The American college town

If a friend should ever ask for a book that epitomizes the best that geography can offer, I recommend Blake Gumprechts new volume as a near-perfect candidate. In The American College Town he takes a landscape familiar to every reader of this journal and makes us see it afresh. He dissects its complexity with astonishing thoroughness, using a rich mix of archival material, personal observation, and field interviews. He offers deep case studies, but remembers the need for broader context. Finally, he assembles the total package with spirited, clean prose, some of the best academic writing I have ever seen.

The American College Town is a beautifully designed and well-conceived book. Sandwiched between an introduction that defines the subject and a conclusion about its future are eight thematic chapters. These range in length between 29 and 44 pages, and each illustrates a characteristic of such towns with focus on a particular community. In order these are: the campus as public space (Norman, Oklahoma), fraternity rows and other distinctive residential areas (Ithaca, New York), campus business districts (Manhattan, Kansas), progressive political attitudes (Davis, California), alternative life styles (Athens, Georgia), sports culture (Auburn, Alabama), high-tech centers (Ann Arbor, Michigan), and town-gown tensions (Newark, Delaware). Each chapter is organized historically and illustrated by 10 or so well-chosen photographs and reference maps. The author, one soon learns, is as skilled with camera and mapping software as he is with words.

College towns are a classic example of voluntary culture areas, those created by people who migrate to wherever they think they will find likeminded souls. As such, we might have expected scholarly work on this subject before 2008. Gumprecht blames the neglect on academic farsightedness and the natural human tendency to overlook what is all around us (p. xvii), but I hope this books success will inspire parallel probes into the many other self-sorted places, from retirement centers to the Pacific Northwests ecotopia.

Extensive work underlies this book. One gets an initial feel for this by paging through 64 pages of endnotes and reading that personal interviews numbered over 200. It is clearer still when reading astonishingly detailed accounts of, say, the evolution of Manhattans Aggieville business district or Daviss political culture and realizing that these were assembled from primary materials such as city hall minutes, old Sanborn maps, nineteenth-century diaries, and on-the-spot interviews. Most telling of all, perhaps, is the authors sad confession that this book ultimately sapped so much time and energy that it hastened the collapse of his marriage.

Even readers who have spent decades in college towns can glean much from Gumprechts work. The first chapter, for example, is an interesting exercise in definition. If one selects American cities where university students constitute 20% or more of the total population and, of these, eliminates big cities and suburbs, the result is about 300 college towns. He notes how these entities are rare in other countries (where urban universities are the rule), explains why they are so numerous here (state as opposed to federal control, a scattered population, religious sponsorship, and local boosterism), and identifies six subtypes. He also relates how many of the phenomenons characteristic traits emerged only after an enrollment surge in the late 1940s.

The thematic chapters are uniformly rich. The University of Oklahoma, with its wooded groves, formal gardens, and public auditoria is a perfect demonstration of the open, verdant nature of most American campuses. Their contrast with cloistered, inward-looking universities in Europe is stark. One learns that fraternities at Ithaca were outgrowths of literary societies and at Manhattan that Aggieville bars were scarce until the 1960s when women were first allowed to enter them freely. Documentation of progressive political initiatives at Davis and the music and art scenes at Athens is interesting, too, including a contradictory reluctance in these increasingly middle-class towns to promote social justice and provide affordable housing. Such conflict between alternative and corporate culture reaches a peak in the Ann Arbor discussion on that towns love-hate relationship with pharmaceutical companies and military contractors.

Unlike any other professors I know, Gumprecht has worked previously as a newspaper reporter, sportswriter, librarian, and music executive. This experience flows into the book. His arguments for five of the chapters also have been honed through previous publication in scholarly journals. All this has helped him to achieve balance between detail and overview, history and the present scene, scholarship and storytelling. In fact, I see self-indulgence in only two places: the preface where he nostalgically recalls his drifter days in Lawrence, Kansas, and the Athens chapter where he obviously identifies with the six artisans he profiles. If I were his editor, I would have shortened these discussions.

A related problem comes from a compulsion to be thorough. Even though this book is a pleasure to read at 348 pages, I think it would have been even better cut by a third. With a little less detail on Shug Jordans coaching career at Auburn, Ann Arbors industries, and Newarks landlords, we would still have a clear picture of the uniqueness of college towns. The bonus might have been Gumprechts dream to interest a trade publisher in the project and to create one of the few geographers books ever to capture the attention of the elusive general public.

Senior Golf Rule Modifications

Modifications to the Rules of Golf - For Seniors Only!

Rule 1.a.5

A ball sliced or hooked into the rough shall be lifted and placed on the fairway at a point equal to the distance it carried or rolled into the rough with no penalty. The senior should not be penalized for tall grass which groundskeepers failed to mow.

Rule 2.d.6 (b)

A ball hitting a tree shall be deemed not to have hit the tree. This is simply bad luck and luck has no place in a scientific game. The senior player must estimate the distance the ball would have traveled if it had not hit the tree and play the ball from there.

Rule 3.b.3 (g)

There shall be no such thing as a lost ball; the missing ball is on or near the course and will eventually be found and pocketed by someone else, making
it a stolen ball. The player is not to compound the felony by charging himself or herself with a penalty.

Rule 4.c.7 (h)

If a putt passes over a hole without dropping, it is deemed to have dropped. The law of gravity supercedes the Rules of Golf.

Rule 5.

Putts that stop close enough to the cup that they could be blown in, may be blown in. This does not apply to balls more than three inches from the
hole. No one wants to make a travesty of the game.

Rule 6.a.9 (k)

There is no penalty for so-called "out of bounds." If penny-pinching golf course owners bought sufficient land, this would not occur. The senior golfer deserves an apology, not a penalty.

Rule 7.g.15 (z)

There is no penalty for a ball in a water hazard, as golf balls should float. Senior golfers should not be penalized for manufacturers' shortcomings.

Rule 8.k.9(s)

Advertisements claim that golf scores can be improved by purchasing new golf equipment. Since this is financially impracticable for many senior golfers, one-half stroke per hole may be subtracted for using old equipment.

Expression

Hello again! I wasn't entirely pleased with my changed skin last week, too cheery and pre-school, although it expressed a bit of the spring feeling around here. So, with a bit of inspiration, I took to a paintbrush and changed it all up. Can one every be truly satisfied with design work like this? There's still a few things that could be better about this look, but it is an improvement. Hopefully I can keep it up for a while before tiring of it, maybe change to color splots in the future.

Several weeks ago, roo and I got into writing e-mails in verse. (Does anyone else miss roo?) Maybe this unlatched a closed door in my brain, not sure, but since then I've written three songs in three weeks. Ashley has made a website of her poetry, but since mine are songs, I'd rather not publish them without the music. However, there's not a good web service for that, even if they were already recorded. I like the songs very much, and think they are my best work so far. But my poor fingers are blistered from playing them all over and over! Songs, indeed, anything of your own making is very satisfying.

sometimes you start a little pet project like this and you have every intentions of keeping it up to date. but such is the professional world, you get busy at work, you don't have time to log on and the last thing i want to do when i get home is spend time reliving that days absurdities.

before you know it, you forgot you even started this side project.

but then, you get hit with some insanely ignorant bullshit question that actually makes you stand back in awe and say to yourself "i need to do something about this. i should start a site where i can vent these frustrations, show the world that yes, companies succeed, they grow by leaps and bounds, all on the input and collaboration of the intellectually challanged"

and it dawns on you that you already did that. so with that, here was todays comment that made me rediscover this blog.

i was asked by someone in Sales, what price a new title would be sold for.

don't people in Sales have meetings to discuss these types of things?

i apologize, i was about to go on a rant of how extremely unknowlegable most Sales people are of the product they've made their CAREERS out of selling, their profession of choice is to SELL (Sales 101, right at the top of the Sales For Dummies pamphlet, the first bullet point is "know what price you are selling for dipshit"), but then that would be too easy, like taking candy from a baby, but this baby is retarded... and has no legs... and no opposable thunbs to even hold the candy which you are taking.

and what kind of sick fuck are you that you would take candy from a handicapped, retarded baby.

Not Friday

The husband and wife go to a counselor after 15 years of marriage. The counselor asks them what the problem is, and the wife goes into a tirade listing every problem they have ever had in the 15 years they've been married. She goes on and on and on.

Finally, the counselor gets up, goes around the desk, embraces the woman, kisses her passionately, rips off her clothes and makes mad passionate love to her. Needless to say, the woman shuts up and sits quietly with a very satisfied daze.

The counselor turns to the husband and says, "This is what your wife needs at least three times a week. Can you do that?"

The husband thinks for a moment and replies, "Well, I can get her here on Monday and Wednesday, but Friday I play golf."

Imposible To Please

A group of girlfriends is on vacation when they see a 5-story hotel with a sign that reads: "For Women Only." Since they are without their boyfriends and husbands, they decide to go in.

The bouncer, a very attractive guy, explains to them how it works. "We have 5 floors. Go up floor by floor, and once you find what you are looking for, you can stay there. It's easy to decide since each floor has a sign telling you what's inside."

So they start going up and on the first floor the sign reads: "All the men on this floor are short and plain." The friends laugh and without hesitation move on to the next floor.

The sign on the second floor reads: "All the men here are short and handsome." Still, this isn't good enough, so the friends continue on up.

They reach the third floor and the sign reads: "All the men here are tall and plain."

They still want to do better, and so, knowing there are still two floors left, they continued on up.

On the fourth floor, the sign is perfect: "All the men here are tall and handsome." The women get all excited and are going in when they realize that there is still one floor left. Wondering what they are missing, they head on up to the fifth floor.

There they find a sign that reads: "There are no men here. This floor was built only to prove that there is no way to please a woman."

....but he still got a shag

Mate of mine was an usher at a wedding in Scotland, it was the whole caboodle, kilts and no underwear etc.
He got pretty pissed after the reception and chatted up a very attractive (or so he tells me) blonde girl whom he took back to his room for some nooky.
They were on the bed, still dressed when he suggested that he order a bottle of champagne to make it 'a bit special' so he rang room service who arrived a couple of minutes later.
He got off the bed, answered the door and went back into the room with the champagne.
The blonde had got off the bed and was straightening her skirt, saying that this was not a good idea and she didn't normally do things on the first date. She left.
He was completely bemused as to what had made her change her mind so quickly until he went back to the bed and saw an 18 inch skid mark on his side of the bed. He had not wiped his arse properly (as you do when pissed) and did not have the protection of boxer shorts / kaks.

He did however manage to get the blonde pissed later, and get a shag...in her room.