No Sleep 'Til Wisconsin! (Pt. 4: Bilbos and Blondes)

TODAY'S QUESTION FOR COMMENTING: What are your thoughts on Rod Stewart, the man and/or the music? Favorite song? Feelings about the hair? The mole? Chime in at the bottom, after the post, or just say hi if you're feeling shy. -- Erin :)

October 2006, Chicago, Illinois
(Continued from Thursday's pt. 3 post.)

At first glance, as I strolled through downtown Evanston on my way to the record stores, everything looked pretty much as I left it. There were the oddball, old-school stores, with signs reading “The Shaver Shop of Evanston” and “Birkenstock Repair.” Places like that always made me wonder: How do you make a living repairing an item most people consider disposable and/or too ugly to be worn by anyone except doped up hippies?

Next I passed Le Peep, the breakfast restaurant where I first met my college roommate. She was from the nearby suburb of Morton Grove, a pitcher for the Northwestern softball team, and a journalism major like me. She was also, it seemed, one of the first blonde people I’d ever known. (Really.) When she sent me her photo the summer before freshman year, I was genuinely shocked, like a malfunctioning Erinbot: “Beep beep, human beings are supposed to have brown hair. Does not compute! Malfunction!”

I thought this, I’m sure, because there were a grand total of 11 white people in my senior class photo of about 200 (as we stood on the risers by the Travis High soccer field on photo day, some of us got bored and actually counted). Most of the white kids probably had brown hair, too. I remember at least one was bald. Needless to say, at Northwestern, I was not in South Austin, Texas, anymore. It took me a while to think of all the upper-middle class white kids at college as “like me,” even though, technically, they totally were.

That was 1996. Now it was ten years later and I was walking by Le Peep once again. And I’ll be damned if somehow an exact replica of my old roommate didn’t just jog right past me! It was uncanny. Same tall, muscular body type and high-swept blonde ponytail. Same running shorts and hooded sweatshirt. Same string backpack. I almost called out her name. However, the eerie flashback was cut short by what can only be called the Classic College Conversation.

“C.S. Lewis was a creative guy,” I heard someone behind me say. “But he’s no Mike Krzyzewski."

Did I hear that right? Were the guys behind me on the sidewalk comparing the author of the Chronicles of Narnia to the longtime coach of the Duke University basketball team (a man who, come on, should really just start spelling his name “Shhshesky” and put us out of our misery)? Of course they weren't. But that's what it sounded like so I'm going with it.

“Tolkien’s the one who’s really got the goods,” Guy #1 went on. “He invented his own language.”

“Well, it’s a combination of, like, seven other tongues,” Guy #2 countered. “Cuz you just can’t do that anymore – invent a language by yourself.”

G#1: “Yeah,”
G#2: “Yeah.”

Thankfully, Dr. Wax record store was just around the corner and I parted ways from Mr. Dungeons and Mr. Dragons before they could start debating which hobbit is the hottest. And speaking of hot, as soon as I entered the store, I was faced with a life-size, stand-up cut out of Rod Stewart, he of all the luck and all the pain. In the giant photo, Rod is wearing leopard fur boots, jeans, a button-down denim shirt, and a floor-length brown leather duster. I repeat: A FLOOR-LENGTH LEATHER DUSTER!

I once had lunch with my friends Kirk, Carolyn, and Andrea, wherein the girls told me Kirk still owns a duster and thinks it looks good on him. Kirk did not deny this, and Carolyn, his wife, vehemently disagreed with his assessment. For my part, at the mere conjunction of the words “Kirk” and “duster,” I choked on my water, sprayed it on the floor to the side of our booth, and had to excuse myself to the restroom to give myself a makeshift Heimlich.

This Rod Stewart duster was almost as amusing/sickening. Rod had both hands deep in his jean pockets, so deep that he appeared to be grabbing his own junk through the denim. Indeed, the smirk on his moley face said, “Yeah, I’m grabbing my junk. And?” Which is pretty much what you're saying anyway, when you choose to be photographed and/or go out in public in a duster. I'm sure the ladies will back me up on this one.

(To be continued . . . Tune in next week when I consider cooking with Ted Nugent and the declining possibility of getting to Wisconsin.