Candies and Bonbons and How to Make Them, Oh My!

We went to my mom's place for Thanksgiving dinner. As always when we visit my mom, or she visits us, she offered me stuff. I allege she doesn't want to throw stuff away and therefore won't feel guilty if she can pass stuff off on me. Or Susie. I have become discriminating in what stuff I will accept. Sometimes it makes me feel bad when I refuse to accept stuff. And I won't accept stuff just to make her feel better, only to then discard said stuff.

Sometimes things go differently. This was one of those.

She asked me if I wanted a cookbook. Warily I asked what kind of cookbook are we talking about. We must Dear Reader, now back up 50 years or so to fill you in.

My grandmother collected recipes. She clipped and copied. I have some of her old cookbooks and there are lots of clipped recipes inserted throughout them. Almost all of them. And lots of clippings. I leave them where they lie, like sleeping dogs, as an homage to my late grandmother.

Anyway, back in the early 1960s, when my mother was a student at the University of Oregon, her mother, my grandmother would sometimes accompany her to the library. Grandma would head to the cookbooks and copy down recipes. OK. Now you're caught up.

Back to Thanksgiving and the offer of stuff. The cookbook. My mom showed me a binder. A three-ring binder. It was not the collected recipes that my grandmother had copied all those years ago. It was her hand-written copy of an entire 287 page cookbook. Candies and Bonbons and How to Make Them. Neatly written on ruled paper. Wow.

I accepted the binder.

Later, I went on Amazon and found a copy for sale and promptly bought it. It arrived yesterday and I cataloged it. TX791.N4 1913 and included a note that indicated I have a second, hand-written copy.

The behaviors surrounding my grandmother's actions certainly explained a lot to me. About me and some of my behaviors. I did say that I cataloged it. Right?

O Heroes

This Monday past the University of Oregon Athletic Department's O Heroes program sent a couple dozen student-athletes to my Special Olympics bowling practice. To bowl with my Special Olympians. My nearly 80 Special Olympians. My gang didn't know about it in advance, and the UO athletes had no idea what was in store for them.

Representatives from baseball, softball, lacrosse, soccer, tennis, golf and football arrived at the bowling alley and I sent them to bowling lanes. From the beginning it was pandemonium. The best kind of pandemonium.

I couldn't tell who was having more fun. The student-athletes or the Special Olympics athletes. To be safe, I'll just say that it was me who had the most fun. That is not open to debate.

I took a bunch of pictures. Of course I did Dear Reader. Of course I did. I burned the photos onto CDs for both the local Special Olympics program and the O Heroes program. I posted them on Facebook as well. Am I forgetting anything or anybody? Yes. Some of the pictures will be added to the UO Library's digital collection. And then I am going to get paid to catalog them. Talk about win-win-win situations!

On a serious note, the starting tight end from the football team, David Paulson was there. I asked him to please, please, please not injure himself. I wanted no part in jeopardizing the shot the Ducks have of reaching the BCS National Championship Game. I want to go.

Lengths and levels

While not cut-throat, the battle to gain inside information on players during a fantasy baseball draft can be a bit...daunting? No. Not exactly daunting. But the good owner always needs to keep up with reports from around the league offices, as well as from Florida and Arizona. Here is an example of one such scoop, unearthed in the wee hours of a morning searching for a leg up on the competition. Background information included.

Jean LaFleur was a civil servant with the federal government of Canada, serving in some low-level post in Montreal. I never even bothered to learn what post it was. Just a post. There really was no future in it for him as far as career advancement was concerned. But he did love his work. Or more accurately where his work was located. You see Dear Reader, Jean was a huge fan of the Montreal Expos. Probably the only one. His job allowed him ample opportunity to get out to the ballpark. Generally about 75 games a year. Now that is dedication to a losing proposition.

When the Expos franchise was relocated to Washington, DC and re-christened the Washington Nationals, Jean was heart-broken. His love for the franchise never wavered though and he bore no grudge. He knew what he had to do.

Jean plunged into the Byzantine world of the federal bureaucracy and applied for a transfer into the foreign service. His eye was on the Canadian Embassy in Washington. Both eyes. He studied, took tests, applied, studied some more, re-applied, and finally, in the second year of baseball back in the U.S. capital city, was rewarded with a posting to DC.

Even before he had unpacked his belongings in his new apartment, Jean purchased season tickets to the Nationals' games. He had maintained contacts with some of the front-office people who had made the move from Montreal and found that he was back where he loved to be: a virtual insider in the day-to-day operations of a Major League Baseball franchise. His franchise.

Jean started a blog about Nationals baseball. There were never many visitors, which was fine with Jean. He didn't want casual guests. He wanted only truly devoted fans. Both of them.

I stumbled across his blog, benignly titled "DC Nationals" while I was researching for my fantasy baseball draft. I was just trying to glean some bits about pitching phenom Stephen Strasburg. I knew he'd begin the season in the minors, but for how long would he be kept there?

It seems that Mr. LaFleur had it on good authority that Strasburg would make no more than three starts at AAA before getting the call up to the bigs. Ownership need to put butts in seats, and Strasburg was the best way of selling tickets.

And so I drafted the kid to be a starting pitcher on my fantasy team, Screwballs.

The best part of this whole story is that there is not a single iota of truth to it. Except that I did draft Strasburg. Oh the levels to which a fantasy baseball owner will go to psych out other owners!

Whirr

I was cataloging a digital image of the team photo of the 1948 University of Oregon baseball team. Metadenoting. Actually. In the back row, fourth from the left is the catcher, Bill Burgher. For authority control purposes I wanted to find the fuller form of his name. I needed to. I checked the index in the yearbook, the Oregana, and he was listed as William Burgher. So far, so good. Then I went to the alumni directory to maybe discover a middle initial I could use. When I searched for Burgher, there was but one gentleman. A Joseph William Burgher. The time frame was about right, but I couldn't be sure it was the same dude. Really sure. Turning the page in the Oregana, I saw a picture with the caption: "Rifle-armed catcher Bill Burgher signs with the Portland Beavers as a result of his steady performance with the Ducks." A clue worth investigating. I did a Google search for the 1948 Portland Beavers roster. I done did Google it. There was a Joe Burgher listed. So far, even better. I clicked on his name and up popped a record with the full name Joseph William Burgher. So far, best. Back to my metadenotation. The form of the name I used was, is, "Burgher, Joseph W." I used "Burgher, Bill" as a cross-reference. I love it when a plan comes together so simply. So easily. Everything clicked. Like a well-oiled machine. You, Dear Reader, can now go back to sleep, to the lilting strains...

Anticipation

After Oregon defeated USC on Halloween I got it into my head that should the Ducks reach the Rose Bowl, we would go to the game. And the parade. Chances were good. Then came the first hurdle. The Arizona game could have derailed the train. But we were all relieved as we watched the Ducks come from behind to tie the game and then to win it in overtime. We were at a hockey game and one of the linesmen was in the lobby of Lane County Ice watching the game. It was between periods of course. The only real remaining obstacle to a Rose Bowl berth was the Civil War Game against the Beavers. I had already looked into Alumni Association packages and train transportation to Los Angeles. I told Susie before the game that if the OSU won, we could still go to the Rose Bowl. To watch the Beavers. Or the big flat-tailed rats as I often refer to them. She was pleased. Well, the Ducks won and the very next day I bought train tickets and the land-only package through the UO Alumni Association. I put in my request for tickets with the Athletic Dept. What could go wrong? Well Dear Reader, I'll tell you. I didn't get tickets through the U of O. Panic set in. I went to StubHub and purchased tickets there. Better than twice the face value! After the seller confirmed the purchase...nothing. Expected shipping date of December 28. It was to be 2-day shipping through FedEx. Our train was to leave at 5:00 PM on the 30th. They should arrive in time. Right? Wrong. On the 28th I received word from StubHub that the seller was unable to obtain the tickets he had sold me. What?! But, there were tickets, better tickets, one section over, that were available to be shipped immediately. Complete with an upgrade to overnight delivery. Well, OK. I took it. A few hours later, my purchase was confirmed by the seller, and a few hours after that, they were shipped. At last, I had a tracking number. But, wait for it. The origin of the shipment was, you guessed it, Eugene. Oh well. They were sure to get here in time. Finally, this morning I checked up on the tracking number. The tickets had been sent to the FedEx sorting facility in Portland? From there they will be sent back to Eugene. Delivery is still estimated by noon today. I am pretty sure I will be holding my breath as I open the screen door when I get home.

Just sit right back

It's been a long while Dear Reader. It seems I've been paying more attention to Chez Paul and, gulp, FaceBook. I'd apologize, but you probably wouldn't accept it. (Nor should you). I probably wouldn't mean it either. (I probably should though). So let us simply dispense with that little nicety. Shall we? We shall. Last weekend we loaded up the Eugene-Springfield Special Olympics bowling team onto buses for a trip to Bend. Over the mountains in November to bowl two games each. A shot at being eligible to apply to go to the National Games next year was on the line for each of my bowlers. No, I did not tell them. We take a nice charter bus equipped with appropriate facilities since there are no rest stops along the way of the 3-hour drive. This year I thought ahead a little. By remembering. Remembering that the bus is equipped with a DVD player. South Park would be inappropriate. Beavis and Butthead? Out of the question. I needed something appropriate. And there it was. At the lower left of the shelving where I keep my DVDs and CDs. Gilligan's Island. The complete series. I didn't need that much. I took season one. Although it is in black and white, everybody loved it. There were times when the athletes were laughing in perfect sync to the laugh tracks on the video. It was hysterical. A little eerie as well. What was truly surreal though, was when the entire bus began singing the theme song. At the beginning and the end of each episode. What a trip. What a very trippy trip.

Metadenoted!

Scratch that. Cataloged! I have completed the project to catalog all my books. A tribute to Dr. Frank E. Brown, the former minister at my grandparents' Congregational Church in Salem, was the final work. Neatly shelf-listed at BX7260.B76D7 1985. Now what am I to do? Buy more books? Certainly. Move on to another project? Already there. I did promise (threaten?) that I was thinking about cataloging my t-shirts. Do you remember that Dear Reader? It is underway. Quite the metadata template. Shirt color, text color, size, and more. Even genre terms. I know I need help. Not with the cataloging. Just help in general. I'll just leave it there before I scare you off. Both of you.