This will be my last post until Monday; my wife and I will be in the Bay Area over the weekend attending a memorial service for my uncle and celebrating a plethora of family birthdays (we have loved ones turning 16, 40, 50, and 70 within the next few weeks — lots of milestones).
I spent the better part of the lunch hour by the campus pool, doing a fund-raiser for our student honor society on campus. It’s called “sink a scholar”, and involves professors (in costume) leaping into the pool off the high dive board, all while being pelted with wet sponges. It’s a yearly event that goes back decades, and I’ve done it most years since I joined the faculty in ‘94.
This year’s theme was sports, so I wore my cycling kit (including the red and black jersey Lance wears in his Dasani water ads). I was quite demure. Exactly ten years ago in 1997, at the height of my inappropriateness, I leapt off the diving board during “sink a scholar” dressed in rubber and vinyl as a fetish submissive, complete with ball gag. I was pierced in several obvious places at the time (all have long since been removed). It was a mild scandal, but it attracted a huge audience and raised lots of money. I have long since gotten rid of the pictures.
Today I caused barely a ripple. My body stayed largely covered. I raised very little money, and very few eyebrows.
Thank God for the grace to grow up, and thank God for tenure.
“at the height of my inappropriateness” … great quote, must remember to work that into my lexicon. I was telling a coworker who was down about turning 30 that my 30s have been much better than my 20s, mostly because I’ve grown to really like who I am - that and my need to be inappropriate has been tempered greatly.
“Today I caused barely a ripple.”
In the water? The diet must be working!
;-)