Yea verily--Tis time to retale the tale of "The Booth"--Prologue

End of another semester, and of a career for me, but not of "The Booth," now immortalized in the caricature of me in "my" retirement paper. 

Booth?

'Tis surely time, yea verily,  to retell the tale, for the benefit of the "young-uns" who do not know how "booth" became a verb, and while we still, every time we meet to imbibe, toast "To Bob," not with saddness but with much revelry and great memories and sayings.
Henceforth and forsooth, here is the beginning of 16 chapters telling that sacred tale, last retold told in 2014. (Note--the booth location twas once Bennigans and now is Old Chicago's--alas the booth plaque, which once hung on the wall of the original booth is no more.)

"Booth" is a verb, a story and reverie

"We need to booth," said a colleague the other day, and we knew what she meant. End of semester. Time to get together for a little adult beverage and toasts and stories and jokes and release from  higher education's tensions, rules and nonsense. 

Boothing, The Illidge, The Clark, cribbage and spirits

But "Booth" has a long history for us in our department, I'd guess about 14 years. I've told this story before on this blog, but realized it has been a decade since my friend Bob Illidge retired, and nine years since he died, most of us attending his funeral in Wichita, Kansas.
After all these years, at this week's booth, here was the first toast: "To Bob." Such is the power of a friendship and a gathering.
So, in his honor, here is the first of about 16 chapters in the story of "The Booth," first written in 2009. I'll post one each day.

From Aug. 9, 2009

"Booth is a verb...a love story, prologue"

Once upon a time long ago in a university department, two friends needed to get off campus one afternoon, to get away from the inanity of higher ed, from students who didn’t care, from stupid rules and useless meetings and endless paperwork, from administrators who didn’t care about teaching.
Major universities worth their salt have neighborhood pubs around them for the students, and select ones for the faculty. But not so for where they labored against ignorance, a commuter-oriented university in the midst of a rich religious-right Republican suburb of a government-welfare capital city in a somewhat backward, if friendly, state. And this was grievous indeed for the Irish Catholic, veteran advertising professor whose sense of humor offset the injustices of life. He knew he needed a “little something” to wash away another day. Forsooth, the younger professor and chairman, a recovering tee-totaling fundamentalist, had become an expert over the years in the nonsense of administration, and knew he also needed respite of a liquid kind to keep his sanity.
 

Yea verily, they escaped the halls of mediocrity one day, a cribbage board and cards in hand, and ventured down to a franchise bar and restaurant no more than a half-mile from the austere campus, and found in the back, a booth paneled in dark-stained wood, cushioned with fake green leather, and set off from the rest of the restaurant by fake dark greenery. Then they saw the bartender, a cheerful, bosomy young woman who both knew because she was a student, as with most of theirs, paying her way through college by working long hours in fooderies and drinkeries for cheap pay in hope of good tips.

"To be continued…  "

At year's end--A changing blog

This is the 276th post on this blog this year, bringing to a total of 1,497 posts since I started back in May, 2009...never knowing where this would go.
I still don't, but I notice that I'm posting more watercolors, and less writing as the years go by. But I still avoid politics and most religion, and will continue to do so, not because they're controversial, but because there's so much crap out there already, and nobody is going to change their minds by anything written, so why waste time and space?
Looking back at this year, I had the most posts in May, 50, when I reran the story about my friend Bob Illidge and the Booth, from the first year. This December was next with 33 bolstered as I posted watercolor cards, but they also carried some writing.
Over the years I've posted more photos as well. There have been too many to name favorites, thought the story of the Booth is perhaps my best writing.  I've found many articles I should have written and just didn't take time, or have time to. Unfinished this year were posts on my favorite places in Oklahoma, and restarting my novel. Perhaps for the next year?
A blog should change as its author does, to remain vibrant and alive. I'll admit, my header and profile photos haven't changed in more than a year, and that's because I like what's there--they speak to my spirit. I'm sure they'll change sometime, but not for now. While I have had readers in more than 130 countries, that's not why I do his. In fact, I'm not sure why I do, except something drives me...the old journalist I guess. Plus, I now teach classes in blogging, and I firmly believe you should not teach something if you're not involved in it. The classes keep me going.
For the record, here are the post totals from previous years:

• 2013--252
• 2012--203
• 2011--135
• 2010--292
• 2009--339

I don't know how the blog will change in the future--I still would like to take it to somewhere that might make a little income as I approach retirement. I know there are possibilities out there from  my students' studies of other blogs--the blogosphere is incredibly diverse, and this old dog needs to learn new tricks.
But for now, and signing off on 2014, it'll have to be this traditional post. Happy New Year.

All a-twitter for "Blogstone" for Coffee w/ Clark

Yesterday's "blogstone" for Coffee with Clark

Coffee with Clark reached a "blogstone" yesterday--more than 7,000 page views in a calendar month. That's a long way from May 2009 when it started. And a short and  accelerating way from December, when it passed 5,000, surpassing 6,000 in January.
This month was also the month with the fourth most posts since 2009. Of course, part of those were rerunning the story of the Booth, so maybe that doesn't count, but it did build traffic.
What really catches attention is my @Okieprof Twitter for Journalists #clarkclass. How do I know?
The post about Sara Cowan @DeluxeOK "Thinking in tweets--revolutionaries in #clarkclass" was the most popular of the month so far, with 119 page views.

Here are the numbers:

•  7,039--May page views at early yesterday.
• 6,645--Previous high month, January, 2014

Total page views--136,645, compared to 105,000+in December.

While I've had readers in almost 130 countries, here are the countries with most page views:

	United States 83148 China 5374 Germany 5168 Russia 4660 France 4242 United Kingdom 3140 Ukraine 2799 Canada 1050 Spain 1023 Poland 860
	Blog posts per year 2009--339 2010--292 2011--135 2012--203 2013--252 2014--147 so far Months with most posts August, 2009--76 July, 2009--70 January, 2010--57 May, 2014--48, so far April, 2010--47 December, 2013--39 Day with most page views Dec, 23, 2013--532! A watercolor "Christmas eve journey" Most popular post of all time 2670 page views--All aboard for Bartlesville , October, 2010 (I have no idea why) Actually top six posts of all time include the words "All aboard." Lots of train buffs? My favorite and most creative posts--helping earn the Okie Blog Best Writing in the State Award in 2009  "The Booth is a verb"--More than 10,000 words in multiple chapters telling the story of the booth and my friend, the late Bob Illidge, from 2009, repeated this month.

Toast to the Booth, end of the semester

"Toast to The Booth"

Yea, verily, a fair number of colleagues, some fair, some fairer than others, and some, like The Clark, not so fair, "Boothed" recently, honoring the close of the semester, telling stories, laughing, and washing away the tears and grit and frustrations of micromanaging administrators, higher education's red tape,  and lazy students at UCO.
For those of ye gentiles who may still be ignorant of the ways, and the story of the Booth and how Booth is a verb, The Clark urges you to read the several preceding chapters on this blog.
While the location of the Booth has changed, and continues to be fluid as the beverages served, know ye well that the  first toast of the evening will  be "To Bob," co-founder of "The Booth" in 2002. 
Friend, colleague, worthy cribbage opponent, and heart of the old Journalism Department, Bob Illidge who died nine years ago, is since toasted and remembered with laughter and stories and tears every time we "Booth," and often when we don't, as long as there is a nearby "adult beverage" as he would call it.
Herewith is attached a small watercolor, in honor of all those Booths past, and to come.

Interlude--The Illidge Rap

From September, 2009

Flashback, Written by The Clark for his retirement ten years ago:

Rap for Illidge
Illidge is the ad man
Bob’s gonna retire man
Illidge makes us sad man
Goin’ down to the wire man
Illidge is so bad man
Cause he’s the ad man
UH huh, uh huh, uh huh!

It’s no fad man,
Illidge is the ad man
Don’t make’m mad man.
Show up on time man
So this will rhyme man
Cause he’s the ad man
Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh!

Illidge is rad man,
His school’s Notre Dame’s man
Ad Hall of fame man
Don’t be a fool man
Illidge is so cool man
Cause he’s the ad man
Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.

It’s the Illidge decade man
Won’t ever fade man
UCO’s been the place man
Where Illidge set the pace man
We’ll miss his face man
Cause he’s the ad man
Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh!

He’s got a Kansas pad man
Illidge gonna be missed man
Don’t be pissed man
Bob’s been feared man
It ain’t the beard man
Cause Illidge is the ad man.
Uh huh, uh huh, uh huh.

When we heard that Illidge
Was going back to his village
Just want to Loot and Pillage,
Don’t want to play no cribbage
Cause the ad man is Illidge

Don’t be a sap man
Lissen to the rap man
Illidge is the ad man.
Un huh, uh huh, uh huh.

Illidge is the aaaaaad maaaaan. Uh Huh!

The booth, chapter 1, the story retold

Ye olde, and actual, cribbage board of "The Booth"

From five years ago, on the blog, The Booth, chapter 1, because these words have high import


Chapter 1
"And on the first day of the booth, commencing at 4 p.m. one sunny fall day, which was unremarkable and unmemorable to the profs as the years passed, they joked and the Illidge taught the Clark how to play cribbage…a game of cards and counting and moving pegs in holes endlessly around a board…somewhat like teaching in college, and certainly like being an administrator, other than it was fun. As the afternoon unfolded, with only grading to be done for tomorrow, the two shared war stories. Under the watchful eye of the bosmy student-bartender however, they would not share their preferred refreshments of vodka on one hand, and rum and coke on the other, which helped them forget the frustrations and stresses of higher education.
"Lo, the Illidge, since he knew the rules, soundly thrashed the Clark in the card games, though the cards, dealt repeatedly for two hours, perchance did get sticky from their glasses’ condensation circles.. And in spite of several games and matching drinks, after generous tips, it is well reported that both were able to drive home safely, vowing to return. Henceforth, though they knew it not, the one-sided results of the card games, as well as their exclusive occupation of the booth, would not always be so.
"On the morrow, as was their habit, they arrived early in the less-than-august halls of the university, yea, before most academics and administrators had even heard alarm clocks. It was, as it were, an unsaid competition between them, to see who would be first to start the coffee. Whoever was second would be greeted with insults, as in “It’s nice you came to work this afternoon.”
"Then they would sit, in the pre-dawn darkness of the day, office lights not turned on, sipping coffee, dozing, sighing, thinking, occasionally exchanging words, but not constantly yammering as women, about issues and events of the day, but mainly enjoying the silence, the quiet. Until of course, the sun slowly came up, illuminating the aging clock tower of the university with its hands slowly, if ever ticking, as time slid by. Then the Queen bee of the department arrived, early as was her habit, unlocked the department office door, flipped on the lights, to the dismay of the optical pupils of the professors, and their outcry.
"Lo, then the Illidge exclaimed to the fair Queen, even boasting, about his previous afternoon’s conquest of the Clark in cribbage. And the Clark could only cower that first day. And the Queen, with the exalted reputation of Dr. Sump, did nothing to assuage the stories, nor mitigate, nor even lessen them, much less deny them. So then the word of the Illidge spread, abetted by the Queen's royal reputation and humor, that there was this spot, this time when there was respite from campus control, from inane dithering, from the Clark’s type-A attitude—a veritable air-conditioned, and thoughtful oasis in the midst of Oklahoma aridity.
"To be continued…"

Blog favorites on the birthday

At Black Mesa, March, 2012

Those of you who read this blog, which is now five years old, know I have some favorite topics.
Watercolors, art, traveling, New Mexico, books, family, trains, writing, a little religion. So as I started looking back over these 48 months of blogging, several articles and postings stood out. Here are my favorites.
My favorite--Best writing, humor, mingled with fun and tears--"Booth is a verb--A Love story," which stretched to more than 10,000 words in several posts over two months in August and September, 2009. Here's the link to the first episode, http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/2009/08/booth-is-verba-love-story-prologue.html
Travel--lots of these but three are my favorites. First was a tie-- several posts about the USS Abraham Lincoln sailing from San Diego to Everett Washington in April 2011, thanks to former student and officer Steve Curry. When I was summarizing travel since the blog started, I left this out, and should have listed "Pacific." Sorry Steve. Here's the link to the opening post of seven about that "Pirate Proof Cruise" as I called it. http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/2011/04/tiger-cruise-part-one.html.
I'd be hard up to rank it ahead of several posts a year ago this month, on our trip to Alaska...one of the items on my bucket list. Here's the first of 13  posts  in May and June with photos and video and writing. Here's the first link: http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/2012/05/alaska-itinerary.html
Also at the top of the list, or near it, was the flight I took on a WWII B-17 bomber on D-Day, 2010. Brother in law Jim Henry and I each paid $300 for the flight over Oklahoma City. They wouldn't let me bomb Republican headquarters, but the posting includes video as well as photos. What fun for a fan of WWII aircraft. Here's the link to one of about four related posts that month: http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/search/label/B-17
Other favorites in travel included the trip to India, in March 2011, and to hike Black Mesa in Oklahoma in March, 2012, each with several posts and photos.  http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/2011/03/flight-timeindia-journal-thoughts-i.html
http://clarkcoffee.blogspot.com/2012/03/to-top-of-oklahoma-and-back.html
Then there are other blog favorites, like humorous conversations with God on tenure, heaven's bar, and church services--check the months of Feb., 2010., Oct, 2011 and July, 2012.
Too many paintings, book reviews , photos and family history, and New Mexico to share. Yes, it's multimedia, but after all these years, it practices what I preach...you have to have good writing first. Thanks for reading. More to come.