Dear Kid,

Do you like your College Life?

Yes mom. I like my college life.

Do you like to crew a boat?
Do you like to feed a goat?

Yes, I like to crew a boat
but Mama, we don’t have a goat.*

Do you ride your bike to class?
Or do you sit upon your butt?

I ride my bike from here to there,
I ride my bike most everywhere.
I really like to crew a boat,
and when it’s cold, I wear my coat.

Do you get your homework done
or are you having too much fun?
Did you take a quiz today?
Did you pass it anyway?

Would you? Could you? read a book?
Would you? Could you? take a look?

Yes, Mom, I can read a book
and at my notes, I’ll take a look.
I did not have a quiz today,
but I’d have passed it anyway.
And I can study here or there,
Yes, I can study anywhere.

Is your laundry three weeks old?
Is your pizza getting cold?

My laundry isn’t three weeks old, my pizza rarely gets too cold,
I wear a coat to keep me warm,
I take umbrellas in a storm
I eat my breakfast and my lunch
My friends are nice, a real cool bunch.

I’m doing fine, I’m doing well,
And that is all there is to tell.

So please Mom, while I love this stuff
You have to know, enough’s enough.

Happy Birthday, Dr. Seuss!

Love, Mom

*Tune in tomorrow for an explanation of the the goat.

Dear Kid,

If you really want to see crew races, it is (in my opinion) one of those sports best watched on TV with helicopter and speedboat coverage and nifty little computer generated lines that show you how the boats compare. If you want to spend a lovely day outside with occasional bursts of “Here they come…and there they go…” and visit with your kid and his teammates, live if just perfect.

I learned a lot today—you’re teammates (crewmates?) are really nice people (at least the ones I had the opportunity to chat with) and they educated me even before they knew I’d brought brownies. Very classy people. For example, I did not know that – in addition to yelling helpful things like “row, dagnabit!” – the coxswain controls the rudder and has other nifty little levers to control the pitch of the boat. Favorite thing I learned today: the coxswains (is that the correct plural?) use a cox box – the microphone system – so that the crew can hear them. I love whoever came up with the term.

Deciding that there might be other things about the sport I didn’t know, I consulted my good friend the internet. Rowing is a positively ancient sport (they didn’t call it crew then, primarily because no one spoke English). Amenhotep II was “renowned for his feats of oarsmanship”. Don’t ask what “feats of oarsmanship” means. I copied it from Wikipedia so it must be true, but it sounds like something out of an X-rated movie.

As I was walking around yesterday, I heard someone (from another school) checking about oars for each of the rowers in an 8 man scull. “So that’s wood, wood, rubber, rubber, wood, right?” I assume he was asking about handles, but if that doesn’t sound like it belongs in the same movie, I don’t know what would. Or wood.

The sport itself makes crazy physical demands on the athletes. You get in trouble for looking at the river banks (from the coxswain, not the officials), because it throws off the boat (and presumably your concentration) so there is no waving to mom on the sidelines riverbanks. You have to be athletic on land as well as in the water, because the rowers carry the boats, flipping them upside down, and then right side up. I think Synchronized Boat Moving should be an Olympic sports. It’s really very impressive to watch.

Most races are too long to be a real sprint but too short to be marathon-like. According to my research (ha), rowers therefore have to have some of the highest power outputs of athletes in any sport. Physiologists claim that rowing a 2,000-meter race – equivalent to 1.25 miles – is equal to playing back-to-back basketball games. Without the dribbling.

Breathing is important in rowing. OK, it’s important to all of us. To be more specific, the rowing motion compresses the rowers’ lungs, limiting oxygen, so rowers have to learn to take two breaths per stroke to avoid becoming dead weight.

There appear to be different philosophies regarding hat wearing during races. There are the Wear Hats and the Don’t Wear hats. Both groups seem to be getting along well (but not in the same boat) and their disagreement over headgear has not shut down the governing body of The Sport of Rowing. Perhaps our government could take a lesson from our oar-wielding friends. (Sorry, I am now Official Annoyed by the government shutdown and what it is doing to families. We now return to our regularly scheduled blog.)

Rowers are the third largest U.S. delegation (48 athletes) to the Olympic Games. Right behind Track & Field and Olympic Pin Collecting.

Dr. Benjamin Spock, the famous baby doctor, was an Olympic rower in 1924. Didn’t think I could connect babies and rowing, did you?

Congrats on the great win yesterday. It was wonderful seeing you, even briefly. Take care of those paws now that the season is over.

Love, Mom

Dear Kid, 

Rumor has it you are headed to Pittsburgh tomorrow for the regatta (good luck, kiddo!). Since I’m guessing you will be Quite Busy and are unlikely to have time for sightseeing, I thought I’d provide you with a guided tour of Pittsburgh—minus the guide and minus the tour.

Pittsburgh was named in 1758, chartered as a city in 1816, and is currently the 13 largest city in the nation. It lost the “h” in it’s name for a while but after a big kerfuffle the “h” was returned. Pittsburgh (note the “h”) is also known as Steel City, Iron City, and the City of Bridges.

Pittsburgh does not have a professional crew team. The city does however boast three rivers (extra points if you can name all three) so it would seem like an excellent place for professional crew-ing to begin.

There are about 6 zillion “firsts” for Pittsburgh.

Pittsburgh hosted the first NHL regular season hockey game played outdoors at night, January 1, 2011. You probably already knew that.

Pittsburgh boasts the first Ferris wheel, the first commercial radio station in the world, the first performance of the Ice Capades, and the first pull tab cans (for which many non-profit fundraising committees are grateful).

The city was home to the first bingo game (but I can find no substantiation that the song “There was a farmer had a dog and Bingo was his name-o” was written there). The first gas station opened there—which raises the question: which came first the automobile or the gas station? Answer: the egg.

The Oakland section of Pittsburgh is the real “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood.” The show was broadcast from WQED, the first public educational television station in America. Fred Rogers lived just around the corner. He did not travel to work by trolley, but he may have been one of the nicest people on the entire planet as far as I can tell.

The banana split and the Klondike bar (what would you doo-ooo-oo) were invented in Pittsburgh. Pittsburghians (Pittsburghites? Pitt People?) invented the Pittsburgh salad, and being that kind of mom, I am going to share the recipe with you: take any salad and put French fries on top. Pittsburgarians are very big on putting French fries onto and into everything.

The polio vaccine was developed by Dr. Jonas Salk at the University of Pittsburgh. The first retractable dome was installed in Pittsburgh. (You probably knew that too.)

And here, my favorite college student, is my favorite Pittsburgh fact: the first internet emoticon, the smiley : – ) colon dash closed parenthesis, was invented in Pittsburgh. I kid you not.

There are lots of other facts and firsts about the Burgh, but we will have to save them for another time.

Have a great visit to Pennsylvania. Travel safely. Row strong. Have fun.

🙂

Love, Mom

Pittsburgh is located at the confluence of the Allegheny, Ohio, and Monongahela rivers.

Dear Kid, 

As you know, I am fascinated by all things scientific especially if there are limited facts involved. Listening to you talk about your workouts for crew led me to extreme research on why things happen differently when I go to the gym and when you go to the gym. I am now ready to report my findings.

Ahem.

The Difference Between a Studly College Dude (you) and Mom (me) When Working Out. By Me.

You get ready to work out. Your brain snaps to attention, ready to go.

I get ready to work out. My brain just snaps.

You arrive at the gym, dressed and ready, and go straight to the machines.

I arrive at the gym, head to the locker room, pause to check voicemail, email (both accounts), and texts (nothing new in any of them). Change into workout clothes, check technology again (nada). Brush hair, consider whether to take a book or headphones with me, check technology, reply to one email, and finally head to the machines.

You get on the rower. Immediately, calories start running around your body, building muscle and throwing excess fat overboard in the most efficient way possible.

I get on the elliptical. Immediately, calories start dialing itty bitty cell phones reminding each other not to move and telling fat cells they are welcome to stay as long as they like and no one is being forced to become (ick) muscle if they don’t want to.

Five minutes into the workout you have burned 4,827 calories.

Five minutes into the workout I have burned 3 calories.

Twenty minutes into your workout you look like a sweating cross-fit champion.

Twenty minutes into my workout two trainers are discussing whether to call the paramedics.

End of the work out: you feel tired but great.

End of my workout: I’m wondering if I should accept the trainers’ offer to assist me back to the locker room.

For your next meal, you consume two pizzas, a portion of chicken lo mein, a side of broccoli, and a piece of apple pie.

For my next meal, I nibble three lettuce leaves and drink a glass of water.

Results for you: muscle growth and development and you’re back working out the next day.

Results for me: weight gain of 6 pounds and I won’t be able to move on my own for a week.

Enjoy your youth, kid.

Happy September

Love, Mom