Skip to main content

Flashback Friday


I have been thinking of college lately.  Might be because my favorite professor recently passed away.  Maybe some because it was an exciting time and mostly because I was back at IWC when I visited last month for the Wombie's retirement party.  He, Holly and I went out to get the ever-popular, absolutely #1 pizza in the world, Jerry's.  We also went to the old Student Union which I now think is called something a bit more magisterial.  Perhaps it is my daydreaming that propels me to somewhere other than where I am;  those college years were transformative and a Hell of a lot of fun.  I guess I shouldn't bitch too much about how my Happiness Quotient has fallen;  it only had one way to go.    




I came across this picture someone took of me strolling in the parking lot behind the Student Union.  Apparently I had parked the car and was coming over to someone.  I don't have any idea who took it or where I was headed, but I'm sure it was well worth it.  I can assure you that Pinto is not mine - I'd rather walk than be seen in that thing.  I have ended up in considerable beaters in my time, but I never once stooped to a Pinto or Vega.  Oh wait, I had an AMC Pacer once.  OK, the Pinto isn't so bad, in retrospect.  

Along with college I have been thinking of life lately, too.  Perhaps I had it too good.  Like Hubbel everything came pretty easy to me.  Studies, finding and keeping a job and just about everything else.  

Until now.  That kid up in the picture even walked with a confidence, a gait that takes command.  Hopefully I will reawaken that part of me and raise my HQ before I simply tire of the weight. 

While we were in Mt. Pleasant we went to the West Side to have a beer.  This was the old hangout.  In fact the Wombie used to get a little beer money by tending bar.  Doris, longtime owner, who has now since passed on to the great kegger in the sky, was about the most unfriendly person ever in the bar business.   I'm glad we helped make her rich. 




She'd need her smelling salts now however since the kids have found someplace else to go for their fun.  But back when we were at Mt. P. this was the place.  Scabby, seedy and perfect for a bunch of grotty college kids this place was home to a varied bunch of kooks, never-do-wells and academics.  Among the academics was the Dean of Hawaii University who used to sidle up to the bar and discuss the 747's landing in his backyard, presumably to ferry him from Hawaii to sit all day in the bar.  There was also the fellow dying of cancer who had to barf up each of his beers in the tough urinal in the back.  And then the fellow who had lost his upper lip somehow but was lucky in that he did;t have to open his mouth to brush his teeth.  Let us not forget the blind man who we used to give quarters to play the juke box.  Not so much cruel as challenging.  

The place is deserted on the afternoon we were there.  They still have the pool tables but the wobbly tables along the wall are gone, now replaced by newer, firmer tables attacked to the wall.  The bar looks the same but the trough urban has given way to individual units.  The floor is different, but overall remains a time machine; step in and it can, with little imagination transport you back to the 
70's.   


Another college pic and this was up in the fraternity house so it would have been my sophomore year.  By now I have chucked Poly Sci as my major and started to take more courses int he philosophy/theology/logic fields and that little come-to-Jesus ride out in the country with Phil is history.  I was about to put it in high gear academically, still hit the West Side with regularity,  and be cool and studly all at the same time.  Those last two are most likely my revisionist history, but hey, its my blog.   Yep, just too damn easy.  College kids, huh?  




    

Comments

  1. The white belt was clearly a sign of the times. We had a Pinto at one point. Let's be honest here Mike, both of us were poor enough at some points when our kids were young we were happy to have anything to drive. Pinto, Pacer, if it had wheels, an engine and would move we were willing to drive it.

    ReplyDelete

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Summer Swim

It's Monday and the start of another work week.  Except for me.  I have the week off because the parents of my daycare charges are taking the week off, too. This is one of those wordless posts I love on Mondays so I can put my laziness in full view of loyal readers.  These pics need no words.  Why muddy the waters?   They were taken at the pool at Sinkhole Estates aka Death Valley.  The nice thing about this pool is it is heated in winter.  If one must find positives in one's situation, I suppose that is one.  But, please, no more.   

Flashback Friday

Class, Or Lack Thereof The Dwight Vice gravestone in Oquawka, Illinois. I bring this old chestnut out every so often just to remind me that class is classless.  Dwight Vice was killed in his home near Oquawka in 2001.  It was one of those things that can generate crime:  two guys thought Dwight had a lot of money stashed at home because of his pot-selling sideline to supplement his fishing job.   Not really one of those big drug deals gone-bad things.  Marijuana was, according to the trial, about the only stuff Dwight sold.   But these two guys barge into the house and killed Dwight and attempted to kill his 11 year old kid, Darryl, before they took off with what money they could find.   His son, now 23, was stabbed in the back and left for dead.  He survived and is wheelchair bound and has undergone several surgeries to repair his wounds.  He will be paralyzed for life.   None of this is pleasant.  Reading the facts of the murder and attempted murder are most unpleasant