know him best. He wrote The World Guide to Beer in 1977 in which he developed several terms commonly used today, both for the brewing process as well as style types of beer itself. He went on to write several articles for papers and magazines, including having a recurring column in All About Beer magazine. In fact, his column (along with K. Florian Klemp's) was the only thing I truly enjoyed reading in AAB since they revamped their format, and with Mr. Jackson's passing, I cannot find any reason to renew my subscription. On top of beer reviews, he also wrote The Malt Whisky Companion and was a discerning critic of those select libations as well. He suffered from Parkinson's Disease, and on September 30th, at 9pm (EST, I believe), a toast will be held in Michael Jackson's honor at bars, pubs, and common houses around the world. Also that night will be a benefit to help raise awareness and funds for Parkinson's research.
Robert Jordan was the author of the insanely popular Wheel of Time series. This is a series I picked up as a junior in high school...and it was already three books old by then. I ravenously devoured the books, sometimes reading them more than once (I believe I read the first five books three times). In the waning days of the summer between my senior year and my freshman year in college, I read all the books that I had once more, as a kind of finale to my childhood and adolescent years. And because I (mistakenly) thought I wouldn't have enough time for pleasure reading in college. It was in college that I switched from buying the paperbacks and going all hard cover (which I now do for all my favorite authors), because I could not wait for the year it took for the hardcover to make it to paperback. Jordan suffered from primary amyloidosis with cardio amyloidosis. Unfortunately, the final book in The Wheel of Time is only half done. He apparently dictated how the story ends to several close confidants and an "army of authors" (missed that boat, I did) will work to finish the book. It's apparently a monster, and frankly needs to be in order to wrap up all of the story. His books, especially his earlier volumes, were tremendously influential on my own stylings (I did, for a while, have a character similar to Rand al'Thor before I decided to abandon the whole central Christ figure theme in my books), and I shall miss his works, though I have been harshly critical of the middle volumes for being hundreds of pages of fluff with no meat.
Rest in peace, gentlemen. May you both enjoy a hearty ale and a good tale at the Lord's Table.
Today would have been my sister's 26th birthday. Sadly, she died two weeks after her 14th birthday while I was away at college. It was, pretty much, the worst day of my life.
My sister was born with a tiny piece of her brain ossified. This essentially screwed everything up so bad that she suffered from seizures her entire life that were, to be quite honest, horrific and traumatic for everyone around her. To hear her wail when she had one was...well, words can't describe the empty feeling surrounded by helplessness surrounded by fear. As time went on, we grew to expect them and to cope, but it was never something that we were completely at ease with. Also, due to this congenital defect, she could never walk or talk, and years of inactivity on the couch or her bed caused her joins to atrophy. She basically had to wear diapers and be spoon fed soft foods for her entire life.
One amazing thing was that, despite her inability to talk, she developed ways of communicating with us. She would shake her head no or do a sweeping up motion with her head for yes, would hold her left hand to her mouth for food or drink, and could smile when she was happy or let you know that she wanted to do something, like have a story read to her or whatever. Her favorite toy was her glowworm, because the face lit up and because it was about the only toy she could get to play. It had a little music box sewn inside its nightshirt and would play "Rock a-bye, Baby" when she'd hit it with her elbow, and to make it "sing" caused her such great joy. Despite all that, even to this day, I wonder what sort of person she was trapped inside her body.
To say I miss her would be an understatement. For months after she died, I had dreams about her every night. Some were disturbingly intense, like how I had stolen her body from the funeral home and was looking for her soul to put back in it. Great fantasy storylines and such, but horrible if you're a grieving brother. I vowed after she died that I would think about her every day. That's slipped a little in the past twelve years, but whenever August 24th rolls around (or September 7th, the day she died), I always think of my little sister. I wish she was back, but I wouldn't wish her to be back in that condition. After all, I'm Catholic (in case you have forgotten), and so I believe she's in a better place, where she is free to roam and talk and do everything that her poor little tortured body wasn't able to do while in this world. If you want to take that and say that my religion is just there as a comfort, that's fine, go ahead. I'll think you're an asshole, but that's your choice.
One of my biggest issues with my sister's death, however, is that I was home from college for Labor Day at the beginning of my sophomore year. Normally, I would go and say good-bye to her, but this time I kind of walked out the door and gave her a wave and a "'Bye, Steph" rather than saying good-bye like I wasn't some kind of ass. Everything was fine, I drove back to St. Joe and then a few days later, my aunt and uncle show up to give me the bad news. You can probably tell why my guilt has eaten at me these twelve years.
One fortunate thing was that one of our close, personal family friends was the local mortician in town. He took care of everything, and the way he helped all of us cope was amazing. Sure, we had cards pour in from all over the area (including ones from two separate ex-girlfriends of mine, which, you know, was really cool), but it was Master Bruce's tenderness that helped soothe everyone over the first couple of days before we buried her.
However, if I ever doubted that St. Joe was the right place for me, it was made boldly apparent by the outpouring of well-wishers and kindness from the entire campus. A couple dozen of my friends drove across the state of Indiana to come to my house and to be there for me, and for that I'll be eternally grateful. We got flowers and everything from all over the campus, from the President's office, from the science department, professors, dorms...the list could probably go on. I think we still have all of the cards and stuff tucked away some where. Not that we want to be reminded of losing a member of our family, but the kindness expressed was just overwhelmingly wonderful.
Not only that, but I had a couple of high school friends who drove up from Indiana and from Purdue to come to her funeral. If it wasn't for the combination of my St. Joe friends and my high school friends, I don't know how I would have made it through the weekend.
All of these things are bubbling up now, so if my little story sounds a touch disjointed, forgive me. It's not so much a story about the sadness of my sister's affliction or for everyone's pity; more, it's a testament to the strength of friends and healing of the human spirit. So, thanks for letting me deal with a little personal pain. I'll get back to the normal stupidity around here tomorrow. For today, though, I'm going to keep things somber.
So, here's to you, my little sister. I truly hope that your soul is free of all harm and affliction, and that it may wander wherever and whenever it chooses. God bless you.
Stephanie Marie Jenks, b. August 24th, 1981, d. September 7th, 1995.
I've never made it anything but abundantly clear that I'm a Notre Dame football fan. I've often referenced the strange phenomenon that happens in northern Indiana every fall, when people turn their Notre Dame football sweatshirts inside out and they magically become Indiana basketball shirts. I'm guilty of this, as well. I attended Notre Dame for graduate school, but I was a lifelong Indiana fan. As such, I've followed both schools major sports pretty faithfully over the years, including the "off sports" for each institute, which would be Notre Dame's basketball and Indiana's football programs.
Well, today, Indiana's football program took a serious shot to the stomach.
Terry Hoeppner, the head football coach at Indiana, died of complications due to tumors in his brain this morning. He was 59.
Indiana used to have some pride in its football program, back in the Bill Mallory days. Then came a time when it seemed everything went to basketball. When IU hired Hoeppner away from Miami (OH), it seemed that they were ready to shake the dust off a program that had grown stagnant over the years. He was exactly the kind of man that IU needed as a head coach: charismatic, outgoing, exciting, and loved Indiana football. Indeed, this past season, IU was tantalizingly close to a bowl game, which would have been its first since the Eisenhower administration (actually...I think it was since 1993). Interest in Indiana football had suddenly become posh once more in the southern part of the state, and season ticket sales were on the rise, among alumni, students and the general public. Higher level recruits were actually answering the phone when IU called. Changes to the facilities and to the stadium were planned and underway. A lot of this was thanks to Hep's energy and charisma. IU might not have become an overnight powerhouse, but it was taking the necessary steps toward shuffling off the doormat moniker that has plagued it in recent years.
And now, IU nation has taken a shot to the gut. The recruits and players are all, understandably, dazed, as the people around the program are, too. I do suspect, especially with the naming of Bill Lynch (I believe that's his name) as the interim head coach this past weekend, that AD Rick Greenspan and others expected this to happen--perhaps not so soon, but they probably expected it to happen. Whether expected or not, it's a sad day for IU nation, and my heart goes out to them.
Here's hoping for a good season to remember Coach Hoeppner, who began to lay the foundation for improving the overall standing of the football program. My condolences to the Hoeppner family and to the team who grew to love their charismatic coach. You were a good one, Hep, and you'll be missed.
I promise, I'll pick up some more lighthearted posts, but while we were all in shock and dismay over the happenings at Va. Tech (I saw today that People and such rags are ca$hing in on the tragedy...well done) and my quick memorials over Johnny Hart and Kurt Vonnegut, I completely missed that Brant Parker also died, eight days after friend and partner Johnny Hart. Mr. Parker was 86. He died of complications due to Alzheimer's disease.
This would complete the old adage of "they die in threes" as these three men (Hart, Vonnegut and Parker) were all peripheral heroes of mine. I did not necessarily idolize their work, but I certainly did appreciate it, or them, as is the case with Vonnegut.
Much like B.C., a large amount of Wizard of Id's humor was based on puns. A lot of time there would be glib political humor worked in, as well. One thing that always amused me about the strip was the Wizard himself; as a chemist, you can probably imagine why I enjoy him most of all.
For the past ten years, Brant Parker's son, Jeff, has been drawing the strip (and doing an admirable job, I must add) and will continue to do so. This is good news as I can continue to enjoy this sort of old-school humor that these two strips embrace every morning when I should be doing something...like updating my notebook or some such.
Careful readers might be able to spot a tribute I had 'created' to both Hart and Parker, when and if King of Shadows is every published.
...I thought I'd write a little bit about a couple of legends and personal heroes that we've lost over the past few weeks: Kurt Vonnegut and Johnny Hart.
Vonnegut died April 11th at the age of 84. I've never taken the time to sit down and read an entire Vonnegut novel, but I'm familiar enough with his work that I've always admired it. One of the themes that constantly appeared in his works was what we now would call 'science fiction', but was largely looked at as being just a bit 'out there' at the time of publishing. In this way, I feel he was one of the pioneers of the genre; perhaps not a founding father like H.G. Wells or Jules Verne (and definitely not THE father, like Tolkien is considered for modern fantasy literature), but he was unquestionably before his time. Perhaps one of the most interesting concepts for a book that I've ever heard of was the plotline for Timequake, which was recommended to me many years ago and I still haven't picked up. However, once I'm finished with Tad Williams' newest offering (and writing my own...), I'm planning on finally following through on the recommendation.
Vonnegut was born and raised in Indianapolis, which is one of the reasons that I admire him. Despite the city and the state's clear difference with his political and religious beliefs, he always loved Indianapolis and Indiana. When asked, after living in New York for over 30 years, if he was a New Yorker or a Hoosier, he quickly responded "Hoosier" before the rest of the question was finished. I feel much the same way. I may have left the state, but the state has never left me. His pithy social commentary as well as his well-planned stories has made him an icon. But, my favorite memory of Vonnegut will always be his ability to make fun of himself in the movie "Back to School." I'm not a big Rodney Dangerfield fan (of course, no one was...zing!), but when Vonnegut showed up in the movie and then wrote a paper about himself (which subsequently got a failing grade), it showed that here was a man considered by many to be a social and cultural icon who could still come down out of the tower for a while and take a jab at himself, which I think is an applaudable, terribly human quality.
Johnny Hart died the night before Easter. Fittingly, he was sitting at his drawing board, working on another comic. He was 76. Hart was creator of two of my all time favorite daily comics: B.C. and Wizard of Id, the latter being a co-creation with friend Brant Parker. I've appreciated both of them over the years for their sociopolitical commentary as well as their bad puns. Anyone who knows me knows that I'm a sucker for a truly offal pun. The stinkier, the better. Ahem.
Hart might best be remembered for his strongly Christian cartoons that would run around the major Christian holidays of Christmas and Easter, especially in the Sunday papers. Often, it was amazing to see how well a story could be put together in a few colored frames. B.C. was often more overtly Christianed in theme. I'm not sure if he meant it to be that way, since the cast of B.C. should have been alive over a million years before Christ showed up, making it all the more ironically amusing. However, even now, I can't make it through the day properly without first checking out the latest installment of both B.C. and Wizard of Id. Fortunately, Hart had several strips already drawn and saved and his family has promised to help keep the strip going strong, even in the wake of his death, so I can go on for several more years drinking my morning coffee and smiling over today's punny comic.
Here's to Vonnegut and Hart: two men who will definitely be missed around here. *pours out a little beer for both*
So, while we're all still either in shock or coming out of shock, there's this little bit of sunshine from the University of Miami in Florida (Miami of Ohio could NEVER be this kind of class act).
If you're so worried that you need extra security to protect against the isolated event of one madman, then why don't you just have the football team travel with you. No need to pay the extra guards when you have your own built-in arsenal ready to travel at will. We know that they can roll off the bus wearing camo and pretending to be the army. They're warriors, after all. Just ask Florida International. They know how the Hurricanes of Miami can be scrappy when backed into a corner.
What a sick, lame, pathetic institution this is.
But, you know, they're taking steps to clean it up down there. I mean, the new coach of the football squad, Randy Shannon, has put down a rule saying no more guns for players. Groundbreaking, that. And, of course, there's Donna Shalala with her hardline attitude toward players who embarass the team: suspend them for the game against Duke. Duke! Powerhouse of ACC football. Nicely done.
This just sickens me. But then, look at the source. Of all the schools in the country, I would expect something like this to come from Miami. They're clearly not living in the same reality as the rest of us. Offer condolences, sure! Oh, by the way, we'll have our armed guards deliver the flowers. Un-effing-believably pathetic.
Rather than just gloss over it and try to ignore it, I thought I'd offer my little bit of condolences for the people of Virginia Tech. I have no real ties to the school, but living in the Raleigh-Durham area, I have some friends who went to Va Tech, my wife's cousin went to Va Tech, and I've visited the campus while visiting with some friends from nearby Radford University. When I was in undergrad, I interviewed an engineering student at Va Tech for a project in my computer science class, so I'm familiar with some of the people who make up Hokie Nation. Plus, as a college football fan, I have respect for Virginia Tech in that they are, consistently, a good program. Unfortunately, they're in a lousy league.
But, I digress. This isn't about football (as the school and head coach Frank Beamer have shown in recent days) and it isn't about fine academics or rich tradition: this is about a tightly-knit campus that has gone through unspeakable horror and tragedy. Both my undergrad (St. Joseph's College in Rensselaer, IN) and my graduate school (Notre Dame) were fairly tightly-knit campuses. Both have a strong sense of family attached to them. I couldn't imagine (and frankly, wouldn't want to) something like the massacre at Virginia Tech taking place at either institution. Truly, my heart, thoughts and prayers go out to the victims, the friends, the families and all of Hokie Nation.
Unfortunately, while we're all trying to wrap our minds around how and why such tragedies happen, there has been a lot of finger-pointing. Hindsight being what it is, we've already heard about how there could have been so much done to avoid the second shooting, where the true bloodbath took place. I, unfortunately, can't buy that the school should have been shut down, especially given that the first shooting appeared to be targeted and the result of a "domestic" dispute. Besides, if the guy was on campus anyway, he would have found more people to shoot, if that was his grand desire/scheme (as it appeared to be). I am hoping that the university president (Steeger, I think his name is) won't be forced out of office over this as it was not his fault. I heard this morning that President Steeger (and if I'm misspelling his name, I apologize) has basically spent his entire life at Virginia Tech, from student to faculty to dean to administrator. No one can love his institution more than he, and I'm certain that, despite his stoic handling of the media and the barrage of questions lobbed at him every minute, he is torn apart on the inside.
So, here's a call (albeit a modest one) for us all to unite with our thoughts and prayers, to allow the victims to heal, and for us not to forget this tragedy, but also to not wildly throw about accusations and point fingers. It is a sad day for our nation and a sadder day for Va Tech. Now, let us take the first steps toward recovery.
