Monday Meandering - 11.11.2013

Flipping through the mid-week TV football games, featuring some of the less well-known schools, I came across a game pitting the University of Buffalo against Ohio. I was reminded that I once attended a week-long seminar at UB, or technically, State University of New York at Buffalo - SUNYAB.

Wally Bullington, once coach of the Abilene Eagles and ACU Wildcats (and later ACU Athletic Director and currently AD Emeritus), a gentleman named Tom Hudgins and I shuffled off to Buffalo to attend a "Creative Thinking" workshop, where we were instructed on numerous methods to "think outside the box." Wally and Tom worked for the Herald of Truth at the time and wanted to attend the workshop. I was sent along as a representative from the company that produced the HOT programs and materials at the time.

It was a good workshop; I used some of the concepts for a number of years, and even taught some of the methods in training sessions for others. It was also a memorable trip, since it also included a really nice tour of Niagara Falls from both the U.S. and the Canadian sides of the Falls. That trip marked my first visit to a foreign country. Crossing the border was a big deal - an immigration official stuck his head in the bus and yelled, "Anybody here not born in the USA?" Assured that we all citizens, since no one spoke up, he waved the bus across the border.

I later made a trip to Canada when the rules were somewhat more stringent, but I forgot to bring along any proof of citizenship. I conned the airline here in Austin into stamping my ticket "Papers OK" and got into Canada with no hassles. Coming back was even easier; no one asked for any ID of any kind. Try that today.

Speaking of Tom Hudgins, he and I made several trips together; one was to a Direct Mail seminar in New York City. That was the trip when Barb stashed the Playboy in my luggage. Tom and I checked into the hotel, I popped open my suitcase to unpack - and there on the top of my clothes was a shiny new Playboy magazine. I slammed the suitcase shut and later surreptitiously stuck it under everything else.

What I did not know at the time was that that magazine had been carefully excised. Acting on the popular argument that "I only read it for the articles," Barb had very carefully removed every single vestige of the female form from the magazine; no centerfold, no features, not even any advertisements that depicted females!

I later baited fellow office-workers with that issue: they would casually pick it up, flip through it, then flip backwards, and then give me a very puzzled look. I told them it was the new "Christian version" of Playboy - the result of the then-recent debate between Bill Banowsky (soon to be named President of Pepperdine College) and Anson Mount, the religion/philosophy editor for the magazine at that time.

Wow. All that from one minor-league football game!

And in the spirit of Keeping Austin Weird, I call your attention to this highway sign placed on IH-35, near downtown, warning of "Dry Paint Ahead." Yes, dry paint.

It turns out that a recent mishap dumped hundreds of gallons of bright yellow highway paint on the roadway. You know, the stuff they paint yellow lines with. It seems that big, bright, shiny patch of paint is startling to unsuspecting drivers, who tend to slam on the brakes. Thus the sign, assuring drivers that it's OK to cross over that newly-decorated piece of roadway with no fear of turning their cars bright yellow.

I love this town.