Personal Reminiscences of Father Seraphim Rose

Personal Reminiscences of Father Seraphim Rose

Christmas Letter To Home 2011

Hole 3, The Big Par 5

Good evening Ladies and Gentlemen, I’m Bob Dobalina. We are proud to announce a new, major sponsor to our Wonderful World of Golf Family, the Sandoz Pharmaceutical Company. Now, with their help, instead of having to rely on the player’s telling us what thought processes, strategies, emotional interplay (with regards to performance as influenced by their physical prowess, psychological brio, and/or intellectual zest), we will actually be able to “ride along” with the player, from deep inside his mind.
Each player, prior to his round of golf, will ingest a small pill which will allow everything that He experiences to be transmitted (in real time) to the Sandoz Telecommunications Nerve Center, where it will be filtered for appropriate content and then broadcast on our fabulous 16,000 square meter Mega-Tron monitor.
Now, let’s send it over to Tom Stanklewitz for more about this fascinating new twist on the world’s greatest sport, golf. Tom? Thank you Bob! Yes indeed folks, well I am out here on the course, at the magnificent tee area for hole number 3, the big par 5, where I see the young Jimbeau Eseely preparing to tee-off. Let’s now go live, inside his head, for our first glimpse into this latest interpretive system from The Sandoz Family of Pharmaceuticals. Without further adieu, we now send you directly into Jimbeau’s head… mind… brain? I don’t know, this is all so new for all of us!
Over the massive P.A. system, electronic static crackles and hums and on the Mega-Tron, faint images begin to appear. The impression of a golf ball tee’d high up off the immaculately prepared tee surface comes into focus. We see the ball from above, looking straight down upon it, my God; we are experiencing it directly through Jimbeau’s very eyes! Suddenly, without warning, a voice is heard upon the P.A. system. A familiar voice, not that of one of golf’s most beloved players, not that of young Jimbeau, but that of the sinister Vincent Price, long dead but robust and rife with words of some as yet discernable agenda. It begins to gather momentum, building into a mighty soliloquy. “…on the trumpets of ambush they shall write, The Mysteries of God for the Destruction of Wickedness; on the trumpets of pursuit they shall write, God’s Smiting All the Sons of Darkness—His Anger Will Not Turn Back until They are Destroyed.”
Meanwhile, back at the tee, much to the horror of the crowd, when the cameras pan over to Tee Box 3, we see Jimbeau locked into a sort of trance, perfectly mouthing the words of the megalomaniac Vincent Price. Jimbeau stares off upon some unseen distant vision. He has raised the metal head of his driver to his mouth and is screaming into it as though it was a microphone--
Tom? Tom, this is Bob up in the booth! Can you tell us what is happening down there?
Now, from the tee, we see images on the Mega-Tron of Jimbeau rolling around on the ground, clutching his golf club as if the shaft of the driver was the neck of some kind of attacking animal, the head of the club hitting Jimbeau in the neck and throat repeatedly.
Alrighty then, let’s now go live to the phones where we have one of the Sandoz Labs psycho-biologists standing by to try to help us all understand what is going on here. Doctor Werneroff? Are you there Doctor?
Ya ya, I can hear you.
Doctor, what exactly is going on here? Is Jimbeau in any danger? Who is in control here? Is that voice really Vincent Price? I thought he died!
Vell Bob, vee haff several tearies as to da nature of deez seetuation, rangink from computor hawkers to some zort of previously undeezcovered universal subconscious mind control, to zee elaborate Hollyvood propaganda champagne uzzink old Veencint Prize zound bytes ya.
Suddenly, over the P.A. system, a voice rings out aggressively, I AM NOT FRIGGIN’ VINCENT PRICE YOU IMBECILES! I AM NOMAR! SPIRIT OF ACIENT EGYPT! I am here to take possession of my cat’s mummified remains, which the man you call Jimbeau bought while on tour to Saudi Arabia last Fall! Meanwhile, back at the tee, young Jimbeau snaps abruptly to his feet. This time he has a 7 iron in his right hand and some sort of little five-woody looking affair in his left. He begins alternately holding one or both out at arms length. Apparently he is trying to send a message semaphore-style to some distant, unseen ship.
Luckily, I happen to know the semaphore alphabet, so I can tell you what he is saying. But first, who exactly am “I” you may ask. I am Jay Fawkes, son of the infamous Guy Fawkes. I was born a Queer* White Boy* of Irish* Catholic* descent.
*It is critical to note here that in the twenty first century in American society, the use of these sorts of terms must be restricted exclusively to those who might fit the category, i.e. I, the author, a white male, possibly of Irish descent, definitely white, probably not queer but often mistaken as such, I am an aspiring Catholic; so all of these terms, when used by me, to describe me, are all perfectly acceptable. HOWEVER, it is vital that one never uses terms that have nothing to do with his race, color, creed or sexual orientation even in reference to oneself. I am someone, a bit like Jay Fawkes I suppose, but where were we, oh yes, now, let’s send it back to Jay Fawkes, to learn more about the fascinating world of communicating through means of the semaphore language. Jay?!
Thank you Vincent, I mean Jimbeau, I mean, who the hell was that? You know folks; really, it’s this sort of insensitivity, bred through generations of depravity that just frosts my cake. I mean really, where is the love, the compassion, and the gratitude? So here he goes again, trying to pawn off another hackneyed, Vonnegut-esque, Gonzo-style (or so he imagines) Christmas story. Is he really going to try, yet again, to just fill up page after page with insensitive, impertinent scribblings that might, if we are lucky, assay out to one, perhaps two semi-clever, possibly plagiarized sentences? Again I ask, where is the heartfelt, vulnerability that typically characterizes an annual, Letter-to-home sort of correspondence? Yes folks that’s right! I am calling out the man at the keyboard for a sort of character reference, background check, track-record evaluation, to determine if indeed anyone really is there in the first place.
O.K. so he was born in the summer of 1956, we’ll give him 5 years to become semi-human. 1961, he enters public school where he begins learning the tricks of the trade to just floating along, barely doing anything but eating and watching Captain Kangaroo.
1971, he smokes pot for the first time and discovers a world of unimagined magic that dovetails perfectly with the kind of lackadaisical existence he already knows so well, but this time with the added benefit of food tasting better than it ever has before. 1981, he has smoked himself into a hole of fear and paranoia; alcohol becomes his bulletproof vest. He fancies himself to be a kind of Alan Alda as Hawkeye Pierce from MASH, sort of character. His motto becomes, If You Had the Kind Of Insight into Humanity That I Have, You’d Drink Too! 1991, alcohol has taken him from celebration to desperation. Coffee becomes his new drug-of-choice. And so it was, with that cup o’ Joe the size of a barrel o’ pickles, he began down a road of…
Warning! Warning! We have an oil light! I need you to pull this rig safely over to the shoulder of the road and shut down that engine, NOW! Let’s get a look at what’s going on here. Right then, I can have that engine out of the vehicle and on the bench in less than an hour if needed, but I’ll be damned if I haven’t neglected to bring even a pint of oil. What was I thinking? Let’s send it up to Central Control while we wait for further instructions.
Mysteriously, our story now resumes several trillion years later, after one complete Universal Cycle. We now rejoin Dr. Jeff Cieleague mid-sentence in a large lecture hall. …actually, I don’t know, but I presume that somehow, they’ve manager to put a time signature in the electricity grid so that when you plug a device in the wall, there you go, perfect clocks everywhere! That’s a very good question! Well yes, of course I understand the implications; it’s just that I… Oh. Hello! And welcome to our Christmas Letter for the year of our Governor 2011. Well here I am, home for the holidays, 6 years after the ”Event” and for those of you who still don’t know what I’m referring to, well, just sit right back and you’ll hear a tale, a tale of a fateful trip, that started from my old back porch, upon this tiny so-on-and-so-forth… My intention this year is to finally lay to rest all the rumors, half-truths and outright lies about the semi-miraculous circumstances that all came together in a “perfect storm” if you will, to produce what I call the…
Suddenly, a voice rings out like that of a disembodied spirit on a non-existent P.A. system, a voice from my childhood… Wait a minute… are you getting this?!
Hey Kid! Why don’t ya’s make with the disappearing act and drop this whole “Event” gobbledygook? I’VE GOT IT! That voice! So theatrical, so vaudevillian, so slapstick… so, JEWISH!? By gaw ladies and gentleman, won’t you all give a warm welcome to Mr. Groucho Marx!
Vut are ya, some kinda vise guy? I am certainly not Groucho Marx, but thanks for the compliment! I am Ono Marx; I haunt the graveyards out to the west of your fair city. I am here to tell you to immediately drop this whole “Event” thing. What did you expect to happen when you went out into the wilderness, alone, fasting, praying for a vision? Chopped Livah from heaven maybe?
No! Wait! It was more! I am special! Stop! Listen! I was the chief bean-counter and bottle-washer of one of this country’s Biggest Barbequed/Baked Bean producers. Oh, we had it all! We had a company that employed some of the greatest folks you could ever meet. My own Great-Grandmother, bless her heart, was the founding matriarch of that fabulous company. She and her seven sisters, all of that lovely McCarthy lineage, all orphaned by a war that was to end all wars, all immigrants to a strange new land, not to that of some east coast anchorage, but around “The Horn” and into that lovely west coast bay to finish out their collective fledgling-ships in a convent in the Mendocino area of this fine state of Californey! All of them stayed close to their Irish Catholic roots for the rest of their lives. The last of the sisters passed away in 1969 when I was but a lad of 13 years age. I never really understood women all that much, although I did marry. Eventually, I realized that somehow, I had really hit the Bonanza Jackpot with my dearly beloved especially considering that it was virtually an arranged marriage, replete with dowry paid to my father, the famous Sci-Fi writer, that entertainer to countless teenage nerds throughout the High-Tech world, Dr. E. Leese Eli. But I digress.
Anyway! In 1972, I adopted a kitten. I named him Twigs. That cat went everywhere with me, including my years at college dormitories, my trips by car (1974 Datsun B210) to the Southwest for springtime peyote ceremonies and even to a small town jail in Nevada for a vagrancy charge that was cleared up by my Grandpa and Western Union. Twigs was a wonderful cat of whom many people to this day still inquire about and who’s grave-site has become a sort of right of passage/destination for homeless teenagers searching for some kind of meaning for their lives. Why ME? Why Me? they always ask. Why not you, I reply. Twigs finally bought the proverbial farm in 1996 at the ripe old age of 24 as the result of a fight he got into with a skunk while we lived over on South Street. My son, Donald B. Seely, 1974-2001 (probably gay but never fully “out-ed”) had Twigs stuffed and mounted by a taxidermist who disclosed to me later that Twigs was actually mummified, but that, as the guy told me, was strictly between he and I. It is ironic that my son would also end up mummified, as the result of a climbing accident in Nepal while on holiday with his long time roommate Raul. My son’s body is still up there, high upon an 8,000-meter peak known as Annapurna and he will probably remain there until the proverbial sacred cows come home, aka FOREVER. But again I’ve gone adrift into some trivial, jumble-jungle of nonessential info, straying away from the real story we are trying to convey here, namely, that of the semi-miraculous event, I like to call “The Event” and the circumstances that lead up to it and of course, the repercussions from it that I’m/We’re still dealing with today.
Finally after the better part of a decade, after countless tears shed by my friends and loved ones, after lock-ups, evaluations, misdiagnosis, disappearances, emergence's, and divergences, I am back and ready to tell all! But wait! What’s that? What’s that? The lecture hall is empty? Everyone has left the building? There, far across the room, a piece of paper, pinned to a blue door, there is writing on it. I start to walk toward it, to read what is written upon it, but in the dimly lit hall my progress is slow. I know that if I am not careful I risk falling or smashing through the floor, which has become oddly uneven. I reach down with my hand to try to determine what I am walking upon. It’s muddy clay; a fine dusting of snow has fallen. I trudge on, determined to read the note, which seems to grow further away with each step I take. At times I think I can almost make out the writing. It seems to be written in Japanese calligraphy, but then I think it may be written in ancient Sumerian Cuneiform. Out of nowhere, I see a man behind a previously unnoticed counter, selling ice cream. He yells at me, hoping to entice me to sample is wares, but now, it is so cold that the thought of ice cream seems ludicrous. No, what I need is information and strong hot tea. He yells at me, Well I can tell you this! You’re late! There must be at least 10,000 people ahead of you, all trying to catch a glimpse of that silly note pinned to that blue door. Funny thing is though, when they do get close enough to read it, then they realize they simply must see what’s behind the door. Let me save you a lot of time and struggle my son by telling you a little secret, behind that door, is another door and behind it, another door, and behind it, well, the last I heard, someone is in there 64,000 doors deep and still going! Wait a minute! How big is this place? Well the latest estimates put it at something like two hundred and ten thousand light years across. O.K. I said, but what does the note say. Oh that’s the real kicker Son, it says, For Madmen Only—Price Of Admission—Your Mind. I mulled it over for a moment and then said, I reckon I’ll have one o’ them Ice Cream Sandwiches. Say, aren’t you George Burns?

Season's Greetings From J Fox

Don't you Remember,
The Fifth of November,
'Twas Gunpowder Treason Day,
I let off my gun,
And made'em all run.
And Stole all their Bonfire away. (1742)

The fifth of November, since I can remember,
Was Guy Faux, Poke him in the eye,
Shove him up the chimney-pot, and there let him die.
A stick and a stake, for King George's sake,
If you don't give me one, I'll take two,
The better for me, and the worse for you,
Ricket-a-racket your hedges shall go. (1903)

Annual letter to be posted soon, please stay toon'd!

Excerpt From Upcoming Christmas Letter

The sun is actually double-faced; one face, of fire, is directed toward the earth, and one of hail, toward heaven, to cool off the prodigious heat that streams from the other face, else the earth would catch afire. In winter the sun turns his fiery face upward, and thus the cold is produced. When the sun descends in the west in the evening, he dips down into the ocean and takes a bath, his fire is extinguished, and therefore he dispenses neither light nor warmth during the night. But as soon as he reaches the east in the morning, he laves himself in a stream of flame, which imparts warmth and light to him, and these he sheds over the earth. In the same way the moon and the stars take a bath in a stream of hail before they enter upon their service for the night.

 

Building the Perfect Snowman

Inspired by the writings of Hunter S. Thompson

Prologue
As a matter of fact, someone is home, he simply chooses not to open the hidden
chamber doors of his heart cave for the masses to stand and stare into, proclaiming their certainty of the inevitable failure and foolishness, that journeys down roads less traveled always seem to illicit.
Hole One -- Par 4
Then (as you may recall) he was 54 years old. He stood at the threshold of yet another beginning of his life, but the magic caravan had sunk deep into a quagmire. All the goods were still on board but, if they could not be delivered on time, well, the elements and the thieves were only a day or two behind him. Smoke from his fires worked a twofold function, one of sustaining his hearth, the other belied his whereabouts. For you see, normally, by the time the smoke from his campfire became visible by the light of dawn, he was well away from his evening harbor.
Being thus stuck in the mud, he began devising ways to free the van from it’s earthly stronghold so that it might once again roll on upon it’s loftier mission, that of providing not only for the base requirements of body, but the continued development of matters of the heart and soul. Matters he knew he could not keep merely simmering on the back burner of some mortal stove indefinitely. One cannot help but feel a bit lowly when, as the result one of life’s corkscrewed twists of fate or,when one is inconvenienced by some nuisance that starts steering one off course, matters of true importance, start to slip. Slowly, a hand-to-mouth sort of mentality starts to prevail as it were. Tee shot, a wicked slice into an unplayable lie.
Being thus stuck in the mud, he found far too much time for introspection. Matters of quality of operations, at a personal level, regularly surfaced from a bottomless lake of of unconsciousness. The re-living of situations he felt he might have handled in a higher quality manner begin to drag him down, at times so low he wondered if the effort to resurface again was even worth the effort. Drop ball, penalty stroke, hitting three.
We all tend to operate under unwritten laws of human nature. Behavior outside of these loosely defined parameters, is tantamount to pulling rugs out from under people’s feet. Rugs that they tend to think of as bedrock. “They found your manuscript you crazy son of a bitch! Now all the cops in the North-state will be lookin’ fer ye!” Here it is in a nutshell folks! When a boy goes into the desert with a head full o’ magic, you can expect some of the pieces of the boy to be lost and some to be found. This does not, however, necessarily always result in a better boy. Third shot, bounces and hops down the fairway straight for the green, then plows into a steep walled sand trap. Buried! We may be here for awhile folks.
He had hoped to be in Zion National Park by now, but there he sat, stuck in the mud of a river bank that for all intents and purposes, may as well have been the Euphrates of Babylon. At night he dreamed of enormous hammers acrimoniously pounding on solid iron blocks the size of boxcars. Steel wheels sliced down an endless rail, lined with the faces of his ancestors stretching back to the cave painters of Altamira, their voices echoing down the corridors of all human existence. In the morning he awoke to an overcast dawn that fired red and orange across an eastern backdrop of mountains, still black with night. Water is started to boil, a stick is poked under the wire handle to lift the small pail from the fire. Fourth shot, he knows that the way the ball is laying, buried in the face of a bunker, he is going to have to really hit the sand hard, well behind the ball, to hopefully fluff it up and out.
Unfortunately, although the ball did pop up into the air, it had no forward momentum and his follow through resulted in a second ball strike. It sounded like this. First the muted THUMP of the club hitting the sand, then a distinctive little Click that, while it did get the ball moving forward and on to the green, is scored as Two strokes. His ball was 20 feet from the hole, laying Five.

King Of The World

Chess is sometimes referred to as the game of kings, but has an amazingly wide and enduring appeal, it cuts across so much that can divide us: age, class, nationality, race. It's a logical game often played in an abstract, notated form, and yet the fact that the pieces have characters and distinct roles somehow catches our imagination. This personification causes the game to be of interest even to those who don't play and it has often been depicted in art and fiction, many times as a metaphor. How does chess mirror life? Well, in a recent twist of fate, my life has resembled that of a game of chess that has been picked up from the table (board and all) the pieces slid indiscriminately back into the box and then put up on the shelf. I am in a dimly lit box with many others who's rank and title I cannot readily discern. Even my own social station is uncertain at this time. But I'm pretty sure I was a Knight.

Turtles All The Way Down

I first read the phrase "Turtles All the Way Down" in a book by Stephen Hawking. According to the story, a big name scientist was giving a lecture on astronomy. After the lecture, an elderly lady came up and told the scientist that he had it all wrong. 'The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist asked "And what is the turtle standing on?" The lady triumphantly replied: "You're very clever, young man, but it's no use -- it's turtles all the way down."
I've asked several people what they think this story means, and everyone seems to have a slightly different take on it. To me, it is a reminder that most scientific fact is really hypothesis that has not been disproved, and there is always the possibility that maybe the old lady is right. Kind of like a perfect sand castle being whipped up from a sand dune by the wind. There is nothing in the second law of thermodynamics that says order cannot come out of chaos.

Roll The Bones

Loaded up and rode touring bike out to Platina with David Blevins. Bike and gear weighed 50 pounds. The road unwinds toward me, what was there is gone. The road unwinds before me, and I go riding on. It's my turn to drive. Driven. 1996.
Mild, 90 degree weather helped a lot, but still cramped with 10 miles to go. Walked the last monster hill. From first to last, the peak is never past. Something always fires the light that gets in your eyes. Marathon 1985.
Arrived in Platina and lunched on Turkey Sandwiches and Iced Tea around 2 P.M. I let my skin get too thin, I'd like to pause, no matter how I pretend-- like some pilgrim, who learns to transcend, learns to live as if each step was the end. Time Stand Still. 1989.
Rode four miles further out highway 36 West to Basin Gulch Campground. Beautiful deep shade and cool flowing creek. I turn my back to the wind, to catch my breath. Before I start off again, driven on without a moment to spend, to pass an evening with a drink and a friend. Time Stand Still 1987.
Saw Mountain King Snake along the water's edge(Middle Fork Cottonwood Creek) Slept like a baby in my tent with Thermo-rest mattress and space blanket. Play of light-- a photograph, the way I used to be, some half-forgotten stranger, doesn't mean that much to me. Trick of light-- moving picture, moments caught in flight, make the shadows darker or the colors shine too bright. Available Light. 1990.
Made it home from Platina in four hours. Bike was brilliant, 1985 Specialized Expedition. Scars of pleasure, scars of pain. Atmospheric changes make them sensitive again. Scars. 1990.
My partner David was a great companion and inspired conversationalist. Normal and completely predictable little bothers and annoyances occurred out there, but nothing beyond expected. Too many hands on my time, too many feelings. Too many things on my mind. When I leave I don't know what I'm hoping to find, when I leave I don't know what I'm leaving behind. The Analog Kid. 1982.

Seely Today, Hot Tamale*

I awoke in a hospital bed with a staff of nurses and doctors all staring wide eyed at me. "What the hell happened" I grumbled. "Well Son, let me just start by telling you that this is a mental hospital, not a general hospital." One of the older doctors replied.

*The semi-autobiographical account of one Mr. Jim Seely, based loosely on semi-reliable rumors.

Hemispheres

When we get into arguments that focus and fully engage our attention, we become avid seekers of relevant information. Otherwise, we take in information passively--if we take it in at all.
Christopher Lasch

TERRITORIES

I see the Middle Kingdom between Heaven and Earth
Like the Chinese call the country of their birth
We all figure that our homes are set above
Other people than the ones we know and love
In every place with a name
They play the same territorial game
Hiding behind the lines
Sending up warning signs
The whole wide world
An endless universe
Yet we keep looking through
The eyeglass in reverse
Don't feed the people
But we feed the machines
Can't really feel
What international means
In different circles, we keep holding our ground
In different circles, we keep spinning round and round
We see so many tribes -- overrun and undermined
While their invaders dream of lands they've left behind
Better people -- better food -- and better beer
Why move around the world when Eden was so near?
The bosses get talking so tough
And if that wasn't evil enough
We get the drunken and passionate pride
Of the citizens along for the ride
They shoot without shame
In the name of a piece of dirt
For a change of accent
Or the colour of your shirt
Better the pride that resides
In a citizen of the world
Than the pride that divides
When a colourful rag is unfurled
Neil Peart

Afterword: The Whole Human Race by Mark Twain (1907)

I have not read Nietzsche or Ibsen, nor any other philosopher, and have not needed to do it, and have not desired to do it; I have gone to the fountainhead for information -- that is to say, to the human race. Every man is in his own person the whole human race, with not a detail lacking. I am the whole human race without a detail lacking; I have studied the human race with diligence and strong interest all these years in my own person; in myself I find in big or little proportion every quality and every defect that is findable in the mass of the race. I knew I should not find in any philosophy a single thought which had not passed through my own head, nor a single thought which had not passed through the heads of millions and millions of men before I was born; I knew I should not find a single original thought in any philosophy, and I knew I could not furnish one to the world myself, if I had five centuries to invent it in. Nietzsche published his book and was at once pronounced crazy by the world -- by a world which included tens of thousands of bright, sane men who believed exactly as Nietzsche believed, but concealed the fact, and scoffed at Nietzsche. What a coward every man is! and how surely he will find it out if he will just let other people alone and sit down and examine himself. The human race is a race of cowards; and I am not only marching in that procession but carrying a banner.

My friend Little Jim?

What Can I Do? from Rayyiu Radzi on Vimeo.

Turn the Page

Every day we're standing in a time capsule
Racing down a river from the past
Every day we're standing in a wind tunnel
Facing down the future coming fast RUSH

Lock and Key - Rush (Official Video)

SEELY'S CELERY

My dream is to someday own a small business. A place where bread is baking, Bikes are making and books are... trading. "To attain this experience," writes Merton, " is to penetrate the reality of all that is, to grasp the meaning of one's own existence, to find one's true place in the scheme of things, to relate perfectly to all that is in a relation of identity and love."

That's your Grandmother!

"My Grandmother can go to HELL for all I care!" "That's not the way you're really gonna leave this funeral are you?!" "You Bastard! She loved you boys very much! I suspect that that's not at all the way you really feel... I think it's the
Whiskey talkin'!"

I Love This Creature

Black Teas

Black Teas

Fickle February

Chili Today Hot Tamale

Shot Down In Flames!

I went out with a fairly large group from Gazzigli's yesterday and commenced to lead out a one-man breakaway that had disaster written all over it. I got a big gap on the group and with the help of my little spy mirror, I was certain that I could hold them off at least until Swasey. But, much to my horror, I saw an elite group of five making in-roads on me and those bad asses caught me at the Centerville Fire station. I am pleased to report though that once they made the capture, they immediately shut it down and I was able to get on the last wheel and stop the projectile vomiting!

It was windy so perhaps that came into play. The group of five was working together, cheating the wind. I am a fat February poser pretending that I am ready for Summer!

Aboard The Whale (In-Board)

Anemone Within.

Seems To Me, It's Heredity

January Riding

Frozen mud in shaded sections, slop ball muck in the bright sunshine. Brake pad and chain maintenance after every ride. Clifbars hard to eat, too cold. Water from bottle, instant ice cream headache. Too many clothes, not enough clothes. Soaked by rain, wetsuit mentality. Glasses too dark, glasses to light, fogging up while climbing. Don't miss it, 'cause it won't last!

Who are the "Real Webfoots?"

The nickname for Oregon's first sports teams was "Webfoots," coined by longtime Oregonian sports editor L. H. Gregory. The name originated from a group of fishermen from the coast of Massachusetts whose descendants settled in Oregon's Willamette Valley. When the University of Oregon was founded in 1876, Webfoots was the natural choice for the school's nickname, because of Oregon's reputation for wet weather.

The Emerging Fate Of The Neandertals

"When you look at all of the well dated and diagnostic early modern European fossils, there is a persistent presence of anatomical features that were present among the Neandertals but absent from the earlier African modern humans," Trinkaus said. "Early modern Europeans reflect both their predominant African early modern human ancestry and a substantial degree of admixture between those early modern humans and the indigenous Neandertals."

This analysis, along with a number of considerations of human genetics, argues that the fate of the Neandertals was to be absorbed into modern human groups. Just as importantly, it also says that the behavioral difference between the groups were small. They saw each other as social equals.