Bullion only, please

Bump: Aside from sending regular hysterical messages to CP, I’ve got everything under control. I’ve finally got room lists from the Powers that Sail, registration is nicely closed (except for last minute tinkering that people will be doing), I’ve begun uncrating this year’s Jon Cruz Award, there’s a growing pile of especially crappy prizes in the chez living room. If we could only scare up some more housing slots…

Meanwhile, there’s the Montwegian MHL this Saturday. Once again the biggest problem is our inability to scare up Pfffter teams. What is it about the northeast that keeps coaches from feeding their young into this activity? Although I personally feel that a little debate experience in LD is a good start, by sophomore year I’m fine with people being PFers rather than LDers. But I’m not getting any real Sailor traction on this any more than anyone else. On the other hand, invitational PF pools do seem to be growing, albeit slowly. I sold out all the Pfffft slots at Bump this year, with enough waitlist to keep me at my maximum. This is a first. The Parker House (“It too is more than just a roll”) had more than last year. I think Manchester-Under-the-Sea increased their field size. Maybe it’s just at MHLs that it’s really a problem. But I detect a lot of schools are still using PF as the place to send people when LD fills up. That’s okay when launching a new activity, but we’ve been at this for a while now. Am I missing some inherent flaw in the activity that’s keeping it down? Or is it just that, regionally, growth has been small? Beats me. (Of course, I was once accused of being part of the problem because I never referred to it as PF but always with a funny nickname. I would respond that it needs to grow up enough to take a joke. But this is a minor issue.)

I’m still not sure how many novices are among the Sailors yet. The stalwart plebes remain stalwart, but the faint of heart continue to claim that they are as stalwart as the next plebe, despite the fact that we never see them because they are fighting diseases for which there is neither a known cure, a known cause, nor any symptoms, or they can’t figure out how to sign up for the listserver (never a good sign after a couple of years of trying and failing), or the moon is in Pisces tonight so I’ll catch ya when I catch ya… Then again, one milestone achieved despite the march of faint of heart off the bridge to nowhere was that at least one of the stalwarts has started reading this blog; I think she said it was a painless way to kill five minutes. Thanks. Then again, they might start reading here hoping that they’ll get a nickname, and then the next thing you know they’ll start repeatedly acting in some singularly adverbial or adjectival fashion so that I’ll recognize their chief trait and let metonymy do the rest. This is easier said than done. It’s worked for Stealth, certainly, but Good Old Alli and He Who Struves have been through so many nicknames that one begins to sense that they will always be known by the names they were originally given rather than names they have gone out and earned: God forbid that either of them ever sets out on a vision quest. In any case, with so few plebes this year, remembering their names has not been a problem, and thus one of the root causes of Sailor nicknames has been removed. It’s probably a good thing if I don’t have to call you Shorty or Stinky from the getgo. These names are too easy to earn, unlike Stealth, which takes a lifetime of flying under the radar even when there isn’t any radar. A nickname worth its salt sticks with one for life, and is not merely the result of skipping bath night last Saturday. Be adverbial. Be adjectival. I am watching. But we need to let nature take its course.

(If you are not an official Sailor and would like your very own official Coachean nickname, please send $20 in gold to this blog, and we’ll see what we can do.)