button it up

There's quite a bit I remember from eighth grade, when Omaha kids took the required US History class, and my teacher was Mr. Roslowski. We know about state capitals, but what that great American hero who followed in the syllabus after capitals: Johnny Tremain. I don't think we spend enough time to think about, or take days off, to celebrate his contribution to American history. His contribution to my life is that every, single time I hear about internships or apprenticeships I think Johnny Tremain.

L is heading up to Vermont next weekend for what I'm calling her "Johnny Tremain" moment. It all started on our last journey in early March when she first visited the legendary fabric mecca; she met the Eleven there as I was choosing which stunning Indian fabric to collect. X was determining the best options for a new lining (and buttons) for her winter dress coat. The fine proprietor/purveyor was in the midst of a lake of buttons attempting to make some artistic sense of the waves. L noted the expanses of button puddles - what is on display is sorted and held in glass/crystal finger bowls - and immediately decided that this was her type of place, never mind the masses of beautiful fabrics and bits of unassembled creation. That day appeared to be a small step in the sorting, managing, and display of some portion of thousands of artisan, collectible, and finally curated buttons. This would not end without some kind of contribution on L.'s part. And so it is that she'll spend two weeks finger-to-finger with buttons, overhearing talk of fabric and art, touching and learning vicariously about fabrics, all while imagining how and where it all happened. Her chance to have such a wonderful guide on this tour of art is something she'll never forget. I've assigned her daily writings about what she's learned, loved, or wondered. As that happens (I not-so-subtly created her a blog), we can hopefully follow along.

Time will tell.

shooting j's

Over the last few months I’ve been trying to chase down some logic books – logician books, the science, not logic puzzles. Of course, I don’t mind a good logic puzzle. My luck had been middling with a few smaller paperbacks that I enjoyed but the mother lode escaped me; my Moby Dick, if you will. The problem is that I believe the world to be littered with vast textbooks on the subject that are undoubtedly dry and miserable (don’t even start on your thought that all logic is already dry and miserable). What I wanted was a guide to walk me through the process all the while being exciting and readable. This logic problem folds in nicely with my previous post on history in that we aren’t actually taught these things in school…either back in the 70s and 80s, or now. I went to some high quality public schools and aside from about two weeks of proofs and theorems in Geometry – and I hated that block of instruction – none of the real theory is offered through primary or secondary school. They also never really explain that “begs the question” is a logical fallacy and not something spouted by talking heads to mean a completely different idea. Well, I’ve found my white whale and it’s a two volume primer written by Paul Teller. Teller, who I believe teaches (or taught) at UC-Davis, has converted his course material to books that were originally published by Pearson Education. At some point they ceased printing and returned all rights to Mr. Teller and he’s been awesome enough to allow us to access it for free. I’ve already printed the first volume and am slowly working my way, two steps forward-one step back, through the meat of it all. I’m sure L. can’t wait until a few years hence when I gracefully bequest hot her a copy of A Modern Logic Primer. If you’d like to add it to your wish list then you might just find a copy under the tree at Christmas; I can already see that smile on your face.

I’ve drafted up a short Omaha primer for WonderTwin 2’s impending jaunt to my homeland. Bearing in mind that the city has ‘changed’ and grown since my youth – and my three-year tour in the early, mid -90s, the fact of the matter is the Omaha never really changes. There will still be drivers heading east on I-80 who can’t figure out which lane will take them downtown and which will shoot them off to Council Bluffs (they only changed the layout about 20 years ago). You’ll still be able to find a steakhouse that’ll serve you a hunk of meat with a side of manicotti. And the basketball hoop in my old driveway is still there – it may survive any disaster ever laid upon the world. If you look real close, and squint just so, you can see the ghost of my youth working on my turnaround jump shots and free throws on a cool summer’s eve in 1978.

I’ll let you go.

rock n' roll youth

Back in my youth, my wild youth, I was the rhythm guitar player in the greatest air guitar band of all time: The Tubes. I know what you're asking yourself, "Aren't The Tubes a real band?" - yes, they were. They were a theatrical rock band of epic proportions led by the great (Omaha native) Fee Waybill. We (Todd, Skip, Jeff, and I - yes, two Todds) were enthralled with The Completion Backward Principle album and ended up translating our Quarters-playing, skirt-chasing, air-guitar rocking ideals into a band that, simply put, rocked. And rocked hard. We did air guitar festivals around the Omaha area, we did entire band sets with props and crew, we scored...plenty. After our first outing, we moved to full-on jumpsuits, punk-slit glasses, necklaces, and killer equipment. Back in 19-and-82 (or so...) you couldn't air guitar with actually equipment - you had to fabricate your gear and rock like a star simply based on your moves and your thrash. As you can see above, when thrashing was required, thrashing happened - that shot was me at the Howard St. Tavern (RIP) in Omaha in about 1983 or 1984 - rock n' roll can be fuzzy. This was no doubt during a rousing version of Talk to Ya Later...lordy, lordy, lordy.

What's brought this all on is a package of stuff that Melissa sent back from Omaha with L.: including, most importantly, three VHS tapes (how to play) of live performances from festivals, Skip's basement, and the environs of his foosball-equipped basement. I do believe that every piece of tape was from our pre-drinking days that were made up nothing by (original) Mt. Dew, foosball, ping-pong, and the original Atari game station.

I. am. old.

t

p.s. I believe on VHS tape includes the band in the guise of The Cars, The Romantics, my stunning turn as Rick Springfield, and a (should be censored) version of Steve Wonder and Paul McCartney doing Ebony and Ivory. Skip and I will NEVER be appointed to the bench with that video.

state your case

(map print graphic: chris yates)

G. is in the throes of learning the U.S. states in school. I remember writing reports on states when I was in fourth grade at Rockbrook elementary. My teacher, Ms. Reid (who also read us "Where the Red Fern Grows"), had each of us choose two states to research and report. I clearly remember choosing Delaware, our first state, but I’ll be damned if I can remember my second report. This was back in the days when you got some tracing paper, glue, colored pencils, and possibly a typewriter, in order to create the project (I also remember my mother taking mine to her work and spiral-binding it). A few trips to the library, or the encyclopedias if you had them, and you’d eventually have enough data to put together the standard 9- or 10-year-old’s highly plagiarized work. Seriously, who are we kidding? Aside from some pasting and coloring, every kid that age is just copying text verbatim from the source; we live with it because they’re kids and we aren’t looking for free thought or expression.

Where I grew up we didn’t hit the big state and state capital quiz/test until eighth grade: Valley View Junior High School and Mr. Roslowksi’s U.S. History class. What he used as learning tools were a screen, an overhead projector, and two light sabers. (Not actual light sabers but toy ones that whistled as you wiped them through the air – this was about a year after Star Wars came out.) Mr. R would simply project a blank map of America with state borders on the screen and have the first two kids head up, one on either side of the screen with light sabers at the ready. He’d call out either a state or a capital and the first knucklehead to point to, or whack at, the correct state would then spell both the state and the capital in order to claim victory. And don’t, for one moment, think you could get away with “l-i-n-c-o-l-n”. It had to be “capital L-i-n-c-o-l-n”; same rule for the states. Trebek had nothing on Mr. R. The winner stayed at the screen while the conquered returned to his or her seat. The next kid in the row then came up prepared for battle. We played this game for about 15 or 20 minutes every day for a few weeks while everyone studied at home and readied for the inevitable 100-question test that arrived two or three weeks into the school year.

I spent every weekend on I-80 between Omaha and Lincoln, from about fifth or sixth grade on, in transit with my dad. He’d come up to Omaha, pick me up on Friday afternoon, and we’d drive the 45-minutes back to Lincoln (repeat backwards on Sundays). I remember the first few miles out of Omaha were often filled with some news from NPR (as if I’d ever listen to that) or KEZO 92.3 back when it was easy listening. After about ten miles I’d no doubt begin to beg him to ask me stuff – trivial stuff – in order to pass the time. It was during these trips that I learned all manner of maths, history, and geography…including all the states and their capitals. (We also played a game where we’d try to guess, as close as possible, what mile marker number would be on the overpasses as we’d approach. I pretty quickly sorted out that there were 25 poles between each mile marker and the last three digits of the overpass would be some number that equated to the number of posts passed and some then some slop added on. If the overpass was between markers 415 and 416 – going eastbound – and we’d passed 13 poles, the overpass would be labeled something like 415053. Going westbound would require counting, multiplying, and then subtracting. Ah, the Eisenhower Interstate System. For those in Vermont, feel free to ignore this mile marker thing since there’s no functioning system up there.) Anyhow, by the time I got to eighth grade the states and capitals were second nature to me. I knew that unless I mucked up my spelling of Phoenix I’d easily get 100% with no studying required, but that wasn’t all there was to the story.

Our class, for some reason, wasn’t seated alphabetically; I think Mr. R just randomly drew names and put two random kids at each two-person desk/table. I ended up at the front-right corner of the class, table one, and so the first day of state / capital battle began with me and the poor kid next to me kicking off what I fondly remember as “Todd kicks everyone’s ass at states and capitals”, or something very close to that. I spent the entire first week at the screen and suspect I might have approached Lou Gehrig-like records; I’m sure the school maintained the stats until the day it closed, and the quarterly newspaper may have touted “Eighth-grader’s Streak Reaches 400”. Every record and every streak eventually ends. We all knew during those halcyon days exactly who would end my reign - we just didn’t know in which inning. Every run through the room meant I had to vanquish AO*. She sat somewhere in the middle of the room and as the warriors fell, one-by-one, the tension would grow as the class saw the looming showdown. Every pass through her got tougher and tougher and I probably won the first six or eight battles before the defeat. When the moment arrived we both knew what we had to do: keep track as best as we could what states and capitals had been called out over the last ten or twelve jousts and then sit on the curveball. In the moments it took for her to get to the screen we both knew what states we were sitting on. Maybe I was thinking Raleigh, Tennessee, and Columbus. Maybe she was on the western side of the map and working Olympia, Idaho, and Santa Fe – the speed at which we lashed out with the sabers meant there was no time for thinking: you had to bet ahead, sit on the pitch, and swing from the heels; hero or zero.

I don’t remember what state she beat me on that day. It was no doubt an honest go on both our parts, but she was the better person that day. There was no luck involved, I had no injuries, I was focused – simply beaten. We had a few more days of the game after that classic set-to but the mystery was over and the king was dead. The other kids were all getting quicker and the distance between haves and have-nots closed rapidly. As we moved further into autumn the game became more pure review than a game – AO and I probably split our final 6 or 8 contests with little fanfare. The final test came and went and if I remember correctly everyone scored at least 95% and we moved on to other historical topics. Those days only slowly faded away.

I was telling G. about learning the states and capitals this morning while he was studying the first 25 and eating his breakfast. (Not the whole story, just about learning them in the car.) He said something along the lines that knowing the states and capitals when you didn’t have to know them seemed like some sort of craziness to him. He couldn’t understand why I’d memorized them. I told him it was similar to he and his brother memorizing every Pokemon or Magic card – a hobby…something you enjoy. And, no doubt, some bonding with my father. I think he thought that was an okay explanation in the end: He didn’t even know the part about my standing on the summit for those grand weeks back in 1978. I told him that if he misspelled Nebraska on his test he’d be grounded.

One other tip that I’d like to pass along to any eighth graders who are reading: Lusitania. You may not know it now but it’ll come up.

Love to all

t

*I’m using initials because it was funny, and strange, to have someone find their name in the blog whilst searching the Internet a few years ago. We ended up having a pretty funny conversation about it via e-mail but I’ve decided to limit names – protecting the innocent and all that jazz. Truth be told, I sort of had a crush on AO..

the age of sport

(photo: New York Times)

I’ve become mildly obsessed with the challenge of Dara Torres and her fifth Olympic Games. Mind you, it’s a challenge to make a fifth Olympic team over the course of seven Summer Games – she retired a few times. At 41, she’s set American records, and won, both the 50 and 100 freestyle at the trials in Omaha – smacking down some more than twenty years her junior. I’ve got no clue just how hard it is to win any Olympic event but I’m pretty sure the dead sprints must be both the toughest to overcome, and the best option for an older swimmer. Maybe it’s like big punchers in boxing always maintaining the ability to hit real hard even if they can’t go 12 rounds anymore. Regardless, it’s an amazing run.

Speaking of endurance, Nadal and Federer went nearly five hours of court time before deciding the final 9-7 in the fifth. I was following the BBC text online all day before realizing that NBC was broadcasting the live video feed; I caught the last three games. What it made me think about, while reading the text online for over four hours, was just how great sportswriters of yore must have been; to relay the epic event while still providing the details that made you feel as if you were there even as you read the paper the next day. I quite enjoy it.

I turned to X tonight and said, “If I say MacArthur (as in Gen. Douglas…) what’s the first thing to comes to mind?” She says, “He smoked a corncob pipe.” Right. What I was looking for was some explanation of why I didn’t really equate his history (WWI, WWII, and Korea) with any particular time, event, or MacArthurian quip. Once again, I was not flexing my history ability – yet, I read a lot of historical stuff. I told her that what I was looking for was more along the lines of: he fought on both World Wars, escaped (?) to Australia in WWII before “returning” and flexing his military mind, he led the forces in Korea at 70 years-old, and was relieved by Truman because we were at a point of transitioning between the civilian on an military complex. She said she thought it was more of a free association exercise. I told her the corncob pipe comment was pretty free.

Cubs won two of three in St. Louis this weekend.

T

stars baby, stars

I was running to and fro the market this afternoon and tuned The Ring’s radio to an oldies station I’ve taken to of late. By oldies I mean the Journey, Whitney Houston, Billy Joel oldies, not the Frankie Valli and Fats Domino that served as oldies in my youngies. The voice I hear at the first song break is that of the one and only Kasey Kasem – doing the countdown on a rainy Sunday. It used to be a three or four-hour process of Kasey rocking through the Top 40 those long ago Sunday nights on AM radio in Omaha. He gave you flashbacks, nuggets of trivia, and the ever-popular long-distance dedication. What he does now is something called the AT10, which must stand for American Top 10 (genius, I know) that appears to take about two hours based on how quickly he was actually spinning the ‘hits’. What I heard were two songs back-to-back as flashbacks to previous AT10 charts: Whitney Houston doing Greatest Love of All, and Extreme rocking More Than Words from 1991. Wow! Kasey added in the little nugget that Gary Cherone was, for a short time, the lead singer of Van Halen after Sammy Hagar’s departure. That’s not trivia, that’s merely propping up ol’ Kasey with something to say. Eventually I heard Alicia Keys singing her newest hit that must blasting at all the local roller rinks. The Top 40 was an amazing thing back in the 70s when singles were actually sold for $.99 a pop at Westroads Mall. I’d take them home and organize them in a little hard case with handle that held about 60 or 70 discs. I kept them in order (as one would expect), I learned the b-sides, and I stacked them on that .45 tirejack device that spit down a new pop hit ever three minutes. Man, you could stack about a dozen on the portable turntable. Those were the days. I used to tape the Kasey’s Top 40 onto a quality Radio Shack cassette by a microphone laid up against the speaker on the nearest radio; I remember spending eight or nine hours every New Year’s Eve writing down every song that made the year-end Top 100. Kasey still has the pipes and could probably make me tear up if he played David Soul (aka Hutch) singing some dedication to a love lost across all the miles. “Keep your feet on the ground and keep reaching for the stars.” You know it baby.



The President’s daughter had a lovely wedding dress. Don’t say I’m partisan, I can reach across the aisle.

Hey to people.

T

moving across the plains

The new digs are just fine; full of boxes and miscellany but great nonetheless. The Eleven was pondering the amount of stuff we’ve moved and I’m shocked that it all fit in the old small two bedroom place. As X pointed out, it was packed like a ship at sea with everything strapped to the walls and locked into place in case we encountered heavy chop; we used to strap the boys in at the table. I think, using her term to describe my shock, the apartment was like a tube of toothpaste: we got everything out but there’s no way we could ever get all of it back inside. Ever. Speaking of the olden two-bedroom place: three years and four people mean a whole lot of scrubbing and elbow grease to get in order to finish out the deposit dance. X spent two-and-a-half hours last night just removing all the shelves, bolts, hooks, curtain rods, and trapezes she’d installed over the years. But, we’ve woken up the last two mornings looking lovingly at the jungle that canopies over the new back garden.

I had an entry about two years ago that flippantly threw out the name of a girl I’d attended elementary school with for three or four years in Omaha. Her name back then was pretty distinctive so it wouldn’t be much of surprise if she googled herself while sitting around the house one evening. I didn’t even think of that when I was typing away; seems so obvious now, don’t ever say I’m not on top of things. Anway, she found the entry and sent me a very funny e-mail proclaiming her fifth-grade love for another boy; we all knew about that back in ’75 but it was curious just how quickly it came up – we remember so much about when we were that age and trundling through our little kid lives. I reminds me of just how strong emotions are when you’re young and how much of an imprint childhood events hold even decades later. I try to remember this when I’m fighting laughter as one of the girls tells me about the distress of the days, not real distress, but elementary school distress. In fact, G. has a ‘girlfriend’ in his fourth-grade class who’s completely entranced by everything he does and is certain she’ll someday marry him. He pretends to hold her in disgust but he’s really in love with her: I’m certain that come 2041 he’ll remember everything about her.

I don’t know if I mentioned that the driveway at the new place is set at about a 45-degree climb, seriously. Once you hit the “up” bit you’ll be staring at sky and clouds, trusting the engine and grip, and hoping you’ve lined up The Ring (the new golden car) before you kicked down hard and activate the thrusters. Trust that you’ll eventually come level and feel the G-suit release as you land your craft on the terra firma of the flatlands.

I’ve sort our new mass transit options for Falls Church. I know, I know…

t.

a fond farewell

Last Thursday was the final day of State Senator Ernie Chambers' 38-year career in the Nebraska Unicameral. I remember way back in my youth when Chambers was only ten years into his career in Lincoln and already so far along in his political upheaval-driven career. Pay Nebraska football players? Standing his ground and extolling his views on the floor of the legislature, often times as a lonely voice standing up for his vision of equality, was something to see. There've been many times over the years that I've wholly disagreed with his opinions but that hasn't been the case any more than with any other politico. In fact, over time I've come to realize that it's exceeding rare - possibly extinct - to find a politician as dead honest as Chambers. His story, if and when it's fully realized and published (if it's not already), will reflect one of the most interesting lifetimes most will ever read. He's served his community in Omaha, he's rankled and cajoled, he's seemed a bit crazy at times, but he's certainly been a breath of fresh air for nearly as long as I've been alive.

To a grand career.

i wasn't aware there would be a test

I was driving to Trader Joe's this afternoon and stopped at a light behind a car sporting a bumper sticker that read: 1% of the people have 40% of the wealth. What's your share?" Right. If every person equals one share (I'm making this easy) then all those really rich folk have 40 times more than they should. If the other 99 of us are sharing the dregs remaining, 60%, then I'm only getting $.60 on the dollar...if I were actually contributing an equal amount as that evil 1%. If each unit worked (and hour, a week, a month) is worth some portion of money, and my value is $.60, then I think I'm alright. My actual level of work is more like $.50 so I'm about 20% up on the deal. Not bad. I think that attempts toward socialist and liberal ideals shouldn't necessarily be based directly on some ratio of wealth. Is the system off-balance?, sure. Do I need to spend an hour wondering about formulas and equations? Not buying. Unfortunately, it's the constant path of 'protest' that doesn't hold any real effect.

Speaking of story problems, I've got this one:

How much longer will I stand in line at Trader Joe's because the customers in front of me think that bagging groceries is a spectator sport?

I'd like a full-length wall mirror just behind the register so Doug and Tilly can see how moronic they look while they clutch the debit card and watch the cashier bag six bags of groceries for them. Maybe they are thinking about that memorable time when Dixie at the Safeway managed to bag two carts of groceries in fifteen minutes. There was a day when SuperTodd worked the bags as a courtesy clerk at Albertson's (Omaha, circa 1984). My legendary ability to bag wasn't enough to convince grocery stores to maintain a cadre of highly trained, frozen food aware, heavy contents on the bottom of the bag, customer service gods. I'm guessing it was about 1990 when bagging ceased being a seperate skill set in the grocery...if you are older than 15 you should know all about this latest development. I should not watch you wide-eyed, with bags on the counter in front of you, imagining just how daring the ride will be when the bagging starts. Pick up a bag, put stuff in...it's not hard. Not only will you not look doltish, I might not be standing in line imagining ways to punish you. Oops.

Hey, it's Sunday.

T

wine and roses and shamrocks

On Saturday X and I (I call us the eleven) are heading up into Maryland for a visit with Sue and one St. Patrick. The boys will be off on a visit and you know the first thing two 30-somethings (shhh…) would plan on doing; that’s right, flee across the state line and drink green beer, sleep on someone’s floor, and eventually wend our way back to Virginia. I believe there will be an Irish band and a bar involved.

The last time I planned to drive to another state, sleep in someone else’s house, and a see a band on a calendar holiday, was New Year’s Eve 1983 / 1984. It may well have been events like this that contributed to ending my attempt at college in 1985.

The cast of characters: two of my best friends from high school, Skip (aka CitiesSkip) and Jeff; Jeff’s friend Ben (who was at Cornell College with him), and me.

The trip: Omaha to Bloomington, Illinois.

The rig(s): At first it was a sweet Dodge Omni* that only managed to get us about 45 miles to Avoca, Iowa. At that point we called Skip’s mom (on a pay phone!) and she ferried the family’s Ford LTD station wagon to us at the crappy truck stop in Avoca, gave us the one working vehicle, and STAYED in Avoca until the Omni was either fixed and back on the road or she had it towed back to Omaha. She was a gem.

It was only Skip, Jeff, and I for the first 300-mile leg of the journey across Iowa on I-80 – we were scheduled to pick up Ben in the Quad Cities (Moline, Davenport, Rock Island, and East Moline…if you must know the quads). We set out on such a mission on long December 31st because we were trailing a once great 1980s ska bank, The Uptown Rulers, of whom Skip still has a nearly 25 year-old two tape, live recording that he’s burned to CD. They hailed from the Bloomington-Normal area and were gigging that night in their hometown for the New Year’s Eve bash. We must have seen them dozens of times between 1983 an 1985 when they toured the Big Ten college circuit and stopped in Iowa City five or six times a year.

As was expected during our lives of 1983 the car was stocked with the accoutrements of our days: a cooler full of Mt. Dew, No-Doz, the beat-up stuffed Odie that served as our mascot, tons of Wonder Bread and bologna and cheese, all the Maxell UD-XLII cassette tapes filled with the great bands** of the day, and just enough money to get us there and back…hopefully.

We managed to find Ben in the Quad Cities that afternoon and headed onto Bloomington for the show. Our planning was such that we believed we’d surely come across some other Rulers fans who’d put us up on their floor for the night, and if not, surely four college guys could find somewhere to sleep in a college town. That didn’t happen…and we tried. After the show we decided to drive the 200 miles back to Iowa City where Skip and I had our dorm room at the U. This decision represents that listener eye-rolling moment that happens all too often when we relive questionable, long ago decisions. Don’t fret, nothing really bad happened.

We got in the car in the dark of night, fairly heavy snow had started to fall, but it didn’t look too threatening. Of course, we didn’t put our heads together and think out the whole west to east travel of weather before we started driving west into the storm. We were no more than 20 miles out of Bloomington when we realized our error: this was a big ol’ blizzard and the only way to make it anywhere on the interstate was to get behind the only semi on the road and stay in its wheels tracks. The interstate was basically a whiteout and the snow was blasting down. There were a sum total of two vehicles on the road tha long and lonely two: the LTD wagon and the J.B. Hunt semi. Turning back didn’t seem an option so we simply chugged Dew and popped No Doz. It took five or six hours to just make it back to the Quad Cities where Jeff and Ben were dumped since they were heading back to school from there. The state line had proven the end of the snowstorm; the roads were clear, the sky was sunny (it was already morning), and Skip and I decided to push on the last 60 miles to Iowa City. Skip drove while I rode shotgun trying to keep both of us awake over that final hurdle. We had the windows cracked to allow winter's blast to keep us awake, we had the music turned up loud (no doubt The Tubes taking us home), and everything seemed fine. About 30 miles into this final leg Skip started talking – but not to me...and he certainly wasn’t singing along to Sushi Girl. As one would, I said “Dude. Who are you talking to?”, to which he replies “Jeff.” At this point the 24 hours of no sleep, the Dew, and No Doz had clearly screwed up his neurons. I reminded him that we dropped Jeff off 40 miles ago and his reply was “No. I can see him in the mirror. He's sitting in the back seat.” This is the point where everyone gets to think I’m really smart for having him pull over, giving me the keys, and putting him to sleep in the back of the wagon. He saw him in the mirror? Yikes. This was the very point in our young lives when we swore off the 'Doz.

I got us Iowa City and our dorm where we fell head long into our bunk beds and slept for about 12 hours. We eventually pulled ourselves out of bed for some sandwiches at the Hamburg Inn and a very gentle evening on the Iowa City town before heading back to Omaha the next day.

Why anyone needs to hear this story is beyond me. I was just wondering how it will go this weekend.

I think Sue’ll let us stay, she's like that.

T.


*The very same Dodge Omni that took Skip and I on our first road trip to Iowa City in the fall of 1981 (that was a ‘dear diary’ trip). The same Omni whose front axle was snapped when I slid into a curb on an icy street in Milford, Iowa (Christmas break 1982?) when we were on our way to ‘visit’ Thelma and her friends. As an aside, we (Skip, Jeff, the other Todd, and I) ended up spending the night on the living room floor with MTV playing endlessly until morning. I still get wierded out when I hear that “duh duh-duh duh duh duh-duh” that coming back from a commercial jingle that MTV used to play between actual videos – the astronaut holding the MTV flag on the moon. If you were a teen back then you know EXACTLY what I mean.

**The Tubes, The Cars, REO Speedwagon, maybe some Police, Wang Chung, Culture Club, Thompson Twins, Rick Springfield…you know what I’m talking about.