Wednesday, September 9, 2009

Can You Believe It?

Old friend Don Greenwood contacted me - through facebook - with the suggestion that I scan and put online the happy hippy papers I was responsible for when I was an undergraduate. I promised I would, but knew that I had lost the documents.

Found them last night and began to take a look. Eventually I hope that we'll have both the "Period" and the "Augustana Observer" online in this year.

What I discovered as I looked at these publications I saw how arrogant we were back in the day. I couldn't believe it. Augustana opened a planetarium and observatory and we called it "Dr. Nelson's new toy."

We disdained regular headlines. We disdained journalism. Our standards were way beyond low. I couldn't believe me. Once I start getting these things up, you'll see that you can't believe me either.

What saved me, and the publications, were that there were enough genuinely talented people surrounding the chief in order to make the arrogance bearable. You'll see.

Tuesday, September 1, 2009

Would you look at that


Casually going through the AAA magazine this morning. Because of other plans to take care of emergency roadside assistance, we'll soon be dropping the AAA and losing the magazine. So glad that hasn't happened yet.
There on Page 16, big as life and bigger than Jim Richardson on page 15, is our friend and fellow Rotarian and Bethany alum, Lee Becker. She's working on her painting of the Indian woman squatting beside the road. She's sitting in front of her mammoth painting of an Indian rhino.
How cool is this. It almost makes me want to renew my connection to AAA - but I don't quite have the money.
Congratulations Lee. You deserved the recognition.