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Howdy folks, from Boston, cradle of liberty, America'a Athens, and home of the Boston Red Sox.
I am a bit of a contentious type, so maybe only I will find this heartening, but it was really nice to hear this when I got off of the T today:"Move yer f@#$%^&* a#% you gahddamed Chowdahhead." Say what you will, at least New Englanders' out and out surliness is up front. Better that than too much of the treacly to your face stab you in the back posing in other parts of our fair land.
Things making this displaced New Englander happy: Globe sports section. Dunkin' Donuts (Maple Glazed -- MMMMMM - take that, Atkinistas). Sox signs. Everywhere. Hearing a guy call another guy a chowdahhead."Patriots World Champs" hats.
The conference -- I've gotten about 5 hours of sleep in the last couple of days (seeing buddies while I am here is probably not good for my health. It sure enough is not good for my poor liver.) but I had to be on my game today for my panel. It went well. I gave my paper (Crossing State Lines: Massive White Resistance and the Freedom Rides of 1961) as an outline and not in the normal reading format that often brings out the inner narcoleptic in all of us. I felt like I shanked a bit -- I was not on my game, and I pride myself on my public speaking. Feedback was positive from the audience, but I just did not do my work justice. George Lewis at the University of Leicester gave a great paper on organized state resistance in Virginia. He read it but did a good job and his paper received the most questions. His book will be out in the fall with U of Florida press, and will be worth buying. I put this panel together and so I am a bit like a proud papa. The third paper was by Milla Rosenburg, whose paper covered housing discrimination in suburban Chicago. t did not come from a historian's perspective, but it had some interesting insights. Milla, however, is the Low Talker from Seinfeld.
After the panel I met a woman who seemed to like my paper. She had given a paper at the wonderful Citadel conference on the CRM last year, and apparently my friend and colleague Ralph Luker went after her in attack mode. Ralph comes in a genteel and classy package (he is the anti-Derek) but apparently when he shrpens his fangs, things get ugly!
Suffice it to say, the highlight of the panel was when all of us (commenter and chair included -- and a public thank you to two of the better lights of our profession, Jane Dailey and Charles Eagles, for doing the panel and for not making me look like an ass) at the hotel bar.
Until tomorrow, chowdahheads!
dc
Your father is a brilliant, brilliant man, Jonathan.
dc
Jonathan Dresner -
3/30/2004
My father has postulated a thesis: every society has two foods in common, a fried dough and a meat-in-dough. So far, I haven't been able to prove him wrong.
Derek Charles Catsam -
3/30/2004
Jonathan --
In South Africa they have a sticky, sugary, gooey, donut-crulleresque pastry known as koeksisters. They sound akin to the malasada. just goes to show -- people like junkfood. Or as Homer Simpson once saod, Mmmmmmm, Forbidden Jelly Donut . . . .
dc
Derek Charles Catsam -
3/30/2004
Ralph --
She did find you dreadful. But she also was asking me pretty rudimentary questions that someone working on what she is working on really ought to know even better than I do. I just thought it was amusing is all.
dc
Derek Charles Catsam -
3/30/2004
Chris --
Yes, I do read thew Globe online every day. But there is still something about having a real newspaper in your hands every day. These days for me it is still the Post, but I like to have something that I can page through, pile up when I don't read, and provide a rire hazard in my office, living room, or bedrom.
I've been reading Sportsguy for years now, since he had his own site as BSG and could be much more ribald.
Note that as of this moment the Yankees have the worst record in baseball after falling to Tampa in Japan this morning in the first game of the year, though not the heralded "Opening day" game which goes to Sox-O's on Sunday. Yes, I cannot wait either.
dc
Chris Devenney -
3/30/2004
Derek -- You know, don't you, that you can access the Globe sports section on line. I do it every morning. Here's the url: http://www.boston.com/sports/
Agreed on McDonough, though I think he changed some of his obviouly problematic stances on race later in his life.
And agreed on Shaughnessy's past qualities as a writer. During the mid-80's he was quite good, especially his coverage of the great mid-80's Celtic teams. But he became a whiny curmudgeon after Bird retired, starting covering the Sox more, and has only become more curmudgeonly -- and flat out stupid at times. I'm actually hoping he options himself to New York to work for the Times and starts covering the MFY's. That seems more fitting. At least then his gratuitous digs at Pedro will shift from gratuitous to merely vile.
The Sports Guy is a sports-writing-God!
Nice to find a fellow Boston sports devotee in these parts. I'm ready, so, so ready for opening day.
Derek Charles Catsam -
3/29/2004
Chris --
Shaughnessy was once good. Then he sucked. Then it looked like the criticisms of Boston SportsGuy (who is now ESPN Page 2's Sportsguy. aka Bill Simmons) were making him get his fastball back. But he is too predictable.
As for McDonough -- you've read the Bryant book, so you have seen how wrong, wrong, wrong he was about certain things, race obviously, and he whored for the team owners a bit too brazenly, but no on ein all of sports had a better rolodex or reporter's mentality.
What's amazing about the Globe sports section is that after the list we've both posed (plus Bud Collins, though he tries to be too clever by half), there also are guys like Kevin Paul DuPont, Peter May, Ron Borges and others with national profiles in their sports. In any case, I miss the Globe sports section in my hands daily, even if the Post has been great in the time I've lived in DC and Virginia, and even if I can access it on internet.
dc
Chris Devenney -
3/29/2004
Derek,
I'll give you Ryan, aka "The Pope," and Bryant's book is quite good. And among the writers still active with the Globe, I'll give you Holley and MacMullen. I'll also agree that in his time with Globe Montville was good, but a tad "floofy," as my niece is wont to say, and of course MacDonough was first rate until his untimely death a few years ago. But until Shaughnessy is gone, they will forever be a first rate section dragged down by a whiny second rate hack.
David Lion Salmanson -
3/29/2004
In my mind, there are only two donuts that matter: boston cream and sour cream, with boston cream being the more important. KK cannot make a decent cream donut to save their lives. I have never heard anyone sing the praises of a KK cream donut. As for sour cream donuts, the best are from the Canadian donut chain Tim Horton's. That puts KK third. I also agree that their coffee is awful whereas both DD and TH have drinkable coffee. DD's coffee (cream and sugar) is the standard by which all other coffees are judged. But then again, I think paying more than 50 cents for a cup of coffee is highway robbery.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/28/2004
You've got me on that one, Van. It's possible, but I've not heard that story. I probably could answer it for you if I hadn't had the good sense to refuse an Atlanta reporter's request that I go underground for him in the Klan in the early 1960s. I know they would have found me out and done something unpleasant.
Van L. Hayhow -
3/28/2004
Professor Luker:
We do have Krispy Kreme moving into New England. The first one opened up in Cranston, R. I., near the High Security Correctional Institute (think super max). After I visit there, I have been known to stop by. The donuts when purchased hot out of the oil are the best I have ever had; but when they were cold I didn't care for them. I also found the coffee hard to take. I will take Dunkin donuts for the coffee and cold donuts but if I drive by a Krispy Kreme and the light is on I'll stop most any time.
One serious question. A good friend of mine grew up in Alabama (and went to college at Emory). He said when he was in Alabama (50's through middle 60's) it was common for businesses that wanted to quietly make known the owners affiliation with the KKK would put a K into the name of a business. I had never heard of this and wondered if he had accepted an urban legend? Do you happen to know anything about this?
Van L Hayhow
Jonathan Dresner -
3/28/2004
Derek,
I didn't say anything about the litigation shield itself. Just that both companies know which side their... um... crullers are dipped on.
By the way, we're not entirely donut deprived. Due to the Portuguese immigration here (long story) the most popular pastry on the island is the malasada, which is basically a sugar-dipped fried dough square, which can easily be filled with a variety of flavors including (though I haven't tried it myself) pepper jelly.
Derek Charles Catsam -
3/28/2004
Jonathan --
I've wept over lesser things than your donutless plight. For you, I'll weep now.
That said (you knew this was coming, right?) C'mon -- tobacco companies denied that their products were either harmful or addictive. Fast food companies have not gone to those lengths -- I believe in holding companies responsible for tortious violations, but I do also believe in personal responsibility. My knees and hamstrings and back are a nightmare as a result of many years of high level track and contact sports like football and rugby. I bought that ticket and I took that ride -- I am not about to sue my coaches. Let's not start buying into McDonald's culpability because Johnny Video Game is too tubby.
dc
Jonathan Dresner -
3/28/2004
Oh, come on. There is nothing like a hot fresh plain Krispy Kreme. Nothing. But you can barely take them home fresh enough to be edible, so you really have to eat them in the store.
Dunkin's classic chocolate honey-dipped is the finest flavored donut ever sold in mass quantities, suprisingly bitter-sweet chocolate with a light sugary crust, and it's just as good at home, or the next day (two days later you need to dunk it in something, but that's not bad, either).
For all other donuts, I'd give Dunkin a slight edge, but not enough to go out of my way. Also for coffee.
For atmosphere, Krispy Kreme has that malt-shop aesthetic which is quite nice.
Both have contributed heavily to the Republican Party this election cycle, in gratitude (let's call it that) for Republican efforts to create a fast-food obesity litigation shield, so it's a draw, politically.
Let's call it a draw overall, fellas. Please? We don't have EITHER on this island, and the whole discussion is making me a little crazy.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/28/2004
David Salmanson is a reasonably intelligent human being, with good taste in almost everything but doughnuts.
David Lion Salmanson -
3/28/2004
Dunkin Donuts rule over Krispy Kreme. 'nuff said.
Derek Charles Catsam -
3/27/2004
Chris --
The Globe in its heyday had the best sports section in the country. At one point it had Ryan, Montville, McDonough, Gammons, Whitehead, MacMullen, etc. etc. It pioneered the long "Notes" columns with Gammons' Sunday baseball column. "Shut Out," Howard Bryant's recent book on race and the Red Soxaso has a chapter on the Globe's sports section which,if it is not what it once was, is still arguably the best sports section in the country.
dc
Derek Charles Catsam -
3/27/2004
Ralph --
Yeah, yeah. I edited -- I am writing from a friend's computer and did not want to be on too ong when I posted last night. We have literate readers? We have readers?
I like Krispy Kreme. But nothing says "home" like Dunking Donuts. Well, except for awkward figts on holidays.
dc
Chris Devenney -
3/27/2004
As a die hard, life-long Sox fan, I'd like to point out that in fact the biggest "Chowdahheads" in the entire city of Boston all call the Globe sports office home.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/27/2004
Dunkin' Donuts are as bread and wine compared to Krispy Kreme's body and blood .... I'll treat you to some KKs when next you are in Atlanta. And, by the way, why not run your posts through spell check before putting them up? Literate people read this stuff, you know.
Ralph E. Luker -
3/27/2004
Derek, And so, you, too, have met Elaine Lechtrek. Poor dear must think me dreadful. This Southern white Christian did not worship at the shrine of Southern white Christian "moderates" who could not quite bring themselves to sit down with African Americans in the early 1960s to talk about local issues. "I will spew you out of my mouth, saith the Lord," King reminded Southern white moderates in his "Letter" and Luker reminded Southern white moderates who were preening at the Citadel Conference. Ms. Lechtrek was insisting I must do honor to their memory. I wasn't doing honor.
