They bewent thataway

Last night a handful of intrepid Sailors arrived at the chez in a light mist and left an hour later into a raging blizzard. The weather around here has been, shall we say, a little punk.

Lakeland is this weekend, and in this regard a day or so ago Stefan sent out a message saying, to wit, “Snow? What snow? I look snow in the eye and tell it begone, and that sucker turns tail and begoes! There will be no snow at Lakeland. Don’t even think about it.”

This was followed the next day by a message, “The weather looks slightly worse than originally thought, but the powers that be here in the Land of Lakes insist that we will hold this tournament this weekend at any cost.” Which is odd, because it’s free, and therefore there isn’t any cost. He goes on. “If we have to we’ll start late on Friday, or Saturday, or Sunday. We’re tough here in the Land of Lakes!”

The most recent message reminded us that the original Lakeland Tournament, in 1912, was conducted on the Titanic. All of the policy teams went down with the ship during their 1NCs of round 4. The LDers, on the other hand, misunderstood the “women and children first” announcement and practically stampeded to the lifeboats where, on hearing that they actually did qualify as children, they refused to board, insisting that no child in anyone’s memory had even understood the social contract they way they did (this was before theory and kritiks replaced philosophy and ethics with smoke and mirrors), and thus they too went down with the ship, leaving only a handful of Declamation freshmen to survive the ordeal. The Unsinkable Lakeland Tournament, as it has ever since been known, insists that no iceberg, on land or sea, will ever stop it again.

As for me, I’m betting on the likelihood of a bus from Sailordom to the Land of Lakes on Friday is pretty small, and have instructed the ABs to secure some transportation in advance, just in case. I’m wondering if the entire LD division will just be me and O’C in tab listening to my four-album set of “It’s a Small World” outtakes.