Dear Friends,
Welcome to fall in a college town. I always love meeting a new crop of students at UC Davis.
Do students come in “crops”? Perhaps Aggies do, reflecting our agricultural roots as a former farm school for UC Berkeley. We first started offering courses in 1908, raised the Farm School admissions age to 18 in 1913 (when we had 123 undergraduates here – where did they all sleep?), and started admitting women farmers in 1918.
By 1924, 100 years ago, we had 2,000 volumes in our library. Coincidentally, that was about the size of my library when I moved to Davis to start graduate studies in 1990. During my first of many book purges, I inscribed a different book to each of my introduction to literature students, and presented them their presents on the final day of class.
Years later, one of those former literature students named Chris came by to say how much he appreciated owning a copy of the experimental 1959 William S. Burroughs novel The Naked Lunch, but that he appreciated the message I had written to him even more.
The Burroughs book was banned in the United States in 1962, and likely again more recently in Florida. I inferred from my student Chris that he hadn’t actually read past my inscription, so in this case I could not be accused of corrupting this particular youth with an assigned, recommended, or gifted work of literature.
Back to UC Davis, in 1928, the year our yearbook was renamed El Rodeo, Celeste Turner Wright became the first tenured woman faculty member and the first Ph.D. in humanities at what would become UC Davis. I knew Professor Wright, then an emerita, back when I had 2,000 books in my library, a few of them hers. She funded the Celeste Turner Wright Poetry Prize, won by my classmate Jan Van Stavern. In addition to cash, back then the winner also received a tea with Celeste.
Fast-forwarding a few decades, Stanley Freeborn became our first Chancellor in 1958, and then UC Davis was named our seventh University of California in 1959, the year Freeborn retired. He died the next year, so the retirement was short, but the new UC Davis named is gathering hall after him in 1960.
I’ve gathered there many times over the decades, for concerts, events, and talks, in Freeborn Hall. Now it stands empty above ground, with just a couple campus units left in the basement, including KDVS. I suspect that the building hasn’t been razed yet because KDVS objected to leaving its 50+ year home at 14 Lower Freeborn until an equivalent space could be found. See this 2018 California Aggie article about the announced demolition.
Former Davis Enterprise columnist Bob Dunning has spent many more years in Davis than almost anyone, and this means he can provide context on the obituaries of all the old-timers. But after 24 years of hosting a weekly radio show at KDVS, I have likely spent more time in (or under) Freeborn Hall than he has.
I bet that neither Freeborn nor Wright nor Dunning experienced many triple-digit October afternoons during the time that they were affiliated with UC Davis, but now the heat is on. Luckily, I have found the basement of Freeborn Hall to be subterraneanly cool, a perfect place for underground radio. Certainly I never feel cooler, in temperature and in spirit, than when I am hosting conversations with poets on KDVS.
I hope you find your own ways of remaining cool and connected during our overheated start to October.
Please plan to partake in the Pub Quiz festivities on this overheated evening at Sudwerk in Davis. Bring your team to the beautiful outdoor patio where the misters will be misting and where we have room for almost everyone. The jollity will be unfiltered. As Albert Schweitzer said, “Happiness is the only thing that multiplies when you share it.” I encourage you to come early to snag a table. We filled the restaurant and patio last week, and I expect that we will continue to do so throughout the school year and beyond. Also, tonight I plan to move the quiz along quickly — the entire quiz is only 888 words long!
In addition to topics raised above, tonight’s pub quiz will feature questions on ice cream, tattoos, civil rights, blades, famous rural studies, surreal ornithology, acids, colorful travelers and workers, city nicknames, hospitals, muscular hearts, humanitarians, area codes, bad math jokes, counts, internet memes, halls of fame, censorship, heights, hit songs, lucky protagonists, stickiness, connectivity technologies, U.S. states, unbreakable records, cheese, troubling performances, deflated team leaders, people whose first names start with the letter J, emperors, musical interruptions, Barry Goldwater, words with three T’s in them, provinciality, prime numbers, actor/singers, shoes, Star Wars, large lakes, current events, books and authors, and Shakespeare.
Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Thanks especially to new subscribers Janet, Jasmine, Joey, Carly, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank, such as Sophie. I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining and politically astute Mavens who keep attending, despite their ambitious travel schedules, and others who support the Pub Quiz on Patreon (where I am also sometimes sharing drafts of poems, including one this week about my move to California in 1989). I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of supporters. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
Best,
Dr. Andy
P.S. Here are three pub quiz questions from last week:
- Great Americans. Who voiced both Yoda and Ms. Piggy?
- Unusual Words. What five-syllable noun do we use for something appearing in a time period where it does not belong?
- The US Army. Jeff Monken is the highest-paid employee in the U.S. Army. What is his job title?
P.P.S. The Poetry Night Reading Series is excited to feature an evening with renowned Polish poet Kacper Bartczakat 7 PM on Thursday, October 3rd, 2024, on the first floor of the John Natsoulas Gallery, 521 1st Street in Davis.