The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

The University of Vermont's Independent Voice Since 1883

The Vermont Cynic

Go West, Young Man

I felt like Father Winter was sending me a message. It was a nasty but to the point message in the form of harsh negative temperatures and back wrenching snow shoveling. “Go West. Goooo West. San Diego…” The whispering voice would wake me up at night and cause me to bolt upright in my bunk.

Go West? San Diego? But there is no slippery ice, mediocre college hockey teams, or overcrowded CATS buses. I kept hearing the voices and soon realized that it was my roommate whispering from the bottom bunk because he wanted a single, but I got the hint.

So, I the honorable Brett Weir III, vagabond at heart, packed up my car and headed West for San Diego. As I drove route 81, I left behind me New England along with all of my worries, the cold weather and my Billy Ray Cyrus tapes.

In the name of Kerouac, I convinced myself that along the way I would study the athletic habits of the America that so many people know so little about.

In Pennsylvania there is a wonderful variety of sports in February. There is hunting for deer with a bow, hunting for deer with a gun, hunting for deer with a bow and a gun at the same time, hunting for moose with a gun, hunting for squirrels with mace- you get the idea. I saw raccoons step in front of trucks hoping to take control of their inevitable fate.

The sports in Tennessee were a little harder to crack than in some other states. I tried to talk to some of the locals about what their leisure time activity but learned too little from the incoherent Southern garble that fell out of their mouth. One word I was able to make out was “Tyson” which made sense because of the Tyson-Etienne fight that took place on Saturday in Memphis.

After the fight Mike Tyson made perhaps the boldest and largest understatement ever made by an upright-walking human being. Jeremy Schapp asked him if he was going to fight again and Tyson said, “I don’t know. I am not going to just be a rocket scientist now.” (You should have a blank expression on your face right now) This is Tennessee sports. In Oklahoma I think that survival is a sport. I didn’t bother to stop to talk, eat, sleep or fill my gas tank so I coasted into Texas after my engine shut off. I was somehow happy to be in Texas in the fronteirland and homestead of America. Texas offers a wide range of sports, all of which involve riding animals.

I took my chances and saddled up to a bull for a crack at bull riding. In order to get the bull to buck the way it does and tosses the rider onto the ground where it can trample him the cowboys shock the bull’s testicles with a tazer. I lasted 2.87 seconds on the bull and threw my hands in the air just to get off the bull. I think they shocked my testicles instead of the bull’s.

After that experience I thought that I should just continue on to California and not run the risk of reliving the Texas incident.

So here I arrived in sunny San Diego which now holds a world of opportunity for me to get wet, wild and even a little dirty. And I might even play some sports too.

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Go West, Young Man