Travels with a Grand Prix in Search of America, part 1

August, 2000

One of my favorite books is “Travels with Charley in Search of America” by John Steinbeck.  American writers have penned some fantastic books devoted to hitting the open road, but there is something about Steinbeck’s travels that struck a chord.  Most of the great road trip stories have an ulterior motive of hedonism – let’s see how much drugs I can ingest and how many chicks I can nail in as many states as possible.  But Steinbeck was at the point in his life where he just wanted to see what normal, everyday Americans were all about.  So he hopped in an RV with his poodle Charley riding shotgun, and just drove.

In between my junior and senior years in college, I decided that sounded like a fantastic idea.  Just hop in the car, drive from Michigan to Montana and back, and see what would transpire.  (It was probably about this time in my life that my Mom stopped splitting her time between praying for me and trying to reason with me, and just decided to devote her full time to praying for me.)

Before I begin, a word about my travelling accommodations:  You can take your Japanese auto quality and reliability of the 1990s and shove it, because I’m taking a Detroit engine every day of the week and twice on Sunday.  Continuing in Detroit’s fine tradition of comfortable beasts with big engines, my ride of choice was a 1997 black V-6 Pontiac Grand Prix, complete with gold rims and an upgraded stereo system.  And to top it off, this hog actually got a legit 30 mpg on the highway.  Perfection for a college student on a budget. 

The basic itinerary was to head north from West Michigan into the Upper Peninsula and then take a northern route to Glacier National Park in Western Montana (i.e., the lyrics to a Bob Seeger song).  The goal was to never stop at any Generica establishments (McDonalds, WalMart, etc.) the entire trip, with the only exception being nights in a Super 8 if I wasn’t near a hostel or camping.

Day 1 – Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore

Last week, I was in Chicago at the downtown Orvis store and picked up a book titled: “1,000 places to see before you die.”  I immediately started flipping through it to find the Michigan entries.  There was only one: Mackinac Island’s Grand Hotel.  I quickly put the book down and continued shopping, because the editor was clearly an idiot.  Situated on the southern shores of Lake Superior in between Munising and Grand Marais, Pictured Rocks National Lakeshore is a natural gem that 100% belongs in that book.  [Don’t believe me?  Click here.  See, I told you.]

The itinerary for day one was to hike a few miles to the shoreline at Chapel Rock and set up camp for the night.  Somewhere in the woods between the trail head and the camp site, I was ambushed by a flock of drunk old ladies.  This is not an exaggeration.  I was minding my own business enjoying the scenery, when out of the woods appeared 3 blue-haired grandmas.  One was holding a box of Franzia, with all 3 sporting full wine glasses.  The oldest of the bunch was sidled up next to me before I could blink and was getting a little too “handsy” with me and my water bottle.  Drunk Grandma:  “What ya got in there, sonny?  Vodka.”  Me:  “Uh, what?”  Drunk Grandma:  “Vodka.  It’s vodka, isn’t it?”  Me:  “Ma’am, I assure you that is water and not vodka.”  Drunk Grandma:  “That’s a shame.”  After dismissing me as no use to them, we chatted for awhile and parted ways.  Little did I know at the time, that odd encounter in the woods was just an appetizer for the randomness that would follow throughout my journey. 

After setting up camp on a cliff above the shoreline, I was treated to one of the top 5 sunsets I have ever seen in my life.  It had been overcast with light sprinkles throughout the day, but just as the sun was setting the horizon cleared and threw off the most amazing oranges and purples and reds onto the clouds.  (I still have a picture of this sunset hanging on the wall in my house.)  As the sun sank below the still, cold waters of Lake Superior, I knew this was going to be a good trip.

I don’t care who you are, when you are sleeping by yourself in the middle of woods, every noise takes on a different intensity.  While you may be asleep, part of your brain is still on high alert in fight or flight mode.  So when I was startled awake the next morning by something raising holy hell outside my tent, I was convinced either: 1) the old ladies were back and about to abduct me, or 2) a moose was about to give birth on top of my tent.  After my adrenal gland made sure I was way too awake for only being first light, I mustered the courage to unzip my tent – figuring I might as well see what was about to kill me.  No joke, not 50 feet away from my tent were 2 squirrels clinging to the side of a tree getting it on.  With my life safe for the moment, day 2 was off to a good, random start.

to be continued…

How "The Big House" got even bigger.

November 22, 1997

Have you ever wondered how it is that the attendance numbers at a major college football game can be thousands of people over the stated capacity of the stadium?  For example, the stated capacity of Michigan Stadium was 102,501 in 1997, yet the reported attendance for the Michigan v. Ohio State game that year was 106,982.  Well, here’s a story of how that happens…

First, a little background:  Tom Goss was the embattled UMich Athletic Director from 1997-2000, and was heavily criticized for a number of decisions during his short tenure.  To me, the dumbest move he made was allowing to stand the decision that incoming freshman in 1997 would receive a split-season ticket package, meaning half of the freshman class would not be allowed to buy tickets to the Michigan v. Ohio State game.  Because apparently, when you have a limited capacity of 102,501 seats to fill, rewarding old alumni who don’t know how to cheer is more important than pissing off a couple of thousand tuition-paying students.  [Historical Note:  Split-season student tickets had never happened before, and there was such a backlash against the decision that it will never happen again.]

Of course, guess who was lucky enough to receive the half-season ticket package that did not include the Ohio State game.  And to throw salt on an open wound, Michigan had to go out and win every game leading up to the Ohio State that season and be ranked #1 in the nation.  Thankfully, someone in the athletic department realized the week of the game that there were a lot of freshman student-athletes who did not have tickets to what would be the biggest game of their entire college career.  Word was quickly spread around the athletic teams that any freshman who did not have tickets to the game could show up early on Saturday and receive a free pass to the game in exchange of putting pom-poms on all of the seats in the student section (I’m not sure who authorized that deal, but there is special place in heaven reserved for that person.)

Fortunately, my roommate was in the same boat as me, so we could make sure we actually got out of bed on Saturday.  I remember that it had snowed overnight and it was butt cold when we got up at the crack of dawn to trudge down to the stadium.  When we got to the stadium, there was a lady standing at the gate and she told us to come back when we done to pick up our game pass.  After our fingers and nose had turned a sufficient amount of black from the frostbite, we were finally done.  When we got back to the entrance gate, there was a stack of what must have been over a hundred passes – but nobody in sight.  After waiting a few minutes, we came to the conclusion that the person must have also gotten frostbite and said “Screw it, I’m outta here.”  Naturally, we did what any poor, starving college student would do when faced with the situation – took a handful and started selling them to people on the street for $50 a pop.  (Why $50, when real tickets were selling for $100s?  Because we decided the passes didn’t look very official and $50 was all people would be willing to pay for a chance we were scam artists.  It’s called real life supply and demand in a free market economy, and part of the reason I could pass Econ 101 a few years later without ever going to class.)

And the rest, as they say, is history.  The passes were general admission, so I squeezed my way in about 20 rows up at the 50-yard line, watched Charles Woodson and David Boston start punching each other right in front of me, watched Charles Woodson run a punt back and 106,000 people turn into pure electricity, watched the guy who lived across the hall get maced by a cop when he ran onto the field after a 21-14 Michigan win, watched a dude fall 20-feet out of a tree and crack his skull open during the impromptu rally on the university president’s front yard after the game.  You know, a typical Saturday for a college student.

Substitute Teaching, Part 1

December, 1999 - June, 2000

I had a semester off inbetween undergrad and law school, and decided to use that time in the most productive way I knew how - substitute high school teaching (by productive, I really mean a job with the most money, least amount of stress and the highest degreee of schedule flexibility.  Because if it's a Tuesday and I don't feel like working, why should I?).

The great thing about substitute teaching in high school is that the real teachers don't actually expect you to do anything.  I substitute taught over 100 days in over 10 different high schools, and I only remember 1 time that I actually had to teach a lesson.  The rest of the days involve either popping in a movie or staring at the kids as they avoid doing some menial sheet of nothingness the teacher left for them.

Obviously, this set-up could lead to some of the most extreme boredom imaginable.  So I had to take it into my own hands to make sure I wasn't bored sitting there all day (who cares about the kids emotional state).  Following are a few of the highlights from my time substitute teaching:

1.  I look outside the window of the classroom and there is a flock of at least a dozen wild turkeys strolling through the parking lot.  I happened to have an extremely obnoxious kid that hour who wouldn't shut up the entire class.  Instantly seeing an opportunity to solve my problem, I told him to go outside and chase the turkeys away.  After a period of back and forth, he realized I was serious and happily took off out of the classroom.  By this time, the entire class is at the window watching what would happen next.  We see the door of the school open and the kid go running into the parking lot.  So far, so good.  But all of a sudden, the entire flock of turkeys simultaneously turns and stares at the kid.  Bam.  He stops dead in his tracks and looks like he is about to pee his pants.  After it became obvious the turkeys weren't going to budge and he didn't dare move a muscle, I proceeded to open the window and yell, "Nice work, ya nancy boy.  Now get back in here before they peck your eyes out."  Needless to say, he didn't say a word the rest of the class.

2.  Kid comes up to the desk and asks, "Can my buddy and I go downtown to the bakery and get some donuts?"  (I imagine this was a test to see how far they could push me, but I didn't care, I also happened to want a donut.)  My reply, "Sure, but you're buying me one as well."  15 minutes later, the kid comes sauntering back into the classroom with a single donut in his hand.  Oh, hell no, I thought. Me: "Where's my donut, dude?"  Dude: "I didn't think you were serious." Me:  "You honestly thought I would let you leave school grounds to buy baked goods, but not be serious about buying me one. Dude, really?"  Dude: "Sorry."  Me: "Why are you still standing there, go get me a donut!"  15 minutes later, I had my donut and all was right with the world.

3.  There was one particular high school where I was the only substitute teacher they had willing to sub for the shop teacher, and happened to also be the HS where I was the head varsity girl's track coach (many stories for another day).  This was not a particularly troublesome high school, but bad enough that they had a policewomen roaming the halls during the day.  These kids were always trying to sneak out on me.  On multiple occasions, the cop would throw one of them back into the classroom, with a simple "Another one got loose on you."  One time, the kids and I were just sitting there staring at each other, when one of them gets up and just sprints out the door at top speed.  He was probably having an acid flashback, but I did the only thing I could thing of - ran after him.  I eventually caught him in the parking lot and grabbed ahold of his shirt.  My response to the startled look on his face?  "Next time you bolt, don't do it when the track coach is the sub.  He can out run you."

4.  Same shop class as the previous story.  The shop teacher was smart and would purposefully not leave me the key to his office where the master switch was located to turn on the equipment. (Not sure if it was the kids or me he didn't trust.)  One day, I'm sitting there in the classroom side of the shop space, and I hear the equipment turn on from the shop space.  Puzzled, I saunter over there and see a kid on top of a ladder with his head poking through the space of a removed ceiling tile.  (As far as I can remember, he had a screw driver and pliers in his hands.)  Me:  "Hey buddy, what you doing?"  Buddy: "Nothing."  Me: "Wait, did you just hot wire the classroom?"  Buddy:  "Maybe." Me:  "Turn it off and get your butt in your seat.  But don't worry, I won't tell anybody, because that is the awesomest thing I have ever seen."

5.  Last week's entry provides some context of my general attitude toward my own high school experience.  During junior year physics class, I used to sit in the back of the room and throw bouncy balls when the teacher had the lights off and was trying to explain things like kinetic energy on an overhead projector (don't even get me started on why physics and overhead projectors should never go together).  Of course, the teacher could never figure out who the culprit was and never even thought to blame the quiet, straight A student in the back.  Five years later, I am substitute teaching in the same classroom, and open the middle drawer of her desk.  And guess what I found?  Yep, a box full of my bouncy balls.  And guess what I did with them?  If you guessed: smiled to myself and shut the drawer, you haven't been paying attention.  If you guessed: threw them at the kids and then took the kids out in the hallway for a bouncy ball fight, you're feeling me.

Plenty more substitute teaching stories to come...

Hello. My name is Griff, and I'm a truant.

1996-2004

Seeing as how the title of this blog is Operation: Fighting Boredom, it should come as no surprise to learn that I skipped a LOT of academic classes – starting in high school, continuing on through college, and ending in law school. 

As far as I can remember, my senior year of high school consisted of the following:  (1) show up to the combined AP English/Government class first two hours of the day (because it was taught by two college professors who were actually not boring), (2) poke my head into AP Calculus third hour to say hi and sometimes stay to play euchre, (3) go home to eat lunch and watch Baywatch, (4) take a nap, (5) go back to school for last period Spanish in order to play euchre, (6) go to golf practice in the fall and track practice in the spring.  I’m sure I had other classes in there, but I can’t for the life of me remember attending them.

College was much the same, especially for the big lecture-style classes.  I had fairly decent attendance for my small anthropology classes taught by full professors who had just gotten back from some remote part of the world (most definitely not boring), but the chances of you seeing me at the big lecture halls for classes like Political Science 101 was remote at best.  When the choice was between (A) go to a lecture hall with a couple of hundred people where attendance is not taken and the prof is going to regurgitate word for word the $150 text book I had to buy, or (B) some combination of sleeping, watching TV, and playing video games, guess which one I chose?

A specific example of my thought process in college was Economics 101, which I took in my final semester of college.  The lecture part of the class was offered at two times, 8 am and 1 pm.  It shocked everyone I knew that I chose to enroll in the 8 am lecture (especially my mother, who for a second probably thought I had gone straight and was attempting to become a functioning member of society).  I simply explained that if I had taken the 1 pm lecture, I might feel a twinge of guilt for skipping.  But I would still be asleep during the 8 am lecture, thereby erasing any chance I would cave and actually go to class.

First year of law school scared me straight for the most part [which is probably one of the reasons why I refuse to think about that year of my life – another story for another day].  But I was back to the same pattern by third year of law school.  I managed to schedule all of my classes after 1 pm, and I was living in an awesome house with 2 fully-accented Southern Gentlemen (and 1 Ivy League snob) within a few minutes drive of a National Park and stocked trout streams.  Again, guess which one I chose?

But here’s the thing.  I know all of that makes me sound like a lazy bum (which I probably was), but I was actually a good student.  Salutatorian of my high school class. 3.8 GPA at a world-renowned university.  Admittance to a top 10 law school in the nation.  I don’t bring that up to brag, but to ask “What is the point of education?”  The little lady argues that you are paying good money for an education and should therefore sit your butt in the seat day in and day out.  My counter-argument is that what I am really paying for are the framed pieces of paper I am looking at on my office wall.  If I know I can get an “A” in a class without being there, what’s the point?  I have apparently learned whatever knowledge they want me to regurgitate onto a scantron bubble sheet, so why not do something I actually enjoy instead of falling asleep in the lecture hall?  I say blame the education system that fails to challenge our youth.

Epilogue:  The funny part is that years later I think the big guy upstairs is getting the final laugh at me.  I have not been enrolled in an educational class in over six years, but at least once a month to this day I have a very vivid nightmare of panicking in my bedroom during the middle of exam time. I pull a class schedule out of my backpack and realize there was a class I forgot I had enrolled in, the exam was the next day, and I had never been to a lecture or done any of the reading.  The dream is sometimes set in college, sometimes in law school, and always a different class.  But every time, I wake up from the dream in a panic that I have failed the class and not actually received my undergraduate or law degree.  Pop psychology claims a recurring dream about failing a test shows that I am continually being scrutinized in some way and the dream is rooted in anxiety that I might let someone down.  Considering the fact I am an associate attorney at a law firm, that sounds about right.  But I prefer to think it is my penance for being a truant.

Skydiving

Summer, 1998

My friend Karl and I decided we wanted to go skydiving, so we booked a tandem jump.  [Karl was a kleptomaniac who worked with me as a summer camp counselor during college, but that’s another story for another day.]  The thing about skydiving for the first time is that once you arrive at the airport, they proceed to put you through a multi-hour “safety training” course - which is of course nothing more than an exercise in seeing if they can scare the piss out of you enough so that you leave and they get to keep your deposit. 

After signing a multi-page waiver that I didn’t read (because what’s the point, I wanted to jump and they wouldn’t let me without a signature or twelve) and watching a video of dozen of ways that you can die while plunging to the earth at terminal velocity, they haul you up a five-foot platform to practice the proper “tuck and roll” procedure.  The whole time I’m trying to think of a scenario in which this is actually useful.  If I become detached from the guy with the parachute strapped to my back, I’m pretty much toast.  And if he’s still attached, good luck executing a tuck and roll with a 200-pound dude strapped to you.

It is my understanding that at most small skydiving sites, they take you up in a 4-seat plane where you shuffle your way out on a special wing and then let go.  But not me!  Nope, they happen to have extra room on a 22-person Otter that day because some truly disturbed individuals are doing a formation jump where they all hold hands while plummeting to their demise.  (Because jumping out of an airplane isn’t enough, let’s see if we can crash into each other in mid-air!)

So Karl and I get attached to our jump masters and sit in the back of the plane scared out of our gourds.  Before taking off, they strap an altimeter to your wrist and tell you that when it gets to 11,000 feet it’s about time to jump.  Of course, I’m staring at that dial the whole time and when it crossed over 10,000 feet, I had to pee my pants so bad it hurt.  Just when I get my bladder back under ground, some lunatic decides it would be funny to literally rip the side of the airplane off.  Turns out the door we were jumping out of had a piece of cloth velcroed over it.  I wish my bladder had known.

During the training session, they instructed us how to shuffle up to the door with our jump master, place one foot out of the door, then the other, cross your arms, lean your head back against his shoulder, go limp, and let him take care of the rest.  After the rest of the crazies in front of us go pouring out of the plane to certain death, we shuffle up to the door.  Karl goes first, and I remember his exact words as he exited the plane… “Holy F^&%!”  (98% sure my bladder gave up the fight at that point.)

Now it’s my turn.  As I get close to the door, all I’m thinking about over and over is: “first foot out, second foot out, cross arms, head back.”  Now to this day, I’m not sure what happened next behind me.  All I know is that I got one foot out of the door, he shoved me, and we were tumbling head over heels out of a perfectly good airplane.  (My best guess is that they tell you that stuff so you have something to think about other than whether your mother will be able to identify your body after impact.)  After three somersaults and me yelling “Holy F^&%!” at the top of my lungs (must be a common reaction), we got into the spread eagle position and were in free fall.

Here’s the thing about free-fall – it is the most peaceful, calm, serene thing I have ever experienced.  To be free in space looking down on the world is a unique experience that lets you truly take in the big picture.  It’s not at all like a roller coaster, where your center of gravity is constantly getting thrown around and you walk away wanting to puke.  Once you hit terminal velocity and are no longer accelerating, you feel nothing but the wind rushing past you.  I know it sounds weird, but I was completely relaxed during free fall and never wanted that peaceful feeling to end.  At that moment, I completely understood what it means to be an adrenaline junkie.

For me, the scariest moment of the entire jump was after the parachute had opened and we were safely floating down.  During the jump, you are strapped tightly to the dude on your back so he can control you.  But once under canopy, he lets out a couple of inches of slack.  In reality, it took a millisecond to let out the slack.  But that jerk forward is more than enough time to think, “Crap, I’m falling and there’s no parachute on my back.”  (Looking back on it, I’m convinced most of what you experience during your first tandem jump is nothing more than unnecessarily cruel jokes so the staff can keep themselves entertained.)

Safely back on the ground after a successful landing, Karl and I looked at each other and had the exact same reaction, “When do we go again?”