BULLDOGS, TREES AND TIGERS

People who ask me what I do these days, as I have now been retired for more than 20 years and live in a seniors' community.  I say that I continue to try to save Humanity and Planet Earth, and watch Netflix.  While the pandemic has limited actually doing anything away from home, I have truly enjoyed a fine life of enhanced cuisine, liberal amounts of alcohol, some exercise and time in bed, mostly sleeping.

The following photo is typical.  Bloody Mary with an assortment of snacks, plus a salad.

I particularly enjoy a variety of Korean series, as you can see above.  However, last night I stumbled across something entitled Dogs.  I was being nice to view the first episode, but surprisingly enjoyed it.  So I went to Rotten Tomatoes and saw that their reviewers gave it a 92 score.

Turned out what I saw was from season 2, which began last year.  So far, only four programs available, but Season 1 had 6 episodes, each with a running time of around 50 minutes.

Much Ado about Blue had to do with Butler University's mascot, an aging English bulldog named Trip, weighing in at 65 pounds, who was approaching retirement, while his handler faced a risky kidney transplant.  Their school store sells a lot of his merchandise.

Butler, of course, is that smallish Indianapolis liberal institution with around 5,500 students, most known for basketball.  He was profiled by ESPN as the star of the Butler Bulldogs.  Summits are held with Georgetown's bulldog mascots.

Trip is Butler Blue III, and the school pays two people to take care of him.  He has a full schedule that takes him all over the place, even road games, much as Joe Biden.  Made a big hit at the Indianapolis 500 raceway.  It early became obvious that these bulldogs slobber a lot, and eat too much ice cream.

In case you were wondering, our universities have 43 bulldog mascots.  Why?  They look fierce, but are good with people.  Yale was the first in 1890.  Division one athletics have 14 bulldogs and 13 tigers.

Note that Tigers have won the most national championships.  I went to McKinley High School in Honolulu, which had a tiger mascot.

Then I went on to Stanford, called the Indians.

They had an early conscience and removed the Indian mascot 50 years ago.  Prince Lightfoot (Timm Williams of the Yorok tribe) spent two decades in this role.  Some institutions haven't learned this lesson:  Don't ask your students to select your mascot.  At Stanford in 1975 they chose Robber Barons.  Their founder, Leland Stanford, made a fortune from railroads in the mid-1800s, and qualified as such in this Gilded Age.

Of course many universities have ridiculous mascots.  

Of these purposefully insane examples, BuffFan picks the Stanford Tree as the most bizarre:

In 1978 the students filed another petition and thought Griffin was ideal.  However, in 1981 President Donald Kennedy instead picked Cardinals (the color, not bird), which only came in fourth, also beaten out by Sequoias and Trees.  But this was only for the team name.  

No mention of a mascot.  The Stanford Band years earlier ran through halftime football shows pushing the Steaming Manhole and French Fry, finally settling on the Tree as the unofficial mascot.  Now this has a colorful history:

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  First, you need to know the history of the Stanford Axe, which in 1899 came with a cheer:

Give 'em the axe, the axe, the axe!
Give 'em the axe, the axe, the axe!
Give 'em the axe, give 'em the axe,
Give 'em the axe, where?

Right in the neck, in the neck, in the neck!
Right in the neck, in the neck, in the neck!
Right in the neck, right in the neck,
Right in the neck! There!

• 
  After a baseball game University of California students stole it.  31 years later in 1930 Stanford stole the Axe back.  All in all, Cal has purloined it 3 times, with 4 for Stanford.
• The Axe is now bestowed to the winner of the football Big Game.
• 
  Well, anyway, during this transition period of the Tree, on came The Play, where on the final play of the 1982 game, the Stanford Band, believing the game was over, ran onto the field, standing in the way a touchdown run by Cal.

• 
  So in 1987 the Tree costume was stolen by Cal, and the ransom note offered to exchange it back for Oski the Bear, which Stanford had stolen in 1986.  The Stanford Band instead chose to create a new Tree costume every year.
• There have been scuffles, as in a 1995 basketball game the Stanford Tree and Oski Bear got into a fistfight.  Oski's headpiece was removed, for the first showing the identify of the student, the first time since the beginning a half century earlier.
• In 2006, Erin Lashnits, inside the Tree, was suspended by Berkeley police for drinking in public.  She was found to be 0.157, double the legal limit to drive.

• 
  Okay, let's face it, the Tree is ridiculous, campy, dumb and embarrassing.
• Why Tree?  There are 43,000+ trees of over 400 species, 150 genera and sixty families on campus.  I can still remember the smell of eucalyptus.  Here is a particularly fragrant Jacaranda on the Inner Quad.

But that's not all.  I went to Louisiana State University for my PhD in biochemical engineering.  We have Mike the Bengal Tiger, now up to Mike VII.  LSU adopted the Tiger nickname in 1896, after Robert E. Lee's two brigades in New Orleans.  

• 
  The first Mike was purchased from the Little Rock Zoo in 1935, using 25 cents/student for $750.  Originally called Sheik, Mike the First was renamed in honor of LSU's athletic trainer Mike Chambers.
• In the 1950s Mike I was kidnapped by Tulane fans before a football game.
• He lived 20 years and in came Mike II in 1956, again, paid for by students.
• I was there for Mike III, who had an 18-year reign, passing away in 1976 after the only losing LSU football season in his life.
• After Mike V passed away, PETA tried to get the university to stop doing this.  The reason given was that most of the Mikes live at at least 17 years of age, twice the normal lifespan of tigers in the wild.

• 
  In 2005, the cage became a 15,000 square feet $3 million natural habitat.
• Mike VII, named Harvey, arrived in 2017, and will no longer go to football games.  Received two doses of COVID-19 vaccine in 2021.
• There is, thus, now Mike the Mascot, sort of like the Tree.

So you ask, was that saving Humanity and Planet Earth?  Well, this is a Sunday and I don't see much to watch on TV.

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