Odds and Ends, Part 10

Ram note:

Those of you who write know that writing something for the second time can be challenging. I don['t know what happened, but I wrote an article last week entitled "Odds and Ends, Part 10." That article has disappeared from the face of the earth so I will try again. My experience has been that writing like the recording of music performances gets progressively worse with each attempt. Let's hope that is not true in this instance.

Strength In Numbers

Mrs. Ramfanatic submits this one.

Last Saturday, in the parking lot where she shops for groceries, she returned to her car and found that 2 cars with UNC license plates had parked next to her. The cars were not there when she parked so the assumption is that the first one saw her car and decided to park next to it. Using the same assumption, the third car probably saw the first two and decided to join them. We have approximately 1300 UNC plates in Virginia now, but I don't know how many we have in Richmond. Irrespective of the numbers, I think it is pretty unlikely that you would have three vehicles with the plates parked together in one location. Bet the Cavaliers thought they were being invaded.

Michael Savage

I don't know how many of you get Michael Savage on the radio . He has approximately 400 stations nationwide, and he is probably on a station near you. He is a different kind of a talk show host, and the first reaction of most people, including me, is that he is crazy. He has absolutely no inhibitions and nothing is holy. Before you dismiss him as a loudmouth ignoramus, however, you need to know he has a Phd. from the University of California at Berkeley. I realize that doesn't guarantee all of his utterances to be reasonable, but it does put him in a class educationally from all the other talk show hosts.

He is conservative, but he doesn't hesitate to criticize Republicans. He rejects party labels and according to him tries to tell it like it is. I really did think he was crazy at first, but gradually, I noticed something strange was happening. The more I listened to him, the better I felt. I tried to figure out why this was the case, and I think I finally succeeded. I think he says what a lot of us are thinking deep down inside, but for various reasons, we don't verbalize these feelings. If you can, listen to him once and see what you think.

The UNC part. Several nights ago, he had a substitute on, and he gave his name as Barry Farver. I knew I had heard that name somewhere, but I couldn't place it. I was reasonably sure it was connected with UNC. I looked the name up in my UNC Directory, and there is a Barry Farver listed as having graduated in 1952 with no additional information. I googled the name and found that Mr. Farver does a lot of different things including motivational speaking, teaching foreign languages with a system he developed and I would guess he has a talk show somewhere. Savage comes out of the San Francisco area and I would guess Farver is in California also.

Remember what I said earlier. UNC people are everywhere.


Lorelies Sing At Yankee Stadium

I have been a Boston Red Sox fan for about as long as I have been a UNC fan. I am now into my seventh decade of rooting for both teams.

You know, of course, that I am excited over the prospect of possibly winning the World Series even though I will have some apprehension about these prospects until the last out is made. I watch the games, but I refuse to go all out with involvement. I have been hurt too many times.

The Charlotte newspaper wrote an article recently about something I missed at one of the early games between the Sox and the Yankees. The UNC Loreleis sang for the Yankee Stadium crowd and then performed in George Steinbrenner's box for him and his guests which included Donald Trump.

After they finished singing, Trump told the group he would show them around his building if they would drop by the following morning. The group did drop by, and Donald was true to his word. He spent right much time personally showing his building to the UNC female singing group.

By the way, do you remember who the Loreleis were originally? They were supposedly female singers who would sing to sailors sailing down the Rhine River and lure them to their destruction. I must have know that earlier in my life, but I had plum forgotten it.

I don't know what song or exactly when the Loreleis sang at Yankee Stadium, but they sang a few songs in the lobby of the Trump building after their tour and the response of employees and tourists was such that Security had to assist in handling the crowd. There was no mention in the article about how the booking came about, but I suspect it had something to do with the fact that George Steinbrenner's daughter attended UNC. I really wish I could have seen it. I am very interested in this kind of thing, and new viewers can refer to my article on the resurgence of a capella groups on college campuses ( campi ? ) in the Archives Section. It is in the 2004 section.

Enough for now. I have a few other items, but they can wait until next time.

By the way, my new statistical reports show visits to the site from foreign countries. The list shows for this month we have received visits from persons in China, the European Union, Hong Kong, Australia and Puerto Rico. Previously we received visits from persons in Poland, France, England, Romania and South Africa. We are linked on a site in England, and linked on a Polish speaking site. I'm particularly pleased since we have made no effort to publicize the site in foreign countries. The world shrinks a little more each passing day.