Tomorrow night is the beginning-of-the-year faculty/staff banquet at Carthage, and I’m one of the faculty being honored for 15 years of service to the college. In anticipation of the ceremony and to give President Campbell something fun and interesting to say about each of us, we’re sent a brief survey in which- among other things- we’re supposed to share something surprising about ourselves. Being Mr. Verbose, I listed three things . . . all pretty tepid. (One is that my first name is David- whoa!!!! – and another is that the first record album I bought with my own money was Diana Ross & the Supremes “I hear a Symphony.” Stop the Presses!!!!) I could think of dozens of other surprises with a lot more zing, but I do have my reputation to consider- and I was especially worried that something might possibly get lost in the translation. (I was also mindful of the fact that it would be President Campbell himself reading them aloud – and to the rest of the faculty. Erring on the side of caution seemed like the only option.)
But here’s three lively surprises about Greg Berg. . . or at least lively compared to “my first name is David.”
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1) As a young teenager, I was a rabid fan of roller derby. I hadn’t thought about this in years until yesterday, when (much to my amazement) NPR’s Morning Edition included a report on modern-day roller derby. In the wink of an eye, I was back in junior high school, planted in front of our TV on Sunday afternoons, watching my beloved Los Angeles Thunderbirds skate against the Texas Outlaws, New York Bombers, Philadelphia Warriors, or whoever their opponents that week happened to be. And more than 35 years later, I can still rattle off the names and numbers of my favorite skaters: Honey Sanchez, #10… Julie “Ace” Patrick, #4… Judy Sowinski, #5…. Joanie Weston, #7…. and especially Earlene Brown, #747. (Only years later did I learn that this 250-pound African-American woman had won a bronze medal in the shot put in the 1960 Olympics.) Talk about retaining utterly useless information for no conceivable reason! I was about to rattle off the rules for roller derby as well, but will leave you to Wikipedia if you really want to know what it’s all about. Suffice to say that roller derby- especially when I was watching it so rabidly back in the early 70’s- was much more about loosely scripted entertainment rather than pure sports, sort of like professional wrestling on roller skates. But to me at the time it was all completely authentic. I still recall the day when my mom insisted that these skaters- who appeared to hate each others guts on the track and to nearly kill each other- probably went out to dinner together once the match was over. I very clearly remember looking at her and thinking to myself “you are so dumb! How you could possibly think that the Los Angeles Thunderbirds and Texas Outlaws would suddenly become friends?!?! Ridiculous!” I’m glad I kept those thoughts to myself, and of course I eventually learned that my mom was right about most things….. including, as it turns out, roller derby.
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2)I once purchased a magazine in an adult bookstore. Before you contact your church’s prayer chain on my behalf to pray for my soul, let me explain. The magazine in question was “World Tennis” – and I remember that it was from the sumer of 1977 because Virginia Wade was on the cover for having just won Wimbledon. What happened was that I was in downtown Minneapolis while on tour with the Now Disciples, a contemporary Christian group I sang with during high school. And when we had a little free time one morning, my one and only goal was to find the new issue of World Tennis. And when I saw a store that said BOOKS AND MAGAZINES! (the exclamation point should have been a clue) I walked right in with no idea what kind of store it actually was. To my credit, there was a rack with regular old magazines right inside the door, and they did indeed have World Tennis. But on my way to the cash register, I started realizing that this was not exactly a B. Dalton Bookstore. But for some reason, I didn’t feel comfortable putting down the magazine and stomping out of there, so I went ahead and bought my World Tennis, averting my eyes as best I could and trying not to turn twelve shades of crimson. And when my little escapade was done, I’m pretty sure I didn’t keep it a secret from the group; that would have somehow made it seem like some sort of shameful misdeed rather than a hilariously dumb mistake on my part – one never, never, never to be repeated.
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3) When I was little, I ate dirt- by the handful. I have learned since that the scientific term for this is Geophagy – and is related to the more general term Pica, which refers to a human’s abnormal craving for non-food items. I hoped that tracking down the scientific terms for this would make it seem a little less strange, but it doesn’t. (If anything, it makes me feel even more like a martian than I already did.) And by the way, I’ve gone through several periods in my life – especially during college and graduate school – when I ate paper. My best friend Marshall still laughs about the incident in which I ate the entire back cover off of my Schirmer book of Schubert songs – although typically I would be perfectly happy with regular old notebook paper. But that doesn’t weird me out nearly as much as the handfuls of dirt which I ate right out of my dad’s garden back in Colton, South Dakota. My folks were taken aback, as you might well imagine, and asked their doctor about it. But good old Dr. Devick said that I was apparently needing a little extra of some sort of nutrient that I was finding in the dirt, and he told them not to be unduly worried about it. And I’m not sure exactly when or why or how, but my taste for dirt did eventually subside, never (it would seem) to return.
There you have it: three things you maybe didn’t know about Greg Berg and might find a bit surprising. And here’s one more:
My first name is David!
pictured above: I Googled Los Angeles Thunderbirds and found a website which had team photos from their heyday, including the years 1972-1974 when I was an avid fan. My family gets a big laugh over my hit-and-miss memory (which is probably missing more than it’ s hitting, nowadays) but my memory of these roller derby stars was right on the money! Too bad I don’t remember the stuff that matters as clearly as I remember all this dumb junk!