Minnesota scruff

My grandparents have done 47 consecutive summers in a small northern Minnesota lake town called Orr. My dad and his brother spent all their youthful summers in this town of 249 trucker's hats and morning coffees. When they grew up, the brothers brought their families to Orr to fish, play hearts, eat fish, shoot, hike and fish.

I had not been here since May 2003 when I helped build a dock for my grandparents' new house across the lake. The dock is still functional; Grandpa has not fallen in.

This trip had as much fishing as the others, but this time we played table tennis too. I am currently the family champion awaiting the arrival of challenger Uncle Dennis in 30 minutes. My grandpa mistakenly calls me "Dennis" without hesitation and without correction. To my slight surprise, so did my dad. I tried to correct them at first but gave up. At least my Minnesota name is from a guy I like. Uncle Dennis is the relative I relate to the most besides my obvious peer cousin, Casey. My family delivered Barbies from Santa on my mom's side for years, but for Dennis and Casey we went to Bass Pro.

I started to feed bread bits to ducks and egrets around the dock, a job my grandma used to occupy. A giant pelican watched from a safe distance, so my grandpa threw a dead 30-inch northern pike toward it. Everyone eats well in Minnesota.

Amid all this fun I forgot to shower and shave for two days. I grew a northern scruff that I enjoyed hacking minutes ago into my familiar Southern self.

Six

I grew up loving Notre Dame. I remember wondering why anyone would ever root for another school since Notre Dame seemed so pure with their golden helmets, cold weather and plain uniforms. The Irish were the preferred football brand for Midwestern middle school boys in the 1990s regardless of religious affiliation or sensibility.

I got off it a little when my sister transferred out of Notre Dame. I got off it a lot when I transferred to Carolina. I wondered why I was ever on it when Carolina scheduled Notre Dame for a home-and-home series in 2006 and 2008.

I went to the 2006 game in South Bend. The experience was what I expected; lots of tailgaters spread over acres of concrete, posting the Irish flag and blasting U2. Some partied in and around permanent trailer homes built near the stadium specifically for tailgate rental six or seven times per year. Football traffic signs linger all year as inefficient homage to their fanaticism. I have to say that their tradition is impressive but they are still the Irish. It is our job to hate them. They can love themselves if they wish.

That game in South Bend stayed close enough until the very end. Carolina sacked Brady Quinn several times, and Hakeem Nicks and Brandon Tate both posted resume games. Fledgling quarterback Joe Dailey also had his career game in the NBC spotlight.

"What's your record again?" a bewildered Irish fan asked in the throes of Carolina's third-quarter comeback.

"One win, seven losses," I said with I-don't-care and you-suck bravado.

The 2008 game in Chapel Hill was witness to a different college football landscape. The 4-1 Tar Heels were ranked at 22, their first ranking since I arrived in 2003. The Irish were also 4-1 but could not get any respect from voters for the first time since the four horsemen broke the October sky.

The first Irish drive did not use any backs except for quarterback Jimmy Clausen. This took away all run-pass guesswork for our linebackers, but we still could not cover Golden Tate and company. The drive seemed like a bad omen, and we all hoped that Notre Dame would use a running back to break the rhythm.

They did, and the defense found its footing when the blitz seemed to expose invisible holes in the Irish line. Carolina trailed for most of the game but stayed close. Then Cameron Sexton jumped into the end zone and over a diving Irish defender. Brooks Foster caught a ball, but the referees saw it differently.

When the ball was in the air on the final play, it seemed that Notre Dame would pull off a comeback upset. But they fumbled inside the 10, and the rest is one of only two bright spots in Carolina-Notre Dame history. And through all of this, Rameses fell asleep.

Things that are not so

Today I connected three illogical, recurring thoughts of mine for having the common thread of making me seem nuts.

When I played high school basketball, my teammates ogled over the pom squad. These girls were the athletic, shapely types who walked the halls with collective gusto for the world to see. I did not know many of them well, but my teammates did and stole peeks at their practice sessions in the field house when our coaches looked away. I never watched because I was embarrassed to even witness these teenage moments. Come on. It was varsity basketball practice, a necessary bloodletting for the glory of our storied school. I did not see room for sneaking around the separating curtain to dance with girls. Further, I do not remember any of them ever peeking at any of us. Handle your business; this was my mantra.

I began listening to The Killers some months ago. Now when I hear the song "Somebody Told Me," my mind's eye sees that entire pom squad dancing in their black leotards. What the hell? I never watched a single routine all the way through, and now I think I could orchestrate an entire performance. I tend to skip that track.

Weezer's "Island in the Sun" has a similar effect. But instead of seeing the pom girls of 2oo2, I see Charlie Brown, Linus, Lucy and the gang shrugging their shoulders and shuffling their feet in a repetitive trance. This vision makes more sense since you yourself have likely seen the characters do this dance to "Linus and Lucy," but the connection to the Weezer song stumps me.

The third thought is the strangest. I make a yielding left-hand turn onto Old 86 from Eubanks on my commute home from work. When I check traffic to the right, my mind substitutes a cow for a cluster of mailboxes. I correct this fleeting error in a fraction of a second, but I see a cow every time those black-and-white mailboxes appear in my peripheral vision.

Now that is something you cannot find on YouTube.

Seven

The 2008 game at Miami brought me to Ham's with the wax eater. Carolina had lost a huge lead to Virginia Tech the week before and sat at a most depressing 2-1 record. We needed our first ACC win, and we needed to do it without the injured T.J. Yates at the helm. Mike Paulus floundered until Cameron Sexton, the goat of seasons ago, came to the Heels' rescue. The Miami game solidified Sexton's presence as our new winning quarterback and the Heels' ability to win on the road.

Games at Miami always fall short of college football hype. The stadium is usually less than half full, and a fan like me wonders how such a program could have won a national championship. It was that afternoon at Ham's that I understood the reason: Butch Davis.

Bold play calls in the waning minutes led to a terrific Brooks Foster catch in the corner of the end zone. The Hurricanes responded with a threatening drive that ended with an award-winning highlight.

In the final minutes the wax eater and I bounced around the bar with the wait staff. Contrary to his opinion, I think Ham's is the best place to see an away game on Franklin Street.

The video is mostly Miami highlights, but you can find the good stuff at the end.

People out there like you

I went to New York City when I was 12. I saw a confusing Broadway musical, watched the Yankees win in the bottom of the ninth and ferried around Ellis Island and the French lady. I eyed the chess matches of Central Park and rode the sweltering subway when they still used tokens. My parents did not allow me to partake in the city's never-sleep lifestyle, but I remember hearing a clamor of noise from my window each night when I fell asleep. At the end of my visit, I watched a Joffrey Ballet School performance in which my sister played a beautiful tree to near perfection.

I will return to the great city tomorrow for a five-day vacation, staying with a good friend who crashed at my place for Carolina's homecoming.

"Come up to New York sometime," he said last fall. Thinking about going places is not my thing, let alone actually going to them. I told him I would consider and then forgot about it. But sometime in May I realized this kind former hallmate of mine lived in Spanish Harlem, a place named with reverence in my favorite Elton John song.

My girlfriend and I bought the plane tickets a month ago and planned our entire schedule today. We agreed on most things except for the television show tours. She wanted Sex and the City; I wanted Seinfeld. We both surrendered and substituted with the Empire State Building observatory and an unofficial visit to Monk's Cafe. To be fair, I should shop for lady shoes with her and think aloud 'Meanwhile, near the Upper West Side, Sophia and J.B. were learning to do a little compromising of their own . . .'

Sophia is a Libertyville friend who went to New York for a banking job after graduating from Princeton in 2006. In her better days she helped me study for high school English classes. She is like many of my other Libertyville friends in that I have almost completely lost touch with her for no good reason.

"Hello?" she mustered into the phone yesterday with uneasy hesitation like she had opened her front door to a guy wearing a ski mask and holding a bouquet of flowers. Maybe she thought Teach For America killed me. I hope to see her and Sergio again as two of the busy bees in the hive that some lovingly call New York City.

"And now I know
Spanish Harlem are not just pretty words to say.
I thought I knew.
But now I know that rose trees never grow in New York City.

Until you've seen this trash can dream come true,
you stand at the edge while people run you through.
And I thank the Lord there's people out there like you.
I thank the Lord there's people out there like you."

~Elton John

Eight

Last week I started the countdown with the best Carolina football memory I have from seven years of fanaticism. That memory sometimes overshadows another great finish three weeks earlier.

The 2003 N.C. State game took place in Raleigh and did not appear on television. I had little or no exposure to the State football rivalry when they came to Chapel Hill in 2004. The 2-3 Tar Heels took down the No. 25 Wolfpack in the greatest goal-line stand these eyes have ever seen. State sent T.A. "Touchdown Always" McClendon up the middle for a dagger at the buzzer. It was a touchdown, almost.

This game established Bunting's boys as a team that could beat anybody on the right day. The flip side of that coin was that we could also lose by 30 or 40 points on the wrong day. State and Miami were the height of excitement of the Bunting era and still stand as the best home wins in my memory. You can say what you want about John Bunting, and I will say what I want to say about him. He silenced the 'Pack nearly every year. I remember a football player on my floor wore a shirt with the state of North Carolina and the imperative "TAKE IT BACK" underneath. I am glad we appear to have moved on to better things.

The difference between the 2004 Miami and State games was the pregame and last-second expectation. Students expected to lose to Miami by 63 and beat State by a touchdown or two. But in the last seconds of the Miami game, I was almost certain we would win. I thought we had no chance on the last play of the State game. Our stop was a sudden, unexpected elation.

Go to hell State. I will see you in Raleigh with the two musketeers when we punch our ticket to the championship game. Will you be able to do the same?

Independence Day at Maple View

Chapel Hill's fireworks show did not impress me enough years ago to want to see it again last night. Mom and I instead enjoyed dessert at Maple View Farm, an ice cream store with a perfect countryside view. The store had several hundred customers last night for what we presumed to be a word-of-mouth fireworks show. We decided to wait until sundown.

To pass the time we counted little kids who fell on the few steps leading up to the store and dribbled ice cream all over themselves. Then their daddies brought them clear cups of water to clean, but the kids spilled the water all over as well. A bunch of old guys played bluegrass, Cash and Hank Williams. When the sun set, we saw a few neighboring towns' shows on the tiny edge of the biggest sky Chapel Hill offers. Chapel Hill's own show at Kenan Memorial Stadium barely poked over a few trees.

Several minutes later the farm itself began its own show of fireworks, the most pathetic display I have seen in 25 years. Foomp. Pop. Forty seconds passed. Foomp. Pop. Another long minute. Foomp, foomp. Pop, pop.

"This must be the grand finale," I quipped. We decided leaving would be difficult since people had set up blankets around our car. But we had to do it. We tried to be Southern and polite but could not stop laughing.

Our planned quiet escape failed when I fumbled with the car's key remote in the dark and set off the panic alarm. The 30 or so people in front of the bumper jumped like old folks hearing gunshots at a Broadway play. I tried to find the button to silence the alarm, but the darkness made it nearly impossible. Twenty seconds later the chaos subsided. My car was the loudest damn thing at the whole fireworks show.

We slowly drove away and promised not to hit any children. We will go back on a normal night.

Nine

"Barth for the possible win. Snap. Spot. Kick away. High enough. Long enough. IT'S GOOD! IT'S GOOD! CAROLINA HAS WON THE GAME ON A 42-YARD FIELD GOAL BY FRESHMAN CONNOR BARTH! GOOD GOSH GIRDY!"
~The Woody Durham call

Jackson

As a Libertyville child of rock and roll whose unofficial graduation party was a Dispatch concert, I never paid much attention to Michael Jackson. His music struck me in college for the first time as extremely popular. I heard his stuff at '80s nights, dance clubs and athletic events and in residence halls. I saw Franklin Street Thriller impersonations on Halloween and laughed because I had never seen the entire video. His death was a good example of not fully appreciating something until it is not there anymore.

Journalists force the question of his legacy; was he a good man or a bad man? The truth seems to be that we will not put him in any one box no matter how many times they ask. He was enigmatic at the end of his life and will continue to be until humans stop listening to music. But most people want to remember him for his enormous contributions to popular culture. He changed the way we think about music and dance. Every time you see one of your friends try to spin on his feet or snap his fingers, you have Michael Jackson to thank. This influence was easy to take for granted until this week.

His work might not have challenged him in our sense of the word, and he probably loved what he did. But there is no doubt that his contributions to our culture are positive and everlasting. He made us happy even when we did not know it was him who was doing it. Thank you, Michael, for making us want to dance.
~
Watch Michael do his thing 3:50 into this video.

Oh old theater, we miss you already

The Varsity Theater closed its doors last week after 80 years of business in downtown Chapel Hill. A few thoughts . . .

Old theaters charged little for admission and hoped that customers would buy some Milk Duds and a large popcorn after finding parking in an undersized lot. They had thick, worn carpet, dusty curtains and squeaky seats. Arcades and trailer posters new and old enlivened the inside walls with oversized light bulbs. The bathrooms were short of supplies, but nobody complained. The guy behind the counter inevitably visited with a friend while serving the patrons.

Old theaters thrived on the business of telling stories, and business was generally good. They did not record history like a good book but instead let it pass through its doors unbothered. We sensed the past when we walked in but acknowledged that we could not actually know it. The same screen that showed "Gone with the Wind" and "Singing in the Rain" to our forebears showed "Milk" and "Slumdog Millionaire" to our friends last year. Clark Gable, Marilyn Monroe, Audrey Hepburn, Katherine Hepburn, Gene Kelly, Bob Hope. Walter Matthau, Jack Lemmon, Ann-Margret, Kevin Costner, Meg Ryan, Tom Hanks. Heath Ledger, Ann Hathaway, Michelle Williams, Will Smith. In childhood I frequented The Liberty Theater and wondered at the signed picture of Lucille Ball. I imagined Marlon Brando accepting bills under the window as I handed them over a half century later.

In earlier times movie goers were shorter. Our stature changed along with our culture. But we still piled into the rows and hugged our knees and felt that what we did for two hours inside these nearly spiritual structures was considered "American." We imagined our parents going on their first date as nervous as we were on ours.

"Thank you," she probably said as he fumbled with his wallet. They hesitated to choose seats just like us and rolled their raffle tickets to tiny cylinders in their hands until the lights dimmed and the show was on. Then he reached over to hold her hand, hoping to feel a squeeze back. Sound familiar?

No other building maintained its function like our old movie theater. Old university buildings served as residence, lecture and dining halls, administrative offices and libraries during their tenure. The theater was there for us to escape, and we did for nearly a century. We remember seeing that moderately funny film that our company thought was outrageous. We laughed with them and subconsciously knew them better than we did when we bought the tickets. We scorned cell phone rings. Our parents scorned rude conversation. We revered the films that left us sitting in silence while the credits rolled. But mostly we remember the people with whom we laughed, cried, cringed and jumped in the safe cover of darkness while our history poured out of a visual faucet before dedicated eyes.

We understand that all things change but wish that some things were insured against time. We watched Hector's, Schoolkids and the Rathskellar disappear. And yet all we can do is what that modest marquee seemed to suggest whenever I walked under it; remember the past and hope for the future.