More Miscellaneous Rambling
A friend sent an email of college football quotes. Among them: "I don't expect to win enough games to be put on NCAA probation. I just want to win enough to warrant an investigation." Bob Devaney. Devaney coached those legendary national championship teams at Nebraska in 1970 and 1971. Perhaps his bigger claim to fame: he coached at Alpena High School, where my cousin played for him (first cousin once removed . . . my Dad's first cousin). Devaney later recruited my cousin to play for him at the University of Wyoming, where he had a potential NFL career that was snuffed out by a car accident.
So last week, I started watching Netflix's new series, Dark Tourist. It's a documentary series, of sorts, in which the host goes to various "dark" tourist destinations: Fukushima to survey the nuclear damage, Medellin Colombia to take Pablo Escobar tours, Dallas to do the JFK assassination reality tour, etc. In one episode, he visits the region of "The Stans":
Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, Tajikistan, and Turkmenistan. He only actually visited Kazakhstan and Turkeminstan, but the whole episode appeared bleak, like these places were the bleak outposts of the world and always had been (which didn't surprise me; I think they bore the frontal brunt of the Mongol invasions in the 13th century). But then on Sunday, I was listening to The Great Minds of the Western Intellectual Tradition, and the lecturer, Jeremy Adams, referred to this region as that "brilliant oasis of culture" and that "great corridor between the world of high Chinese culture and world of high west Asian culture." Color me dumbfounded. If anyone knows of a history that discusses this region's history of high culture, please point me in the right direction.
I enjoy quirky pieces like this: In Praise of Traveling by Bus. Excerpt: "But buses, with their giant windows and high-seated vantage point on the road, let you see the world as it is, an intersection of geography and humanity and groundedness and freedom. Around you are not just your fellow passengers (and their voices and phones and internal dramas and external food), but also cars, stores, neighborhoods, gorgeous vistas, and ugly highways. Because buses take the same roads as everyone else, you're enmeshed in the broader ecosystem as you travel. Buses crisscross America, not just in the major hubs, but also hurtling off to tiny towns and places you'd never think to go." By coincidence, I'd been thinking that a long trip by bus would be kind of cool. This article cements it for me.
Did I say I've had 21 good years with Marie? Heh heh, well, not all my TDE readers found that funny. Make that 32 good years (27 of marriage and five dating). (Now maybe I can stop sleeping on the couch.)
