New DCV feature: Life Episodes

As is well-documented, the Dolberry clan left Chicagoland almost a half a score of years ago in large part because of the weather, which is, as the kids say, not good. We entered into the meteorological-equivalent of the witness protection program and all was fine for a long time, but then Dolberry got a little careless. I started watching Skilling on WGN (just for old times' sake). I found myself pulling for -6 standard deviation cut off lows that show up in the Day 6 forecasts from time to time, to actually occur. Worse still I started clicking on NWS sites from offices poleward of 40N. It was just a matter of time. After 9 years and 5 months, Chicago weather has tracked us down & set up shop outside just our very thin & non-storm-proofed windows.

Last hour at the normally heavenly RDU recoding station we were plagued with the following:

Heavy Rain w/ Fog/Mist, Temp =41, Winds N at 22, gusting to 29.


Anyway, while we hunker down & hope the Chicago weather goes back home, I thought we'd start a new feature on the DCV, flourishingly titled "Life Episodes". Basically, it's a roadmap for the lazier of the forthcoming Dolberry biographers. A priviledged glimpse into the people, places, & prompts that made Dolberry! into the larger-than-life figure he is.

Tonight's episode: French Scrabble (cue special font)

Growing up in J-town in the mid-80's, an empty town of obsolete stacks and steeples, it would have been easy for an upper middle class teenage boy to become lost in the tentacled jungle of skateboard culture, the self-immolative nature of competitive Rubik's Cubing, or any number of the green-haired-tinged elements that occupied the fringes of the annual Gaslite Festival. Dolberry might have been yet another nameless name on that unhappy ledger of lost souls, but for the influence of a hardscrabble educator and a good friend. The story starts on an otherwise nondescript Tuesday, with the nondescript event of a teacher returning French quizzes. The overall effort of the class on said evaluation was less than expected from Mr. Richard Ayres, the smirking and respected for it administrator of the quiz. He returned the efforts to the class by flinging the quizzes skyward (well ceilingward) with squalling showers of distain, careful not to touch the papers more than he had to as if he'd retrieved them from the Valley of the Drums site. When he returned Dolberry's paper, he augmented the display w/ a one word derogatory permutation of Dolberry ... "Doltberry".

This was a needed challenge to our young hero. He applied himself to the ancient and poorly-understood arts of French Scrabble. More of a discipline than a sport or a mere game, French Scrabble required a Jedi-focus, an ability to resist the flirtatious manners of Sacred Heart and/or Presentation coeds ("are you sure 'snuggle' isn't a French word?" she cooed sweetly from across the table in a whisper that could barely be heard in the silent library), and at least a nominal understanding of conjugating French verbs. Initially, Mr. Ayres assembled a large and powerful squad populated w/ a merry band of colorful characters that could drop a made up word into the recitation of Greek letters w/ nary a wink.

"Alpha, beta, gamma, zixy, epsilon, ...",
"Are you sure 'zixy' is a word?" she cooed sweetly, though less sweetly than before
"Uh, yeah. That's 52 points."

By far the most momentous member of that freshman squad (maybe it was sophomore ... biographers you'd better fact check that one) was one Stephen Clark, a scrappy kid from the gang-infested St. Martha's parish. At the time, Stephen went by his gang name "Steve", and was the baddest mutha in the cafeteria, at least among us nerds who had to carry trays of the more-respected nerds that shared a table w/ us. Stephen was renowned for his ability to issue an intimidating "DEFI" (french for "challenge") that would leave our opponents drawing letters (fearful to play words) for 2-3 turns afterward. Trinity led by the Dolberry/Clark combo led Trinity to the JV State French Scrabble title in the bellweather year of 1982 (or 1981, I can't do everything for you guys).

After sophomore year, Stephen had completed his foriegn language requirement and had drifted away from the French Scrabble battlefields and into odd electives like Mechanical Drafting w/ Crazy Reverend Jansing. Dolberry soldiered on, pairing successfully w/ numerous collegues (career record: 24-2), but never finding the Lennon-McCartney magic from the early Dolberry/Clark days. Until fate intervened on one Wed. afternoon in the Spring of 1984, when the Rock varsity Scrabble was a player down (mental breakdowns were common due to the stress) hours before the State Championship game vs. hated rival St. Xavier. Attempts to find anyone who knew more than a mere two words of French ('defi" and 'fy") were futile, but the Scrabble Rocks boarded the van to the St. X library known as the "Tiger Pit" with soaring confidence as Dolberry/Clark was back. The board looked bad early as we locked into a defensive small-word battle. The Tiger players tried to goad Dolberry into playing bigger words that would open the board, but Clark proved his worth silencing the unworthy opponents with a withering "You guys are $%@&!&" (possible paraphrasing here) and by vigilantly scanning our 7 tiles for "F" and "Y". Bleakly, the "B" Rock squad (DeMuth/Nevitt) was taking a beating ... early reports had them down by as many as 70 points.

To this day, I don't know where Dolberry drew the power that I drew over that next 20 minutes. "37 points." "26 points." "54 points!" "31 points." One after the other, the big words hit the board from our side of the table. When the bag had emptied the Dolberry/Clark combo, had won in a rout, covering the other table deficit w/ points to spare. As we walked out, under cover of security, the team lifted Clark on their shoulders, a stirring reminder of how just because you take "Mechanical Drafting" and weird English classes where you got to watch movies instead of reading Melville novels under Crazy Father Sans' watchful eyes, doesn't mean you can't be a productive member of society ... and one of Dolberry's best and most treasured friends (to this day).