A Day that Will Live in Infamy

... well, until we forget it ...

Below is the U.S.S. West Virginia, one of the few battleships that survived Pearl Harbor; well, 'survived' in the sense that it went back into service.

I was at a WVU-Navy game a few years (oh, god, quite a few years) ago w/ my fellow WVU-grad relatives. Now, normally, of course, any sailors in attendance would be rooting for the US Naval Academy (a.k.a. Annapolis). The current West Virginia, an Ohio Class nuclear submarine, was in port. Part of the crew was in attendance, and rooting for - yup - West Virginia U. I assume their CO perhaps gave ... well, not quite orders ... about loyalty in attendance.

No doubt the crew of the West Virginia in 1940 would be rather astonished to see her current incarnation:

With a name like Dinkytown, do you wonder ...?

These are some seriously impressive photographs: from the riots Saturday night in Dinkytown (part of Minneapolis). “We understand celebrating spring, but it should not involve starting fires and breaking things,” Rinehart said.

What a nice break from studying. You start drinking at noon, are hammered by six, and nobody is wiser at the end of the night when flash grenades go off and your friends are together in being sprayed with chemical irritants. - editorial

Rewind to Morgantown. I was a student at West Virginia University from '83-87. The big wild party event each year was in Sunnyside (read: student ghetto) after the Pitt game. It went overboard into a riot '84 when we beat Penn State for the first time in 30 years. I had to walk through the area on the way back to my dorm. Walk through being the operative word. I and several other members of the WVU Marching Band left our uniforms on for the trek. A matter of personal safety. Those students were setting cars on fire. (the party goers, not the band :)

Michigan State University in '99 had so-called "riots" two years running, once after losing the NCAA basketball tourney, and the other after winning. That constituted overturning city police cars and setting them on fire.

There's a really interesting paper (2003) which references both WVU and U of Minn (there was a riot here in '03 after the men's hockey team's championship game).

• WVU - over 1120 street fires have occurred since 1997 related to sporting events (five times the national average). In 2002, the City of Morgantown incurred over $430,300 in property damage as a result of “street” arson.

• More than $250,000 in property damage occurred at Michigan State University following the March 27-28, 1999 riots that resulted in 132 arrests, including 71 MSU students.
  

Judo & basketball

Wow - I didn't realize judo was a pre-requisite for playing NCAA men's basketball.

Pity I didn't read the paper earlier yesterday. Practice at the Metrodome was open to the public. WVU played today here in town - again, if I'd realized the game was in the middle of the afternoon, I would have at least checked out the ticket prices.

I saw a bit of the WVU-Dayton game. In which case, I'm glad I didn't bother to go to the game. The Mountianeers were playing a prett lame game toward the end of the 1st half. Perhaps someone forgot to tell them Dayton was a good team and that anyone can lose, no matter their relative ranking.

uh, yeah:
#13 Cleveland St. = 15 points over #4 Wake Forest
... 5 of the 8 games yesterday were "upsets"

Stanley Cup is coming ...........

The Ghost of Inaugurations Past

Inauguration is always in January, in the midst of the heart of Winter. Is this a method to ensure the true enthusiasm to view the peaceful transition of power?

I was in D.C. for Regan’s 2nd Inauguration, a remarkable visit. The West Virginia University Mountaineer Marching Band arrived as the state’s representative for the parade. We got permission to miss the first day of classes, hopped on 8 charter buses, and headed for the 4-ish hour trip from Morgantown to the nation’s capitol. We (all 300 of us) thought it was pretty cool to get invited for such an event, regardless of our political opinions. ’84 was the first time I had voted (even if it wasn’t for him).

We got into town, settled in and got the news that the parade was canceled. Damn! We were told the Wind Chill down Pennsylvania Avenue was 45 below zero. West Virginia does get Winter, but it definitely does not get Minnesota weather; no one would have even had warm enough longjohns for that long of a stint outdoors in those temperatures.

We watched the evening news, thinking “well, at least we’ll get to see a bit of the city.” We then heard it was so cold back in Morgantown that classes were cancelled. This gave us a good laugh at our fellow musicians who refused to miss one day of classes, who should have hollered “carpe diem!” and come with us.

The story ‘parade canceled’ hit the news. The scene switched to a gymnasium full of a high school band from Iowa (or Idaho?) in tears. These kids were absolutely, totally devastated. A few girls were sobbing in each other’s arms. Our initial thoughts were “give me a break, it’s not that bad!”

The journalist went on ... these kids were from a small high school, had gone through cut-throat competition to be selected, had spent several years worth of efforts with bake sales, band boosters, and events scrimping up money to go. They were sleeping in a gym; lord alone knows where they’d been sleeping en route. They had sat ~ holy god have mercy ~ on yellow school buses for three days just to get to Washington. To be told “sorry, we don’t need you, you can go home now”.

We looked at each other rather shame-faced, looking around our warm hotel rooms, clearly remembering the charter buses we’d ridden, all of which was paid for by the University’s Band budget invited because one of the Inauguration Committee members was a WVU fan. We felt so sorry for those kids.

Later in the evening, our director sent out a call for opinions: the committee was going to invite a few of the bands to perform indoors for the President, would we want to do so? Without hesitation, everyone I was close to said, “Hell, no!” We all emphatically recommended they track down the kids from the news and make sure they got to play.

One Inauguration Day, we took the now-free time, sent the buses around to a few different sites, did a little sight-seeing, and then headed back to Morgantown. It was so cold, the shutter mechanism in my old Canon FTb kept freezing shut; I got great pictures of Arlington National Cemetery. I never knew if those poor kids from the Midwest got to play for the President or not.

I hope so.