Sunday, August 22, 2010

Wild Bill and the Croc



That lovely poster should pretty much tell you what we're STILL doing for fun as summer winds down for us (there's a Lake Placid 1, Lake Placid 2, and Lake Placid 3--so far...) (and yes, the above-shown paleontologist did lose her cell phone signal at a key moment).

On a website devoted to reviews of very bad movies, I found this list which was written to help you fully enjoy the first Lake Placid film:

THINGS TO WATCH FOR IN LAKE PLACID 1:
  • 5 mins - Sort of a large and still lake for beavers, oh never mind, they're just mops of hair pulled along on a string.
  • 13 mins - What sort of firearm is that again?
  • 18 mins - RANDOM ACT OF VIOLENCE AGAINST A SHERIFF!
  • 26 mins - That pickup line worked? I am going to Maine...
  • 32 mins - Whole lot of love here, whole lot of love.
  • 35 mins - It carefully gutted and ate the moose?
  • 44 mins - Well, it just ate the only Grizzly living in Maine...
  • 52 mins - I never thought I'd hear Betty White say that.
  • 61 mins - Let me remind you, it recently tried to eat your helicopter.
  • 69 mins - Kelly was submerged for just under one minute. Not bad for someone who does not exercise and is full of adrenaline.

BUT APART FROM OUR SUMMER AMUSEMENT...

In what, to me, amounts to the most heroic act so far by our cowboy Wild Billy Drennan, he--Wild Bill--will be returning to teaching at Appalachian State University this week!

Yes, he is nervous--about certain possible things that could happen while he is in front of the class--and I'm wringing my hands on his behalf, wishing he hadn't decided to keep teaching.

But I am in such admiration of him that it defies vocabulary. I am the scaredest person in the world, and he is the bravest man I have ever seen. He simply awes me.

And the students sitting in the class will have no idea that they are witnessing something miraculous--no idea what he has been through and what it has cost him to be there--as he talks to them about the "First Half of the British Lit Survey--Beowulf through Milton."

Actually, in that sense, maybe we should all go up to the top of this post and look at that poster again.

In what isn't THAT big a stretch of the metaphorical imagination--that poster actually IS kinda like our Cowboy's life--he's swimming for it--and something big actually did try to get him.

And he got away.

And his students will think he's just another Prof standing there with a syllabus.

Glory to God. It's so amazing.

Love to you all.

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