#scav1993

i love poetry items.  i love (as you can probably tell from this blog...) Hanna Gray items.  of course, it amused me to see this on the final page of the 1993 list:

306.  Write a limerick about the old and new U of C President, using both of their last names. (6pts)

1993 was the year that Hanna Gray [she of the relatively short name, rather easy to slip into a limerick] stepped down from the University of Chicago presidency.  of course, the real trick of this item is getting the name of the then-new President in there: none other that Hugo Sonnenschein.

i don't back down from a challenge, even if it's the middle of September and there are no points at stake...so here's a bit of ridiculous doggerel.

Let us now drink the sweetest of wine As a new figurehead we enshrine It's the end of the day For our Hanna Gray And the morn for Hugo Sonnenschein

ah, hello again, repeat Road Trip items...or, at least, locations.  from the '93 list:

279.  What is written on the big tire off I-94 in Allen Park, MI? (3pts)

i'm familiar with that tire since i've been out to metro Detroit many times over the last three and a half years or so.  it's definitely "Uniroyal" written on that tire...easy to remember, since i frequently refer to it as the Huge Uniroyal Tire Off The Highway.  however, that giant tire made an appearance in the 2010 list:

93.  While inflating a flat tire along I-94, Skeletor accidentally enlarges it to world-record size. [6 points]

i remember this item well not only because i did it, but also because my familiarity with the giant roadside tire saved us from missing an item.  the morning we left, Grandpa Sam had plotted out pretty much everything on the road trip, but i remember there being a note by the tire saying that he wasn't sure what that was, or where it was.  fortunately, since i knew there were other items in Metro Detroit, it was pretty clear to me that they meant The Huge Uniroyal Tire Off The Highway.

still on the '93 list:

257.  A chain of paper clips going continuously around the Field House.  (50 pts)

this made me curious...about how many paper clips would this take?  taking a look at Google maps for a back-of-the-envelope sort of calculation, it looks like Henry Crown is about 90 feet by 220 feet around the outside.  this would put the perimeter at 7440 inches around.

it would make sense to do this with larger paper clips, which run about two inches long; the more common ones are more like 1.4 inches long.

back to the 1993 list:

194.  Any comic strip with a homosexual character in it.  (8 pts)

the item makes perfect sense as something topical in that list, though...since it was in 1993 that For Better or For Worse came under fire for having a character come out as gay.  basically, the relatively mainstream options in those days would have been threefold -- that one, Doonesbury, or Dykes To Watch Out For. 

[and, i had no idea that Dykes had been around that long until reading up for this post.  i don't know if it was published in Chicago, though i would have been surprised if it weren't, since i know there were gay papers in Chicago in the early nineties.]

in reading more of the '93 list, in which i already saw the item looking for an extremely non-kosher meal, i then saw this:

190.  A rabbi.  (25pts+ 30 bonus points if he can dunk OR +5 bonus points if she tries)

the sun rises in the east, it sets in the west, and U(C) folks love putting Hanna Gray in silly situations.  in '92, it was oatmeal boxes.  in '93?

174.  A Hanna Gray pin-up.  (5 pts)

i can't even begin to imagine what was submitted for this item.  the thing is, i'm not even sure there was the infamous pastel-toned picture in Hutch yet, since she was president of the University until 1993.

from the 1993 list:

140.  accidental duplicate item deleted

i don't believe it for a moment.  there's no way that the judges, even twenty years ago, would put something like this on the list without expecting anything.  it's pretty clear, given the LaTeX format of the list, that they did have access to a computer...after all.

if nothing else...if i were the page presenter for this, i'd have had in my back pocket a duplicate of a high-pointed item, a ridiculously hilarious item, or both.  maybe, two people doing this one:

144.  The "Mythical" Ohio drunk driving test performed perfectly by a team member.  Close your eyes and lean back on one foot with your arms outstretched and count backwards from thirty.  (30 pts)

113.  A non-kosher lunch.  Points given for each different koshrut broken.  (Must list broken koshrut...1 pt per, 13 pts max)

sometimes, Scav items aren't necessarily that weird in themselves, but they state (or, at least, heavily imply...) some gaping hole in my knowledge.  this is one of those items.

of course, i have a certain general idea of kosher...at least, the same idea of kosher that qualifies for basic cultural literacy.  there's the whole thing about not being able to mix meat and milk at the same meal, or the fact that pork isn't kosher.  i even knew that you're not supposed to use milk-product cookware for meat foods, or use meat-product cookware for milk foods.  but...thirteen [or more] rules?  that, i didn't know.

after doing some reading, it doesn't sound like there are 13 [or X, for any discernible value of X] specific rules for eating kosher that i can just list...and enough grey areas that i'm probably not qualified to address since i'm not a rabbi [much less Jewish].  however, there's definitely more to it than i thought.  for what i can gather, rules for kosher include:

among non-rodent land mammals, you can eat ones that have cloven hooves and chew their cud.

among animals in the water, you can eat ones that have both fins and scales.

among birds...there are lists in the Torah of ones you're not supposed to eat, and rabbis have generalized those lists into saying that you can eat birds that aren't scavengers or birds of prey.

some winged swarming insects may possibly be okay to eat, but all winged swarming things with four feet are not to be eaten.

rodents aren't kosher.

reptiles aren't kosher.

amphibians aren't kosher.

insects, except for [maybe] locusts and crickets and grasshoppers, aren't kosher.

mammals and birds have to be slaughtered in accordance with Jewish law in order to be eaten.

milk and eggs, and other non-meat products from animals that aren't kosher are also not kosher.

mammals and birds that died of natural causes aren't kosher.

mammals and birds that were killed by other animals (other than the human kosher butcher, i guess...) aren't kosher.

mammal blood and bird blood aren't kosher.  this includes things like blood vessels in organ meat, as well as eggs with blood spots.

the sciatic nerve and the blood vessels connected to it are not kosher, even if the animal from which it came is.

the fat surrounding the liver and other vital organs is not kosher, even if the animal from which it came is.

eating meat and dairy together, or poultry and dairy together, is not kosher.  however, eating fish and dairy together is permitted.  these separations also apply to the cookware used to cook various categories of foods.

any grape products (though not whole grapes themselves...) must have been made by Jewish people.  i didn't know this was a rule, though it totally explains the concept of kosher wine, an idea that always confused me previously.

any meal that would break thirteen of these rules would probably in itself qualify as a scavenfeast...either that, or be the most confusing and piecemeal stew ever cooked.