Terra Incognita

On Why My Grandfather Has More in Common with the Rapper Ice Cube Than One Might Think
While waiting for a friend to call so we could meet for lunch in Aggieville on Sunday, I was browsing the walls of books at the local used book store, the Dusty Bookshelf when a book titled Pappy: The Gentle Bear (A Coach Who Changed Football...And the Men Who Played It) practically socked me in the stomach. I knew of only one Pappy, and he coached my grandfather while on the Cal football team. Sure enough, there in the middle of the book is a picture of my grandfather with a group of fellow "Pappy's Boys" at the unveiling of the life-size statue of Pappy on the Berkeley campus. AND THEN, I started reading the opening passage:

Imagine a beautiful spring night in the East Bay hills. The lights of San Francisco twinkle in the distance. A gang of rambunctious former college football players gather at the quarterback's house for an evening of good food and raucous conversation...It doesn't make sense, rationally," said Dick Erickson who was hosting the party with his wife, Jan.

Look at that! My Mamu and Granddaddy are literary characters! And if you need help imagining that beautiful spring night, check out the pictures of my grandparents' home, which is on the market here (Click on the picture and you can see the view that shows the twinkling San Francisco lights). Not only is Grrr a literary character, he's a literary hero:

Cal had two very good, but very different quarterbacks in Dick Erickson and Bob Celeri. Erickson, nicknamed "Old Faithful" or "Money in the Bank" by the local writers, started most games because he was ice-cube cool under pressure and was unlikely to fumble snaps...Cal's coaches had supreme confidence in Erickson and believed he was the most underrated quarterback on the coast.

So see? Ice Cube and Grrr, they're like long-lost brothers.

A Rundown of More Highlights from the Weekend in Manhattan
+ The revelry that was St. Patrick's Day in Aggieville, where everyone was decked out in green...and purple, of course (and totally wasted at 10 a.m. before the 2-mile fun run and 10K not-so-fun run).
+ Panera!
+ Scene It, the Friends version, followed by a Friends marathon to figure out all the answers we missed.
+ Seeing Little Sterling, who had trully grown into the "Little Man" nickname I gave him at 10 months and had become Tall Sterling. (See one of my favorite Sterling stories here.)
+ Lunch with Tarin and dinner with Emilemilemili!
+ kU almost getting wiped off the map with a tornado.
+ Coffee in Lawrence with Ryan (creator of the "Everso Easy, Everso E" nickname that is the namesake of this blog) and Nick, thus inducing the biggest caffeine jolt I've experienced in a long time. I swear my arms twitched the whole ride home.
+ And of course, spending quality sibling time with Ally.