The Vores Go Zoolander

On Saturday, August 22nd, Ben and Erin gave each other the gift of a lifetime in honor of their fifth anniversary. A baby? No. A membership to the cheese-of-the-month club? Guess again. Any number of communicable diseases? No siree. A photo shoot with the fabulously talented Jenny Beck (a Columbus-based photographer and sister of Erin’s friend from Miami, Kelly)? You betcha! Jenny took photos in three locations: our back patio, Pioneer Park in Montgomery, and the United Dairy Farmers in Blue Ash.

Behold the creative power of Jenny’s lens:

Thank you so much for spending time with us, Jenny!  We had so much fun and think you could take Annie Leibovitz any day.

Check out Jenny’s work here.

This Day In Vore History: July 20, 2003

Part four of a four-part series recounting the romantic origins of Voreblog. Parts one, two and three.

x

You may know a lot of things about Donald Trump, but you probably didn’t know he has a board game. Trump: The Game was a gift to Ben from his grandmother back around 1989, the giving of which appalled Ben’s mom. “But he loves to play board games,” Grandma said in her defense. “Mom, it’s a game about Donald Trump,” my mom retorted. “Do you want your grandsons to grow up like Donald Trump?” Grandma paused as if considering the correct answer to this question, saying finally, “It just looked like Monopoly to me.”

The game’s slogan, emblazoned right there on the front, is, “It’s not whether you win or lose, but whether you win!” Below a picture of The Donald is his signature, with what appears to be at least four m’s in his last name.

When Ben packed up his apartment to leave Pittsburgh in July of 2003, he put Trump: The Game in his backseat underneath boxes and boxes of books. It was still there when he arrived at camp later that month, and so he decided it could be good for a few laughs.

——————–

Erin left Nashville three days early, on July 17, for third term at Summer’s Best Two Weeks. She would be going back as the kitchen crew counselor for two terms — one month — and was kicking it off by spending time with Ben in State College before they both showed up for camp. The plan was to meet Ben in Pittsburgh, where he and most of his worldly possessions would be packed in his car, waiting to ship out. Ben’s first contact with Erin that day had been a cell phone conversation in a hospital. Ben was there visiting one of his youth group kids when the phone rang. Ben answered it in the hall. Erin was somewhere outside Wheeling — be there in about an hour. A nurse passing by informed Ben he couldn’t talk on his cell phone in the hospital. This was news to Ben as he had just purchased his first cell phone the week before. “I’ve gotta go,” he told Erin. “A nurse is yelling at me.” He went back into the room and watched a family he had grown very close with try to make small talk as everyone awaited a doctor. Not for the first time, Ben felt guilt at the kids he was leaving behind. He also felt guilty that he should be so excited to leave.

——————–

Erin and Ben arrived at camp on Saturday the 19th for dinner. It was a cookout, and since it was between terms there were only other counselors. They caught up with friends and filtered into the crowd, and at one point Ben found himself standing in a circle of guy friends looking across the lawn at Erin standing in a circle of girl friends. They had just spent two days together, and yet suddenly she had eluded him again. Ben watched a tall, athletic counselor cross paths with Erin, and after they shook hands he stood there nodding his head as Erin talked, looking tall and athletic and dangerous. Out of nowhere, Ben was filled with jealousy bordering on hostility.

Ben was walking back to his cabin when Erin caught him from behind. “Hey, where you going?” she asked. “Just back,” Ben said. “Gotta unpack.” “I was thinking it’d be good to, you know, pray together before the term if you wanted to do that,” Erin said. Ben stopped and considered this. “I think I’d like to do that,” he said.

Later that night, after dark and once the stars over Boswell, Pennsylvania, came out in a fashion far superior to that of either Nashville or Pittsburgh, Ben and Erin walked around Lake Gloria to the zip boat dock near the rope swing. It was the same place where, a year before on that same Saturday night, Ben had sat alone in prayer about the upcoming term. It was the following day that he met Erin Beers.

What they prayed about that night, neither remembers exactly, except that Ben was still on anti-malarial meds from his trip to Quito, Ecuador, the prior month. The pills were an unholy combination with Ben’s other meds, and on the nights he took them he had terrible fever dreams. He would wake up shaken and disoriented as if he had inherited a different brain overnight. Slowly everything would come back to him, but not without a toll. He asked for prayer for that.

It was a hard transition for Ben in other ways. It was his seventh year at camp, and yet the minute he arrived on site, tailing Erin’s Jeep, he was wracked with anxiety, as if it was his first summer all over again. The first day there he wondered if he could summon the strength and confidence to get through the day, much less the two weeks. Sitting on the dock that night, he found it hard to believe he couldn’t find peace in a moment like that one.

——————–

The kitchen crew is virtually the only place at Summer’s Best Two Weeks where guys and girls intermingle. Every high schooler working crew gets the “relationship” speech at the beginning of the term: You’re here for God, not a date. This is only a slight variation on the speech counselors get at the beginning of the summer. Once the speech is given, however, a moderate degree of harmless flirting is tolerated, checked when necessary with one-on-one interventions with serial flirters.

The Loveline was another way of channelling attraction into the relatively harmless confines of the written page. At the O.D. (Officer of the Day) Shack, every counselor had a clothespin with his or her name on it. Fellow counselors could pin an encouraging note any time of day. The lines that held these pins up practically coursed with both the low hum of modest admiration to the full throttle buzz of repressed sexual tension.

One benefit of being a high school crew member was that you also had access to Lovelines. There was only one drawback: You did not have your own clothespin, only the generic “Boys Crew” and “Girls Crew.” There was no way to pen a heartfelt and faintly suggestive Loveline without the near certainty that it would be screened by, if not two counselors, then any number of fellow crew interlopers who circled the shack before and after meals like buzzards.

The primary way around this strategy was to encourage everyone to write a Loveline to each member of the opposite crew. These letters would be group efforts, and both guys and girls had the same idea: If, for example, Heather liked Andy, then all the girls would help write/decorate Andy’s letter, but it would fall to Heather to add just the right personal touch or coded phrase which would communicate her true feelings in a discreet but unmistakable way.

Now add one more layer: Not only were crew members engaged in this meticulous game of epistolary romance, but the crew counselors who were artfully stoking these young passions were also playing the same game. Not that long after they began dating, Ben and Erin would both remark how weird it was to talk through their feelings as opposed to writing them down on a tiny scrap of paper in some coy or amusing way.

That particular term in 2003 it was the boys crew who launched the first wave of Lovelines. Trying to think of a creative way to write the letters, crew member Evan saw Trump: The Game sitting underneath Ben’s bunk. “Hey, I’ve got an idea,” Evan said. He opened it up, took out some Trump Money and passed it around.

“What’s this for?” someone asked.

“Fellas,” Evan said, “a wise man once said, ‘It’s not whether you win or lose, but whether you win.’ It’s time to win some lonesome hearts.”

He removed a pink $50 million dollar bill and wrote on the back of it: $50 MILLION IN TRUMP MONEY < ANNIE

“Gentleman,” he said, “Annie will be putty in my hands.”

The men launched into the Lovelines with a fury. Once they were done, Ben and the boys sauntered — no, make that swaggered — down to the O.D. Shack before dinner that night and pinned a mammoth stack of Lovelines for the girls crew. They were early so they could get a head start on the pre-meal chores that often fell to the (more enterprising) girls. When the ladies arrived on time they were all beaming and laughing, little notes in their palms or tucked in their pockets. The guys played it low key and saved their grins for when the girls weren’t looking. Ben did the same.

——————–

“The price of a Las Vegas casino in ‘Trump’: $50 million. Working with you on crew? Priceless.”

———————

Unlike a year ago, Ben and Erin didn’t spend their day off together that term. Erin drove to Cincinnati for the day to attend the Sweeney’s wedding, while Ben went to see Seabiscuit by himself. You can probably guess who had a better time.

———————

“Dear Emily, thank you for the encouragement like on the dodge ball field and caring when I hurt my arm. If I could have you or 50 million dollars, I would choose you.”

———————

Ben and Erin thought they were being discreet. But two people falling in love are about as discreet as — to borrow Tess Gallagher’s phrase — “tigers answering questions about infinity with their teeth.” Will, the camp director and a man not given to inhibition, was talking with Ben and Erin about film when he asked if their taste in movies would be compatible in marriage. (Erin turned red and walked away in response.) Ben’s co-counselor Brad, who knew Erin from college, picked up on the signals pretty quick. And one night in the girls cabin, a girl named Liz Lackey said to Erin, “So, Ben Vore is moving to Nashville.” “Yes, I think he is,” Erin replied. “And you live in Nashville.” “Yes, I do live in Nashville.” “So … do you think, like, you and Ben will hang out?” There were giggles. The cat was out of the bag.

———————

“We ♥ girls crew! (like whoa)”

——————–

What Ben and Erin remember about the crew that term wasn’t especially remarkable. It was a fun group but not an extraordinary one. Nobody made any giant spiritual strides. There was friction between the guys all term long, but they worked hard when they needed to.

Erin would stay on for two more weeks while Ben went home to State College: to rest, to prepare for Nashville, to transition from one thing to the next. They wrote letters daily, and on Erin’s fourth term day off Ben drove to camp and they hung out in Greensburg for the day. As they went about day off hikes and Bruster’s ice cream stops and the obligatory chill time at Barnes & Noble, they looked at one another and saw two things at once: the couple they were becoming, and the couple they might be, together, for the long haul.

That night they kissed for the first time, in the Adventure Fort across the lake, where the eight- and nine-year-olds camped during their overnight trip. Erin was the fifth girl Ben had kissed in his life, and he hoped the last. Erin had kissed so many guys that she stopped counting.

———————

“If I had to choose between $50 million and working with you, you would find me in the kitchen, right next to you, letting Tim do all the work.”

——————–

On Friday, July 18, the day before Ben & Erin arrived at camp and prayed on the dock, there was a downpour in State College. Ben had taken Erin to Meyer’s Dairy for milkshakes, and they were driving home when it suddenly became quite dark overhead. “Looks like rain,” Erin said. “Looks like the flood,” Ben replied.

It was the flood. It hit suddenly and came down so hard that Ben had to pull over because he couldn’t see the road. A lightning strike sounded like it was directly overhead. Erin said quietly, “Are we going to die?” Ben wouldn’t realize until much later that she was not joking.

Ben’s house was fifteen minutes outside town, close to the county line, situated in a flood plain with a stream that winds around the property. When they arrived home there was a gulley pouring down off the mountain. The storm had lessened but the rain was still falling hard. The stream had risen above the bridge between the driveway and the house. The current was so strong it was pushing the right side of the bridge up, tilting it at a slight angle.

“What do we do?” Erin asked. She was holding two half gallons of Meyer’s skim milk. Neither of them were wearing a rain jacket.

Ben said, “Here. Give me those.” He took the milk jugs. The mountain run-off was above their ankles. “Now jump on.” He turned his back to Erin and crouched down.

She hoisted herself up for a piggyback. As soon as she was on, Ben handed her the milk. “Don’t drop these, okay?”

“Are you going to make it? Isn’t there another way across?”

“I’m afraid this is it.”

“You won’t drop me, will you?”

“I sure hope not.”

Ben waded down the steps to the base of the bridge. The water was up to his shins. He stepped onto the bridge and it held.

“I think we can do this,” he said.

“Are you sure?” Erin asked.

“I’m sure,” Ben said.

“Then let’s do it,” Erin replied.

One foot in front of the other, they crossed the bridge.

x

A Word On Monday’s Post

Tomorrow’s post will be the final part of the This Day In Vore History series chronicling Voreblog’s romantic origins. This wasn’t a story we envisioned telling when we began blogging, but we’ve had fun telling it. It seems like you’ve had fun reading it, gauging from most of the feedback we’ve received. We’ve worried at times if this endeavor smacks of self-indulgence, giving the impression our story merits some kind of special attention. We don’t think it does. But we’re suckers for love stories — we always enjoy hearing how our friends ended up together, or even our parents and parents’ friends. While love stories always have some broad similarities, we’ve tried to focus on the specifics in ours: the music and books and places that provided the soundtrack and setting to us getting together. We’ve also, as two people who try as best we can to be Christians on a day-to-day basis, learned a lot about God through meeting one another, and have included that in our story too. The story tomorrow ends at the beginning, when we finally became, in an unspoken understanding at first, a couple. What happened after that is another story we may feel inclined to tell another time. As for this part, we hope you’ve enjoyed reading it.

This Day in Vore History: May 28, 2003

Part three of a four-part series recounting the romantic origins of Voreblog. Part one and Part two.

 

On June 2, 2003 — the day after Erin Beers flew back to Nashville after a five-day trip to Pittsburgh to visit Ben (and attend Mike and Beth Werkheiser’s wedding) — Ben cracked open his journal and wrote, “I think Erin Beers made a mistake.” He considered this for a while, reading and re-reading those seven words, before adding, “It’s not an irrevocable mistake. I am still confident of that.”

——————

Six days earlier, on Tuesday, May 27, 2003, Ben awoke with a ruthless headache. He was home in State College, PA, to celebrate Memorial Day with the family. It wasn’t much of a celebration though, as he spent most of the day in bed with a fierce migraine. He went to sleep Monday night thinking it couldn’t get worse. He woke up Tuesday and it was.

Ben’s parents refused to let him drive back to Pittsburgh that day, not that Ben would’ve attempted it. But Ben had to find a way to be at the Pittsburgh International Airport by 12:57 p.m. on Wednesday, the 28th, the time at which Erin Beers would be landing for a five-day visit. The ostensible reason for the visit was a wedding. Mike and Beth Werkheiser, camp friends, were to be wed in Beaver, PA, that Saturday. Erin returned her invite with the “and guest” box checked, then booked her trip. She’d spend four days in Pittsburgh prior to the wedding, then fly back to Nashville the following day. All Ben had to do was be there.

——————–

Ben woke up on Wednesday and felt like a human being again. He drove back to Pittsburgh that morning, and three hours in the car allowed him ample time to plan out the crucial details of Erin’s reception. Ben plotted what album would be playing when Erin got in the car (Gemma Hayes, Night on the Side). (Ben had visually associated Gemma and Erin since he thought they looked alike. Plus he had a crush on Gemma. Plus Ben hoped Erin would pay special attention to the lyrics of song three on the album, “Let A Good Thing Go,” a lament for, as the title suggests, letting a good thing go.) He visualized which details of the youth room at Shadyside Presbyterian he would point out to her, details which — if carefully selected — would evoke shared memories of the prior summer at Summer’s Best Two Weeks when Erin and Ben met as co-counselors of the kitchen crew, comprised of twenty-some high schoolers who occasionally did bone-headed yet endearing things like try to mail camp forks to friends (this is you, Chris Tolles) or parade around camp during optional playing the bagpipes (in kilts, no less). Ben was concerned about the state of his apartment, which he had not had time to prep given his delayed return from State College. Had he accidentally left his frog-print boxers in the common room? Carefully arranged his Paste magazines on the coffee table as potential conversation-starters? And the right books beside them? And the right CDs? He’d have to wing it when they walked through the door, assessing the situation like a field commander and moving like a hawk to correct any incriminating details that might suggest he was not boyfriend-worthy.

By day’s end, an event Ben had anticipated for so long (Erin! in Pittsburgh!) came and passed … normally. When Ben spotted Erin at the airport, all the little details of her face, hair, build, gait came back instantly. When they toured Shadyside, Ben feared that the youth room — rather than inducing camp nostalgia — may have alternately raised Erin’s potential doubts of Ben as the stereotypical churchy youth pastor. When they reached the apartment, Erin — tired from her trip — dozed on Ben’s bed and drooled on his pillow. That night, after Ben dropped Erin off at a friend’s house in Squirrel Hill where she would be staying for her visit, he drove back down Negley Hill and saw — as he always did from that hill, when he was paying attention — a panoramic view of Pittsburgh at night, stretching far and wide in all directions. One other detail Ben had incorporated into the day was the glorious view of Pittsburgh that greeted drivers emerging from the Fort Pitt Tunnel, a view most spectacular at night but even at midday still a pretty good way to introduce the Steel City to a visitor. (Pittsburgh is “the only city with an entrance,” sayeth the New York Times.) When they had emerged from the tunnel that afternoon, Ben rolled down his window, stuck his head out and yelled, “She’s expecting big things, city!” He repeated that line, alone in his car, with slightly less gusto, as he descended Negley Hill that night.

——————-

The template for the next two days started with leisurely mornings spent sipping coffee at Jitters on Walnut Street (Ben, in his pre-coffee days, getting a chai instead), enjoying a light breakfast, then going for a long walk or run. This was still three months before Erin, running for the first time with Ben in Nashville, nearly blacked out from a combination of fatigue and nerves, the latter being the result of her fear that she couldn’t keep up with a boy. While Erin sat down on the 21st Avenue sidewalk to regroup, Ben — slightly panicked and doused in sweat — ran into the nearest convenience store. “My girlfriend almost passed out and I need to get something for her,” he told the clerk. “Are you going to pay for it?” the clerk asked. “I don’t have money,” Ben said as he grabbed the closest granola bar and apple juice. “I’ll come back and pay you, honest.” The clerk shook his head. “You can’t take both,” he said. Ben put the granola bar on the counter. “Ok,” the clerk said — resigned, probably, to taking $1.09 out of his paycheck as the price to pay for enabling a possibly life-saving intervention, if not an unusual new shoplifting technique.

But, again, this act of small heroism would not transpire for another three months.

On Thursday, Ben and Erin drove south and east to visit Fallingwater, then to Ohiopyle, another site intended to evoke fond shared memories. (Camp rafting trips down the Youghiogheny River launched from Ohiopyle.) They parked at Cucumber Falls and hiked downstream to Cucumber Rapids where they found a big, flat rock to stretch out on and just rest, eyes closed, below the sun. On Friday they explored the Warhol Museum with its balloon-filled rooms and Campbells soup can trinkets in the gift shop, then sauntered around the North Shore and its wading pools. They talked of the upcoming summer at camp, when Erin would return for two terms (a month) and Ben would overlap for two of those weeks, his first — and only — post-youth ministry plans once he wrapped up four years at Shadyside. Where he would move that August — be it Nashville or Chicago or, less likely though still a possibility, out West to regions unknown — was still up in the air. Ben hoped to have a better idea after Erin’s visit if there was a green light on Nashville. But for the first three days of Erin’s stay, no talk ventured too far down that uncertain path. 

——————-

Neither Ben nor Erin remember much about the wedding, except that they were slightly late arriving because — depending on who you asked — the driver either missed a turn or the navigator misread the map. This would prove to be a harbinger of things to come.

What both remember happened after the wedding, in Ben’s car, parked on Elmer Street just outside his apartment, with the engine off but the power still on so Erin could enjoy the smell of a Honda Civic’s A/C, its own little aromatic madeleine. It started raining, first a drizzle and soon a downpour. Inside, Ben and Erin were still all decked out (though Erin had removed her shoes and put her aching feet on the dash), both reclined with their seats back, watching the rain patterns on the windshield and talking, finally, about where they stood. (The kids today refer to this as the DTR conversation.)

Erin said she didn’t see a green light when she thought about a relationship with Ben. It’s not that there’s another guy in the picture, she said. It may be about the timing, she said. Everything lines up, she added, ticking off items: musical and artistic interests; athletic interests; shared religious beliefs. That’s what I’m looking for in a guy, she said, almost apologetically. But no green light.

I’ve never met this Green Light guy, Ben thought, but God help him if he ever crosses my path…

Ben had a hard time believing Erin. He considered the evidence from the past three days and saw only good things. He couldn’t bring himself to believe Erin wasn’t feeling something good too, although there was always that nagging doubt — cultivated from numerous misreadings of relationships past — that Ben simply didn’t get it the way other people got it on matters of the heart.

That’s when Erin said, There’s something else. She told Ben he had always been a good thing in her life, and it occurred to her that this may be something to consider.

“I don’t think it was just my optimism that wanted to hear ‘yes’ when Erin said ‘no’,” Ben journaled after the fact. “I think it’s because her ‘no’ was a ‘yes’ in the making.”

Later, both of them would recount the other doubts that went unspoken that night in the car. Erin’s visit had reminded Ben, who had been single for quite some time, what the harder parts of a relationship might be: the listening, the yielding, the silences. Erin, for her part, had some misgivings both large — about what Ben would be now that he was done being a youth pastor — and small — about some of Ben’s fashion tastes, particularly his choice of black suede dress shoes for the wedding. (This would fester in silence until, a month after they were married, Ben saw those shoes and certain other items from his closet in a Goodwill pile Erin had started. “I could let it slide until we were married,” Erin said. “Now I’ve got to put my foot down.”) 

Because they could not talk about “us” before an “us” existed, Ben and Erin had the more immediate conversation about where Ben would move in three months. Nashville? And if so, to do what? And for what reasons? Neither one suspected that the fragile possibility of a relationship could survive the expectations that would come with Ben moving to Nashville for no other reason than that Erin was there. Ben found himself wondering, Where would I be and what would I do if Erin Beers wasn’t in the picture? Would I be doing us harm by moving to Nashville? Is it really just a matter of timing, and we just hit it wrong?

——————-

The first letter Erin wrote to Ben after returning to Nashville included a folded copy of the cover of New York magazine’s June 9, 2003 issue. The headline reads “What Are You On?” above a counter of pills, ranging from Paxil and Zoloft to Ritalin, Viagra and Vicodin. Such was one outcome of their visit: Mental health issues were not just out in the open now, but fodder for comic relief. “Yeah! Drugs!” Erin scribbled on the cover. This was the kind of thing they couldn’t have joked about nine months ago.

“It’s fun to spy on your life and to put together a few more pieces to the puzzle of knowing you and not knowing you at all,” Erin wrote in her letter. That’s before the missive went completely bipolar. Erin first wrote, “I stand behind everything I said to you last week … I cannot say things to you that I don’t fully mean & have you move here & then be disappointed,” then — half a page later — “When I think about you possibly moving here and having things go well and I imagine us together or whatever, it makes me think that it would be final. You would be it. If we dated then we’d probably get married, pros & cons. And that FREAKS ME OUT. I wouldn’t want you to be someone on a list of failures.” Later in the letter she wrote, “When I think about the future, I know I’d be happy with you. There isn’t one good reason why I wouldn’t be.” 

——————–

Ben would not receive that letter until after he saw All The Real Girls at The Harris Theater downtown. He saw it alone, as he usually preferred. The film is a beautiful, note perfect account of all-consuming young love in a small North Carolina mill town. It is brutal, and it is honest. “I just want to make sure that a million years from now I can still see you up close and we’ll still have amazing things to say,” Paul (Paul Schneider) tells Noel (Zooey Deschanel) in one scene. It is a line that only the very young could say and mean. 

Leaving the theater, all Ben could think about was Erin. He was sad and forlorn and elated and confused all at the same time. He was in love and didn’t know if he was loved back. Standing on top of the Smithfield Street parking garage, Ben called Erin to tell her he’d just seen the film and how much he’d enjoyed seeing her and how he couldn’t wait for camp in less than two months. That was it. It was a good conversation. And the next day Erin mailed the letter.

This Day in Vore History: March 7, 2008

We were robbed.

We have written about this before; we expect this will be the last time we address it, but who knows. (Our robber, after all, is still appealing his case.)

Cincinnati was hit by its final big winter snow on March 7, 2008. Erin’s school was cancelled but she attended an Asperger’s workshop at UC. Ben went to work but the store closed early, at three o’clock. His phone rang at 2:45.

“Hey, did you leave some drawers open?” Erin asked. “What do you mean?” Ben said. “There’s a lot of drawers open downstairs. The door was funny too.” “I didn’t leave any drawers open. I’m not sure what you mean.” “Wait, there’s a mess upstairs. I think someone has been in our house…”

Which is just about the most helpless thing you could possibly hear when your wife is home alone in a snowstorm. The second most helpless thing is what she said next: “Hello? Is somebody here?”

“You need to get out of the house,” Ben said.

“I’m going to get out of the house,” Erin said.

Erin called the cops. (After she called her parents and neighbor Katie Andolina.) Ben rushed home. When he arrived there were already cops on the scene. Erin’s parents had arrived too. Our bedroom had been ransacked. Drawers were overturned. Erin’s clothes were all over the floor. The guest bedroom was no better. Our laptop was gone. And our digital camera. And our iPod. Scooter Thomas was, thankfully, safe under the bed. It took him a half hour to come out.

Until the break-in we had always had bad experiences with cops. One positive outcome of the robbery was that we met some good po-leece, as Lester Freamon might say. Deer Park’s finest. Admittedly they seemed a bit overenthusiastic about breaking out the fingerprinting kit. But who can blame them. This wasn’t the kind of thing, we were told, that usually happened on our street.

Why us?, we wondered. Why our house? Did we have enemies? And why on the snowiest day of the year? School was cancelled, people were out shoveling sidewalks. Someone had tried to kick in our front door. Which is visible up and down the street, from at least six other houses. But when the cops asked around, no one had seen anything. 

We talked about sleeping elsewhere that night but we came home. We taped the door jamb shut with duct tape since it wouldn’t close all the way. We put a chair in front of it with Christmas bells on the doorknob. Over the coming days and weeks we debated whether or not to install a security system. We already had security stickers in the windows for effect; they obviously failed as a deterrent. Most people we asked said to just buy a dog. Or at least put a big dog dish on our porch with a name on it like “Mauler” or something. Ultimately we decided on no dog, or alarm system.

It turns out one of our neighbors did see something, but we didn’t put that puzzle piece together until the next day. Those neighbors had been on their way out of town for the weekend when they saw two people, a man and a woman, exit our back yard around noon. They didn’t appear to be carrying anything with them, but they did look suspicious. Still, we were new in the neighborhood. We hadn’t introduced ourselves yet. Maybe we had sketchy friends who liked to skulk around in the middle of a snowstorm. Our neighbors felt terrible when they found out.

The hardest part was not knowing who these thieves were or why they picked us. Your home doesn’t feel like much of a castle when you know some faceless stranger has been in your bedroom handling your wife’s undergarments. We were learning to live with that ambiguity — what were the odds these people would ever be caught, really? — when those people were caught, really.

They robbed a house in Blue Ash but left a fingerprint. The cops matched it to the girl, who ratted out the guy. They picked our house because it was close to the bus line. They needed money for drugs. We were just unlucky. Beginning and end of story. (We recovered our laptop, iPod and camera.)

So what did we do last night to commemorate this strange anniversary? We rented Panic Room. It wasn’t until halfway in that we realized the irony. Maybe this will become a tradition.

This Day In Vore History: November 21, 2002

The courtship of Erin & Ben picks up four months after we last left off, when 569 miles (the distance between Pittsburgh and Nashville) and another man, “Rex” (booooo!), stood between our protagonists. 

PROLOGUE: When Ben and Erin parted ways at SB2W camp in August, neither knew what — if anything — would come of their two week friendship. Ben, while hopeful, was sobered by the existence of an offstage boyfriend (dubbed “Rex”). And the fact Erin would be moving to Nashville. Where Rex lived. Nine hours away from Pittsburgh. 

     Things brightened up once the two began exchanging letters. Erin’s first letter to Ben ended with the line, “If you are ever in Nashville or somewhere close by, give me a ring or drop a line. I expect to see you again.” This was enough hope to last a month on. I expect to see you again! Ben plotted the possibilities by which he could somehow casually be in the greater Nashville area. The key word there was casually. He could not be desperate. He could not crush a young friendship with the weight of romantic expectation. He also had a boyfriend to contend with. He needed an excuse to go to Tennessee.

     As a youth director, Ben planned to attend the Youth Specialties National Youth Convention in Pittsburgh that fall. Until, that is, Scott Guldin announced he would be getting married in Ohio on the same weekend. Ben considered the other convention dates and was struck with an epiphany. The convention would be in Nashville the weekend before Thanksgiving. Ben (casually) floated a trial balloon to Erin in a letter: Might be in Nashville in November. Cool, Erin wrote back.

     And by the way, Rex and I broke up.

     Ben immediately switched his registration and booked a flight to Nashville. He also called up Seth Swihart, who had a fold-out couch with Ben’s name on it and a neon Cubs/Bud sign to sleep under. “Your room and board consists of watching Hoosiers with me at least once,” Seth said.

     The plan was set.

THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 21: Erin was waiting at the Nashville International Airport baggage claim with a sign that said, BEN VORE, VISITING HIPSTER. She immediately gave Ben the tour of the Nashville hot spots, from Percy Warner Park to Hillsboro Village, home to Fido’s, Bookman and The Belcourt Theater, where Erin worked part time. That was where we watched I Am Trying To Break Your Heart that night, which Erin had already seen twice but told Ben she had waited to see with him. The day’s proceedings — coffee, movie, walking and talking — were so long in the making, and yet so … ordinary. Ben went to sleep that night bathed in the glow of the Cubs sign, surprised but not displeased to realize how very normal the reunion had been, as if now that it had happened it had gone exactly the way he pictured it.

FRIDAY, NOVEMBER 22: Seth gave Ben a Nashville tour before dropping him off at the convention center downtown, where the conference began early afternoon. The minute Ben stepped into the convention hall he did not want to be there. It was loud, noisy and unbearable. A Christian rock band was blaring contemporary praise. Everyone looked incredibly happy and psyched to be there. Ben sat down toward the back of the hall, with a backpack stuffed full of fliers and notebooks and freebies and a schedule jam-packed with seminars, activities and speakers. He didn’t know a single soul in that auditorium full of two thousand people. And as the worship ended and the main speaker stepped to the stage, Ben was surprised to discover there were tears running down his face. Where was this coming from? 

     The first and only other time Ben had set foot in Nashville was in April of 2001, for a retreat called Sabbath. That experience had begun in no less terrifying a fashion. When Ben arrived with thirty other people at the Scarritt-Bennett retreat center just outside Vanderbilt’s campus, he was disturbed when he looked over the schedule from the security of his own room to realize that most of the upcoming four days would be spent in silence. Participants were not allowed to speak until noon each day, and there were wide open blocks of time set aside for prayer, solitude and contemplation. What the hell am I doing here? Ben thought at the realization that he had no place to run for the next ninety-six hours. No distractions. No TV. No mildly diverting entertainment. I’m not sure I can do this, Ben thought as he set the schedule aside and stared at the blank wall of his monk’s cell.

     It was a different kind of terror in the middle of that jubilant convention hall, but Ben knew he still had to get out. After the speaker finished, Ben went straight out the door and began walking west on Broadway. He still had his luggage with him and a backpack bursting with resources that would make him a smarter, savvier youth director should he seize the days to come. But just then he couldn’t get far enough away from that. So he lugged his rolling suitcase and switched his backpack from shoulder to shoulder as he trudged four miles to the West End Borders.

     “What are you doing here?” Erin asked when Ben walked up to her in the second floor children’s section. She was sorting books in a manner which looked a lot like pleasure reading.

     “We’re done for the day,” Ben said. “I just thought I’d come say hi.”

     “Did you take a taxi?”

     “No, just walked.”

     “Oh. That’s like–”

     “‘Bout four miles. My shoulder’s a little sore. I think I’m going to get a chai and sit in the cafe.”

     Erin said later how strange it was to walk down the staircase and see Ben sitting there in the cafe, looking homeless with all his bags strewn about, staring out the window at who knows what. A good strange, Ben thought later. At least he hoped.

SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 23: Mike Yaconelli, one of the founders of Youth Specialities, had given his typical pre-convention welcome the day before with the usual subversive charge: “If you’re burned out, don’t go to a seminar on burnout — take a nap! If you’re having marriage problems, don’t go to a seminar on fixing your marriage. Get your spouse, grab a bottle of wine, go to your room, lock the door, and don’t come out until Monday. Just buy all the tapes on your way out!”

     This was advice Ben wanted to take to heart but which also went against every fiber in his body. Didn’t his church shell out big bucks to send him here? Shouldn’t he be going to every seminar and general session? Shouldn’t he be living and breathing “Junior High Ministry ‘Til You Die” and “Ice Breakers and Games” and “Understanding Youth Culture”? Most of all, shouldn’t he feel guilty for sleeping until 2:30 in the afternoon at his hotel? Maybe, except for the fact he awoke feeling more rested than he had in months.

     Ben looked at the schedule he had not already slept through and then called Erin to propose a night out together. She was game. They had dinner at a Thai place. That’s all either of them remembers now.

SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 24: Guilt caught up with Ben and he spent a full day at the convention center. He cut out early again to trek down Broadway to Borders. Erin seemed less surprised to see him than she had two nights earlier, but soon she was dropping off various reading materials at his cafe table for Ben to enjoy, some sincere (such as Empire of Conspiracy, by her former professor Timothy Melley) and others ironic (Everyone Poops). When Erin made the closing announcement over the intercom, Ben did his best to make her laugh by pretending to be thoroughly fascinated by the magazine Guns & Ammo, which he lifted up to reveal Thrasher magazine, which he lifted up to reveal Needlepoint Now, which he lifted up to reveal Muscle & Fitness, which he turned sideways as if admiring a centerfold of some grotesquely muscled and underclothed specimen of human meat. He stroked his chin thoughtfully and Erin had to pause for a moment to collect herself before finishing the announcement. Things were looking up.

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 25: Seth picked Ben up at conference’s end and after tossing the pigskin at Centennial Park they went back to Seth’s place to watch Hoosiers, the lines of which Seth knew by heart. (He chastised himself when he couldn’t quote Myra Fleener’s early demurrals of Coach Dale with word-for-word accuracy.) Later they watched the real life Hoosiers play UMass in the Maui Invitational while Seth dispensed newfound, hard-won marital wisdom. (“The hard parts are harder than I imagined but the good parts are even better than I imagined.” What were the hard parts? “Oh, having every character flaw you’ve ever had exposed and magnified times ten.” Hmmmmm. “And once you get married, you realize how much of a sinner you are.”)

     Erin came over to the Swihart’s for dinner, and Miriam Swihart indulged everyone an evening’s worth of Summer’s Best 2 Weeks small talk, with Seth reinacting his famous Lower Back Pull stretch as he hobbled around the kitchen, groaning. Later we went to one of Erin’s favorite haunts, 12th & Porter in the Gulch, for the traditional Monday night “Twelve @ 12th,” an open mic night for primarily local artists. Erin and her sister Bevin had discovered several new artists there, including Mindy Smith. “You’ll hear her name more soon,” Erin predicted. That night’s line-up was hit-or-miss, with the highlight and lowlight being a painfully sincere, emo/hard rock act called Hurts to Laugh, which performed its smash single, “When You’re Gone, You’re Gone.” (To this day Seth and Ben continue to amuse one another with those three simple words: hurts to laugh.)

TUESDAY, NOVEMBER 26: Ben’s last day in Nashville was largely spent with Erin. They hung out at a coffee joint called JJ’s, then purchased art supplies and groceries for a night in at Erin’s apartment at Brentwood Downs. Ben grilled chicken for dinner, then they watched The Royal Tenenbaums before having arts & crafts time at the dining room table. As they were painting Ben asked Erin if her feelings had changed since August. Yes and no, Erin said. She wasn’t ready to be in a relationship, but she still had some feelings she needed to figure out. They agreed the timing was far from ideal. They agreed long distance relationships sucked. And they agreed to stay in touch, to keep writing letters, to be open and honest about where they stood.

     Driving Ben back to the Swihart’s that night, Erin remarked that she hoped what she said earlier hadn’t been discouraging. Which Ben didn’t think it had been at all. He had made do for four months on far less than what they had shared that night. So what was another four months? Or eight? Maybe they’d be reunited at camp the following summer. It was just a case of learning to appreciate and embrace the waiting. Now, at least, they had another reservoir of shared time and memories to draw from to fuel their correspondence. It was sad this little chapter was coming to an end, but not despondent or despairing sad. It was the kind of sadness that holds within it hope as well.

EPILOGUE: Back during that Sabbath conference in spring 2001, one of the exercises Ben participated in involved shaping a piece of clay as a form of prayer. More explicit instructions than that were withheld. I have no clue where to start, Ben thought as he found a sunny spot in the courtyard. He liked the clean lines of an undisturbed block of clay. Why did he have to alter it at all? Whatever I make, Ben thought, is going to look like a first grade art project.

     First Ben made a man. He was barrel-chested and his arms were lumpy and his right foot kept falling off. So Ben smooshed the clay back into an amorphous blob, aimlessly working it with his hands and wondering what to shape next when he realized he had something that looked an awful lot like an ear. He hollowed out the top of the ear (the scapha) a bit more and used his fingernail to make indentations for the cartilage. Then he turned the ear on its side, reshaped it ever so slightly, smoothed over the cartilage and hollowed out a circular, depressed center. It had become an eye.

     So Ben made a face. An irregular, misshapen face with two eyes, a nose and a smirking, upturned set of lips. He spent a moment or two rearranging the eyes, bending their angle to produce different expressions, before settling on bemused. Then, since it was getting hot, he went inside to change into shorts. He left the face lying flat on a sheet of tissue paper and set his name tag down beside his bag.

     When he came back out five minutes later, the face had changed. One of the eyes — the right one — had shifted a little bit. Then Ben noticed that his name tag was not there. Had he taken it inside? Was he still wearing it? No, he had left it right there. But it was missing.

     Irrationally, Ben’s first thought was, Will they still let me get into meals? He was annoyed and uncomfortable, and just wanted the security of the name tag back. That’s when he noticed the slight breeze blowing through the courtyard. Had it been blown away? Unlikely. But then a gust of wind sent leaves skittering by. Ben watched them whisk past, trying to determine what path his name tag could have taken. He looked up at the entire courtyard stretching out in front of him. 

     That’s the moment he suddenly realized why he was in Nashville. He was there to listen. He was there to play a game. The ear, the face that changed expressions, this quad before him now a garden of mysteries. Faith, he realized, was a state of perpetual anticipation and watchfulness. It was looking at a certain scene and seeing it both as it existed and as it might exist under different circumstances. That someone told Ben later what had transpired when he went inside — a bird landed by the clay face and picked at it before grabbing the name tag in its beak and dragging it halfway across the courtyard — diminished nothing. We don’t choose the roads by which we come to faith. But we choose how we see the road we’re on and where it could take us.

      That’s what Ben’s second pilgrimage to Nashville was about too. It was a prelude to nothing and a prelude to everything. It was spending six days with Erin as a friend and seeing it as the next six days in something far beyond a friendship. So which would it be? 

     After breakfast at Pancake Pantry on the morning of Wednesday the 27th, Erin drove Ben back to the airport. By now they were comfortable around each other again, and conversation flowed easily. Erin had introduced Ben to Grant-Lee Phillips, and he had become sufficiently obsessed with the song “Spring Released” to play it on repeat for the full duration of the drive. (“There are other songs on the album,” Erin noted.) As they unloaded at the airport curb, Ben pulled out what he referred to as The Trump Card: a sealed letter, postmarked August 28, that he had written shortly after camp. This letter was inspired by Scott Guldin, who had advised Ben to play it cool in the feelings department, seeing as Erin was already in a relationship. But write the letters you want to write her anyway, Scott said. Just don’t send them. Hold onto them until the day comes when she’s ready to read them.

     So Ben wrote them. Then he mailed them to himself and left them sealed. He said everything he was afraid to say in the open. What’s the worst that can happen?, he thought. Erin marries the other guy and disappears forever and I burn the letters. No harm done, aside from the crushing heartbreak, of course. Except now, somehow, it had come to pass that Ben was giving Erin the first letter, which was not a love letter so much as a prelude to a love letter, a sort of What if we did fall in love? kind of letter. Wouldn’t that be a kick? Which it was, Ben thought, after they hugged and he disappeared into the crowds while Erin pulled back into traffic and the two of them again went their separate ways.

This (Tragic) Day in Vore History: October 14, 1992

For this edition of This Day in Vore History, we reach all the way back to 1992, when young Ben was fifteen years old.

Baseball was my first love. One of my first memories of my dad was him teaching me how to read box scores. I remember the columns of numbers and abbreviations slowly arranging themselves into a pattern I could decipher. As I studied them I had the sensation of learning vital things, things I knew would matter in my life. 

Great forces of evil conspired to keep me from starting Little League the year my friends did. My birthday fell after the July 31 cut-off. This was still in the era when baseball careers began at age eight, not five or six with t-ball. On the first day of official sign-ups, while my friends boasted of the great careers waiting for them, I went home, slammed my bedroom door, and wailed through supper. (The injustice of it, my tears said.)

Once a summer, usually the middle weekend in August, my family went to Pittsburgh for a weekend doubleheader: A Saturday night Pirates game and Sunday matinee. We stayed at the Sheraton Station Square and took the Gateway Clipper to the games. The Pirates were terrible in the 80s. I was too young for the “We Are Family” championship teams of the 70s, with Willie Stargell and Bill Madlock and Dave Parker smoking in the dugout. I inherited the Pirates of Joe Orsulak, Benny Distefano and the atrocious Jose DeLeon (2-19 in 1985). Still, those weekends were the highlights of my summer. I just learned not to base my happiness on the Pirates winning. 

The pieces for a good team were there in the late 80s, but it wasn’t until 1990 that the Pirates won the division. You may remember the Killer Bs — Barry Bonds and Bobby Bonilla — as well as All-Stars Andy Van Slyke and Doug Drabek. But it was the role players — Jay Bell, Sid Bream, Steve Buechele, John Smiley, Mike LaValliere, Bob Walk, Orlando Merced, Jeff King — who made them such a solid team. Pittsburgh lost to the Reds in the 1990 NLCS, then Atlanta in 1991. By then everyone knew the window was closing. Bonilla signed with the Mets. Bonds was sure to leave soon. Atlanta looked to be good for a while. We had missed our chance.

Except Pittsburgh had a great year in 1992. Barry Bonds won his second MVP. Tim Wakefield came out of nowhere to finish 8-1 in 13 starts. They finished 96-66. And Atlanta was waiting for them again in the NLCS.

My first and only playoff baseball game was Game 3 at Three Rivers Stadium. Pittsburgh was down 2-0 in the series and turncoat Sid Bream hit a solo home run in the 4th inning to put the Braves up 1-0. The Pirates were still scoreless until Don Slaught stepped to the plate in the bottom of the fifth and belted a home run that landed six rows in front of me in the left field bleachers. We taped the game at home, and you could see me, my brother, my dad and uncle in the very top row of the screen when the ball landed. I was high-fiving the daylights out of everyone in the section.

Pittsburgh won that game 3-2, lost Game Four, then won Game Five to send the series back to Atlanta. They jumped all over the Braves in Game Six, scoring eight runs in the second inning. Wakefield won (again) and the series went, as it had a year before, to a decisive Game Seven.

After losing Games One and Four, Drabek pitched masterfully. He held the Braves scoreless through eight innings, while the Pirates managed two runs off the evil John Smoltz. My dad stayed up to watch the game with me that night, even though he traditionally goes to bed around eight thirty. We had a running joke in my family every Monday when my dad would say, “Sure am looking forward to that Monday Night Football game tonight!”, to which my mom would sarcastically reply, “Right.” She knew — everyone knew — my dad would be lights out and snoring on the couch by nine fifteen. This never stopped the ritual though.

After the seventh inning, I got the idea to tear up six little pieces of notebook paper and write “Five outs,” “Four outs,” etc., down to “No outs!!!” (I distinctly remember putting three exclamation points.) As Drabek worked the eighth, I handed my dad each scrap of paper. I’m not sure what he made of the ritual, other than that his son was giddy and acting a little stupid at the thought of his beloved Pirates finally going to the Series.

Drabek started the bottom of the ninth and gave up a lead-off double to Terry Pendleton. Then Jose Lind — Gold Glover Jose Lind! — booted a David Justice grounder. Sid Bream walked after that. Jim Leyland pulled Drabek and put in State College High School grad Stan Belinda. I remember being very queasy at that point. The final three scraps of paper in my hand were getting a little damp with palm sweat. And my father was unleashing some of his more potent curse words; “dang nabbit!” and “criminy!” were just rolling off his tongue.

Belinda got Ron Gant to fly out, scoring Pendleton. Damon Berryhill walked on several verrrrry questionable ball calls. (Home plate umpire John McSherry left in the third inning with chest pains. Left field ump Randy Marsh and his microscopic strike zone called the rest of the game.) Belinda got Brian Hunter, who I really just hated for no good reason, to pop up for the second out. I remember shouting when it happened. Yes! This was really going to happen!

The Braves sent Francisco Cabrera to the plate. Cabrera was the last position player on the Atlanta bench. He was literally their last straw. He had played in only twelve games during the regular season and went to the plate just ten times. You could not have asked for a better match-up. I pictured every Braves fan seeing Cabrera walk out of the dugout and wanting to Tomahawk Chop themselves to death. Francisco Cabrera? That’s who our season is riding on?

Baseball fans know the rest. Cabrera singled to left field. Sid Bream, former Pirate, slowest man in the universe, rounded third and beat the throw from Bonds by inches. Skip Caray had a coronary. The Braves went to the Series. The Pirates have never had a winning season since. (As Bill Simmons put it, “The franchise was effectively murdered by one play.” And my innocence, Bill. And my innocence.)

What still gets me is the suddenness of it. We were up 2-0 going into the ninth. Even when Cabrera stepped to the plate, the Pirates were still ahead 2-1. One minute I had that final “No Outs!!!” in my hand, the next my dad and I were speechless as Atlanta players rushed the field and crushed Sid Bream under a human pyramid while a dejected Andy Van Slyke just sat there in center field, unable to comprehend it.

I couldn’t either. I had never felt as miserable as I did at that moment. Growing up, I thought, is not getting any easier. To commemorate this bitter, hard-earned wisdom, I removed the VHS tape from our VCR player, took it outside, and smashed it with a hammer.

This Month in Vore History AND The Third Voreblog Readers Forum

October has been a very good month to us, musically-speaking. A quick glance back over the past five Octobers reveals that we have seen a lot of great shows in a lot of different venues. Before we count down the Top Five October Concert Experiences in Vore History, we must (alas) revisit once again the worst concert experience in Vore History, which also took place in October: Bunny Brains opening for Devendra Banhart at Exit/In (October 14, 2005). The only good thing to come out of that was a permanent place in the Vore lexicon.

5. The New Pornographers at Mercy Lounge. October 18, 2005. Nashville. Ben saw this one sans Erin but with two work colleagues who rarely made social appearances. Such is the siren appeal of Neko Case, who was the best thing going for the Pornographers that (and every) night. Twin Cinema had just released and she belted out “The Bones of an Idol,” “These are the Fables” and — easily the show’s highlight — “The Bleeding Heart Show,” which lamentably has become the theme song to University of Phoenix commercials. A.C. Newman looked even pastier in person than Ben thought possible. 

4. Beulah at 12th & Porter. October 11, 2003. Nashville.  There are few songs that will instantly put Ben in a better mood than Beulah’s “Hey Brother,” which he and Seth Swihart listened to on repeat for the entire length of the Pennsylvania Turnpike many moons ago. There were rumors of Beulah’s demise shortly after Yoko released in 2003, but we were not aware that night at 12th & Porter how soon the end would come, or the cult status Beulah would attain after its break-up. If we can land a man on the moon, why can’t we get Beulah back together?

3. The Eels at Mercy Lounge. October 25, 2003. Nashville.  Some artists — Ben Folds and Wayne Coyne come to mind — are natural performers who seem to be trapped inside musician’s bodies. Mark Oliver Everett, a k a “E,” is another such hostage. After listening to Electro-Shock Blues, a concept album about death which E wrote after his sister committed suicide and his mother was diagnosed with cancer, one suspects that he is probably the saddest sack you’ll ever meet. So we were surprised when E turned up at the Mercy Lounge and turned out to be a comedic powerhouse. From the tweed-and-pipe MC Honky to the bearded wonder Koool G Murder, E’s bizarre entourage fit the mood perfectly. (You probably know The Eels from the Shrek movies: “My Beloved Monster,” “Royal Pain,” etc.)

2. Wilco at Tall Stacks. October 7, 2006. Cincinnati.  Highs: Dan Vore was in town to enjoy the festivities down by the river. Jeff Tweedy was in fine form. Nels Cline shredded for a good part of the evening. We heard “Impossible Germany” and “Hate it Here” for the first time. Lows: Two pot-smoking idiots in front of us kept talking to one another or on their cell phones as the show started. Highs: Erin made it clear she would crack their skulls if they didn’t remove themselves immediately from the vicinity. Highs: They did. 

1. LCD Soundsystem/Arcade Fire. October 3, 2007. Louisville.  This was another great show down by the river, although the stage was basically underneath an overpass. Arcade Fire’s fan base tends toward the messianic. A typical sentiment, posted by one fan online, is this: “If you are a human being, you owe it to your eternal soul to love the Arcade Fire and see them play live.” We won’t speak for your eternal soul, but ours was blown away. Never have so many people made banging on things look so essential. And the closer “Rebellion (Lies)” was killer. LCD Soundsystem was no slouch either. Are they the greatest band to run to … EVER? We vote: Yes! (Runner-up: Not Yo-Yo Ma.)

——————–

This leads us to the Third Voreblog Readers Forum: What is the your worst concert experience? We should clarify here that Devendra Banhart was great, Bunny Brains was not. A very close second for our Worst Concert Experience would be Bonepony, whom we saw with Eric Bescak. He has never forgiven us. (We’re not joking. Eric, we know you still harbor white hot rage toward us. We are so, so sorry.)

As always, feel free to ramble off-topic, ridicule our music tastes, post links to music videos from The Never-Ending Story, etc. Comment now!

This Day in Vore History: August 18, 2004

An occasional series reflecting on significant moments in Vore history.

We honeymooned in Vancouver. We made sure everyone we met along the way knew it too. The airline stewardess, who in turn announced it overhead so everyone else on the plane knew as well. Our rental car attendant. Waiters and waitresses. And oh the free things that came our way! Free dessert. Free glasses of champagne. Free passes to this and that. “How long do you think we can stretch this?” Erin asked Ben one night as they clinked champagne classes. “Five years?”

On our third day we went to the Vancouver Aquarium. During a lull in the dolphin show, one of the aquarium staffers announced that there would be a contest for two free whalewatching tickets. He needed three volunteers from the crowd. Erin raised her hand with gusto. He told her to come on down.

The emcee introduced the contestants, asking each what had brought them to Vancouver. Erin was last, and she happily announced that she was on her honeymoon. The crowd applauded. Clearly she was the fan favorite, especially in her wifiest black and white polka dot dress.

Once the introductions were made, the emcee announced the contest: Recreate the most authentic beluga whale mating call, with the winner chosen by audience applause. Erin went third.

The first two contestants wailed and moaned with suitable passion, coming close to what one might imagine as the sound an aroused beluga whale eager to showcase his sexual prowess would make. The crowd applauded politely and laughed at the especially excessive groaning.

Then it was Erin’s turn. The emcee handed her the mike. Silence descended upon the crowd.

In singsong Erin said, “I want some bah-looooooooo-ga-ah bay-bies.”

The crowd erupted. Ben imagines that random strangers high-fived one another while dolphins did backflips in the pool, although this may not have really happened.

Erin won in a landslide. We pocketed the two tickets and used them two days later to explore the Gulf and San Juan Islands, where after two fruitless hours a pack of orca swam directly toward our boat.

The driver cut the engine. “Be very quiet and don’t move!” he hissed. “They’re coming right for us.”

Sure enough they were. As if somehow they were locked on to some unknown signal, some siren song that was steering them directly toward us…

“Hey, are you humming?” Ben whispered to Erin as the whales got closer.

“Hmmm?” Erin said. “Why? Oh.”

She stopped. The whales passed directly underneath us. One broke through the water just a few feet on the other side of the boat. Everyone held their breath.

When they had moved off into the distance, the guide chirped happily, “That was close! They almost never get that close.”

Erin and Ben exchanged knowing looks.

This Day in Vore History: August 14, 2004

We walked down the aisle. 

And Ben still had hair.

We’re big fans of Bill Callahan, who you may know as (Smog). What you may not know is that he called us recently to say that he wrote the song “Our Anniversary” for us. True story. And this despite the fact he wrote it in 2002! Pretty amazing.

The song is a simple celebration of sticking with someone instead of running away from them. You can enjoy it yourself below.

Thanks, Bill. You’re the greatest.