Brotox and YHC are engaged in a little weight-loss accountability deal right now, which includes posting together at least once a week. As he is in Briar Chapel and YHC in South Durham, we have settled on Kenan as a nice equidistant site. Have enjoyed getting back to this OG Churham site, which has the added benefit of being located on my old college stomping grounds. (Class of ’01)

So for today’s Q decided to take the PAX on a bit of a personal memory lane tour: the dorm where YHC fell in love with both The Simpsons and my now-wife, Kenan Stadium itself, which held many fond and not-so-fond memories, and the old smoking porch of The Daily Tar Heel, where YHC spent many an hour debating, laughing and pondering life’s big questions with my fellow newspaper nerds. Glad to have my neighbor and fellow alumnus Castaway on hand. Turned out he was the only other UNC grad in the mix.

Quick warm-up, then moseyed over to the blacktop at Morrison Dorm to begin the festivities.

THANG

Circled up as Nightshift noted the public housing quality of the facility. Built in 1965, he wasn’t wrong, but it’s a thing of beauty to YHC and always will be. Two significant things happened here: First, YHC fell in love with an out-of-my-league Becky Amar, and somehow got her to give me the time of day after spending the first semester shooting my shot(s). It helped my cause that we lived next door to each other, so she couldn’t exactly avoid me. We’ve been together since January 1998, to include nearly 16 years of marriage and two beautiful children. Second, as many know, YHC is also a huge fan of The Simpsons. My mother, a school teacher, did not care for the whole “Underachiever and proud of it” thing that came with The Simpsons’ debut, so it was verboten in my house growing up. So it wasn’t really until I got to college that I became aware of its subversive genius and got hooked. A very abbreviated version of all that info led to:

• Homer to Marge X 50IC (heh heh)

Another personal love, thankfully shorter lived, also thrived in Morrison: weed. Hey, there’s a time and a place for everything, and it’s called college. To commemorate, we got in “high” plank and did an ROF where each PAX did two Tony Hawk burpees, which is a burpee finished with a full 360 turn on the jump. Makes you feel a little woozy, a teensy bit like you just inhaled, exhaled and just got an ounce in the mail.

Then we moseyed back to start for a few personal Kenan recollections.

My freshman year, fall 1997, Dean Smith retired, which was a bummer, but that was offset a bit by the fact that Carolina had its best football team ever that season. On Nov. 8, undefeated #2 FSU came to Chapel Hill to face undefeated #5 UNC. Everyone could smell our first national title and the place was electric all week, truly. One of our DTH columnists predicted – correctly, it turned out – that we were outmatched and would lose. He got actual death threats. Anywho, I managed to finagle three student ID cards for my twin brother, my 13-year-old sister and my 43-year-old dad so they could watch the game of the century for free in the student section. We nearly got trampled on the way in and, as the Tar Heels’ fortunes turned south, the drunken mob became increasingly surly. My poor family was ducking airplane bottles thrown in disgust for much of the second half. So…

• We did fast feet and get-downs every time YHC hollered out a liquor brand. Like, Jim Beam! Duck! etc.
• Then 23 burpees, both as punishment for the 20-3 defeat to FSU and, for giggles, in honor of the GOAT.

Next fast forwarded to May 2001, graduation day for YHC. Famously, Vince Carter flew down to participate in the graduation ceremony at Kenan in cap and gown, to please his mother, despite the fact that his Toronto Raptors were playing the Sixers in Philadelphia in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Semi-Finals. Vince – to this day the most insane athlete YHC has ever seen in person – was kind enough to sign my cap, however reluctantly. He wound up having 20 points in the game but missed the would-be game-winner.

• So we did 20 Vince Carters (aka Bobby Hurleys), then five penalty burpees for missing that shot.

Moseyed over to the corner of the student union across from Davis Library, site of the former DTH office and the aforementioned smoking porch. Smoking is one of the dumbest things you can do, and it’s a very difficult addiction to break, but YHC sure did have a lot of fun on that porch, and the smoking was an integral part of it. (F3 is what finally got me to quit, adding to my list of reasons to be grateful for Our Thing.) So we engaged in a healthier bit of “smoke” by partnering up near the smoking porch. One partner ran either down a breezeway or down to the corner of South Road while the other did burpees. Each partner set completed 127 burpees for The Daily Tar Heel’s 127 years of editorial freedom. (PS FYI, you always capitalize the “The” in The Daily Tar Heel. And Tar Heel, in all contexts, is two words, never one.)

Moseyed back home for

MARY

Homer to Marge X51 IC – Pointed out to Uzi that, even as we relived my youth, worked in a lot of Homer to Marge today because it’s good for our ailing hips. Time marches on and all that.

Brought back one final Kenan Stadium memory, this a happier one from right after my graduation. UNC, under first-year coach John Bunting, had started the season 0-3, but the losses were to Oklahoma at Oklahoma, Maryland at Maryland and Texas at Texas. Defending national champion #6 FSU was coming to town for the home opener, and no one was particularly optimistic except for YHC. Told anyone who would listen the night before at He’s Not Here we were going to win. And we beat the mess out of them, 41-9. YHC joined fellow idiot fans to help take down the goalposts after the game. Deliriously fun. So…

• We did 41 OHC IC

Finished with the official F3 Nation version of Homer to Marge, in which the Q calls out Homer while the PAX are in six-inch hold, then legs straight to heaven on the call of Marge, and back and forth until Q gets tired of it.

• LBC X 25 IC
• Heels to Heaven X 25 IC

COT

• Mueller put in a plug for Vortex, where Nightshift will have your Q tomorrow.
• Castaway announced that Romper Room, the 2.0 and M friendly workout at Thin Blue Line that Botched and Bellhop launched last year and now run by Bellhop and Castaway, is trying to decide whether to go weekly. It’s currently every other week but strong numbers in the mid to high thirties has them considering the change. Check your schedule to see when you might be able to post, and check the channel if you’re willing to Q.
• YHC took us out

MOLESKIN

Grateful for a strong and jovial group who indulged this literal exercise in self-indulgence. It was fun. SYITG.