Thursday, June 19, 2008

What ever happened to Doug?

Friends, a good start to this conversation might be catching up on who we are now.  More or less, a virtual class reunion catering to the peculiar needs of the balding, sagging, unpressed, unimpressive and dateless.

I, for example, am a modest crank who never married, prospered or sired whelp and lives on the edge of the desert in Los Angeles County with his two dogs.  This will surprise many of you who expected more dogs.  Above is a photo of my domestic partners, Willie and Walela, taken at Deep Springs in March of last year.

17 comments:

Anonymous said...

safe word?

WTF? :-)

Doug The Una said...

Hey, some of us were sarcastic on occasion back when we were young. I just figure if someone is mocking you and you want them to stop, you can call them a cabbagehead.

Actually, I guess over all we were a pretty earnest group. Sometimes I get me and DS85 mixed up.

blythe spirit said...

ooh, ohh! How do I post!!

Doug The Una said...

Brother Dan, you (and all our classmates subject to my having correct email addresses) should have received an invitation to join the blog. Click the link in the email and you'll be posting in no time. Nice dress, by the way.

Doug The Una said...

Oh, sorry man, you joined already. OK, go to blogger.com and log in. The next thing you see should be the "dashboard." To the right of "Birddog Forum" should be a blue plus-sign for adding your own post.

charlie said...

thanks for doing this, doug!

The other day I was looking at the website of the London Economist and the blog editor noted that the comment of the day on their discussion forum came from "the inimitable doug pascover."

= - = - = - = - =

Methinks that Deep Springers are still aggregating into various small groups...the conversations kind of ebb and flow.

this is unfortunate, because a lot of interesting things get said, and then the comments eventually go the way of much ephemera. Perhaps people like it that way.

several years ago Robert Sterbal proposed a good and well conceived idea of a DS bulletin board with various levels of forums organized by class as well as by affinity groups (such as DairyMan or CoEd discussions).

Last I checked, it never got off the ground because such a BBS would need the imprimature of the college and the SB, and that imprimature never seemed to be forthcoming.

my class (DS84) doesn't have a blog as such. Sometimes we communicate through "reply all" group emails. it's crude, but it facilitates exchange of ideas.

Doug The Una said...

We'll see how this works, Charlie. I actually am still undecided about whether to broaden this to "mid-80s" or "80s" or people who recognize the phrase "Meat's in the ground! You with me?" Since this is kind of a shy person's response to being class fundraising chair I started with '85 but I'm neither dogmatic nor certain about that. The best argument against broadening the cohort is that Ziglar talks too much. (Cabbagehead?)

charlie said...

"Meat's in the ground--you with me?"

that's got to be Gayle Jones--the tag phrase "you with me?" is a Jonesie-ism. "Meats in the ground"...was that the suggestion of a barbecue?

How can you remember that?

Methinks the blog should be opened up to several classes...because the critical mass for one class may not be enough.

Which is why stoibs was very shrewd to propose a bulletin board--greater critical mass. For some people, talking to just the people in their class is not enough.

To geek out on you, the self-sustaining population may be more than the size of one class. It's like going to (say) a small seminar--with 8 people, it's only good enough that 5 will come regularly. It iterates down to 5, then to 2, then to none. I have belonged to clubs like that. I still do, in fact!

see the book "micromotives and macrobehavior, by thomas c. schelling.

of course, a seminar has to meet at one time and place--a blog is different. so, maybe the model is not the best one to apply.

Doug The Una said...

I think "Meat's in the ground" was a reference to the fact that the alfalfa went for cattle feed. I am happy to open up the blog without changing the URL. I'll invite you and we'll figure out how to invite the rest of your class. Do I have to see the book Micromotives and Macrobehavior by Thomas C. Schelling?

charlie said...

it's not mandatory. It was shortlisted in a "suggested reading" handout by deirdre mccloskey (back in her "donald" phase) as a book to read that would be of permanent value to the development of your economic sophistication.

that was in 1989, and it was 11 years old then. whether it should be on your reading list is basically up to you.

For me the point is one with myriad applications--many small groups fade into nothingness because they do not reach a critical mass that enables them to remain self-sustaining.

Doug The Una said...

Ah right, I remember Don before he was Deirdre. OK, I'll take that as a suggestion.

Son of Food said...

Greetings, gentlemen.

Who is "son of food" you ask? My sister has a blog called "Family of Food" that my father also posts on, and they wanted me to post. Everywhere else on the internet I go by my name, but this didn't fit with the program, and I have enough internet-related accounts, userids and passwords to deal with, so I'm sticking with this one.

If you're curious as to what I'm doing these days, my website is at http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb and our son's website is http://www.echonyc.com/~goldfarb/who

Ain't that a bearcat.

David

Doug The Una said...

Welcome, Son of Food, Father of Pedantry!

Anonymous said...

Meat's in the ground, no not barbecue, but slow cooking in wet burlap in a shallow pit. Mmmm. I'd add the following Jonesism to the list of things not to be lost to the greasy sands of time: He was always trying to get me to write a song about his mule, which apparently had performed extraordinary service and super-equine feats, none of which Gayle could quite remember when pressed for specifics. Now what was that mule's name?

Doug The Una said...

Phil, she was a Hennie rather than a mule (same mix but with the horse father and donkey mother.) I only remember calling her "The Hennie." Let me know if you need a librettist.

charlie said...

more jonesie-isms:

"Push em."

this was his general coaching instructions to Rodney North during the 1984 Turkey Bowl.

"Rodney, just push em."

also...

well "now ain't that a bearcat in the the bush"

- = - =

and according to .my own sense of rhyme and meter, you could get some pretty good lyrics to "I've been working on the railroad" if you substituted

"I've been working on the wheel-lines..."

and then the chorus could be something along the lines of

"Someone's in the pickup with jonesie

someone's in the pickup I know oh oh oh..."

= - = - = - =

and doug--what is that red vehicle in the background of your photo of bertie? I can't quite associate it with any vehicle I remember...

charlie

Son of Food said...

That red vehicle looks like something belonging to someone who was visiting, rather than a ranch vehicle.