Updated and edited my vita, which was a job that was past due.
Rode 25 miles on my bike, enjoying the beautiful January afternoon. The afternoon was the best part about it. It’s going to take three or five good long rides to start getting my form back. My only complaint about riding is that just when I hit my stride events overcome me. Something will come up to preoccupy me for too long and all that hard work is undone.
Around finals I had a nice 45 mile ride and just started to get back into a good pace and comfort level. Then I got sick for a week and change, and then there were 10 days of holiday travels.
So this week has been a return to square one. (I’m not a very good cyclist.)
Visited the library this evening. Thought I’d do a little historical research. This is an issue of the 1914 Orange and Blue, Auburn’s student paper that preceded The Plainsman:
Note the championship-wining football team’s headline. The story included this argument for facemasks:
Babe Taylor, Auburn warrior, and by the way, Birmingham-bred, displayed a vast amount of gameness yesterday afternoon. In the early part of the first quarter someone, unthoughtedly of course, kicked in the upper section of Babe’s face, in the neighborhood of the left eye. Babe’s face wore an expression of agony and the blood trickled down his features in doublequick time, but he stood by the fort and played a grand game of football.
Sixty percent of the front page is devoted to football, which happened pretty regularly, even in 1914. Note, also, that the band played Touchdown Auburn, which was a tune that pre-dated Jim Fyffe’s famous call by many decades. There’s a note that students from Alabama telegraphed their congratulations on the championship — you have to wonder what their angle was.
There’s a poem on the right hand side, a dream of a beautiful young woman, and “An Ode to some Pickles.”
Upon a night long ago
Three fellows sat at ease
And tried to soothe their inner man
With pickles and with cheese.The cheese, by nature yellow,
Met quick and sure defeat;
But the unassuming pickles
Were very green and sweet.The eats were good and everything
Seemed lovely for a while —
Till a feaster’s flesh, turned wan and pale
In the middle of a smile.His face began to shudder,
A twitch and then a jerk;
We looked at him and realized
The pickles were at work!
A private, and not especially good, joke 97 years ago was published in a newspaper. And you’re reading it today. None of this would have been conceivable to the poet who wrote those lines.
Didn’t find what I was looking for — though I have a feeling I’m getting close — so I’ll have to go back. No problem there, the old microfilms are great fun.
