Digging through photos from my college days again, I came across this picture, which I hadn't seen in years. It, again, shows the Miskatonic football team (Go, 'Pods!), this time from 1918, right at the end of the Great War. While I
did go to Miskatonic that year (I started my freshman year that year), and only knew a couple of these folks personally (I had to do a lot of research)...
I am not in this photo! I never actually played football! What? Read on, dear reader:
Standing (L-R):
Professor George Grammell Angell (Professor of Archaeology and Various Mysteries) My mentor in many ways, Dr. Angell was a very secretive man, often hiding away in his office and in his lab, studying ancient tomes, obscene statuary, and vile, dead languages. When he did teach, class would often pause as he found himself in some sort of reverie... Died in 1924, rumored to have been pushed off a cliff by a mysterious sailor who was never found. His grand-nephew was by then a staff member as well, who is said to have embarked on a secretive expedition to Antarctica in 1931.
John Smith (Class of '19) Mr. Smith was the most normal person I ever met. Of average height and weight, he was a communications major. Never an outstanding footballer, he was not bad, either. He had a "C" average in all of his classes, and graduated in the middle of his class. It seems that he eventually married into a middle-class lifestyle, and had 2.4 children.
Adalger Schrade (Class of '19) The boy had a prosthetic neck, hidden by his enormous turtle-neck sweaters. Rumor was that he no longer had a true spinal cord nor cervical vertebrae, but some sort of electro-chemical construction built in a laboratory in his native Austria. I do not know how this affected his football skills, but I do know that his position is listed as "prone". No idea where this guy ended up.
Vespar (Class of '18) Vespar never really took to civilization well. Found in the Ozark Mountains as an adolescent, he agreed to go east with the promise of food. He found football to his liking, as it was fairly violent, and appreciated the women that would come to the games. He ofttimes would forget to dress, so they had to sew him into his clothing for modesty's sake. Last I heard, he was an increasingly incoherent traveling preacher during the 1930's, but his trail has since grown cold.
Angus Beauregard Clampett (Professor of Economic Meddling) Coach Clampett was from the wrong side of Tennessee, his family having supported Johnson in his successful bid for a Senate seat. He claimed to have fought as a Brigadier General during the War Between the States, but that would mean that he is either a) around 80 in this photo, b) a resolute liar, or c) immortal. Went on to a thriving career in Hollywood, at least into the 1950's.
Seated (L-R):
Charles Whittensonstein, Jr. (did not graduate) Whittensonstein came from an upper-class New York family who settled the area during the era of Bolivian colonization. The team quarterback, he was the apple of many a girl's eye (and a few gentlemen, too), until his unfortunate decapitation due to an accident in the earliest automated car wash in Massachusetts. The Medical School attempted to reattach the head - with some degree of success - but he remained dead. As such, he only played in a few more games before retiring to his family's plot in Manhattan.
Gabhar Fiáin (Class of '20) Sadly, despite the educated, liberal campus milieu he found himself in, racism was still a factor in Gabhar's life at school. Often mistreated for his Irish origins, he was usually relegated to the back of the class, and was often graded unfairly. He excelled at football, however, which mitigated some of his enforced ostracism, and earned him a few friends. Oh, and his father was a goat.
Charles "Chuck" Brown (Class of '18) Kicked in the head one too many times in the course of the game, Chuck was often found wandering about campus in a daze. Married a red-headed girl eventually, but suffered from Severe Depression (which was also his major in school), leading to a messy divorce, and spending his remaining nickels on a quack psychiatrist. Eventually joined some sort of agricultural cult.
Tyne Blücher (Class of '18) Blücher hailed from one of the oldest families in the region of the Miskatonic River; his mother's side immigrated from somewhere in central Romania, while his father's side seems to have evolved in the area over the course of the last 30 million years. A native of the nearby port town of Innsmouth, Blücher was a real "momma's boy", bringing his mother to each game. As she was a better player than he was, they occasionally switched clothing as he watched her play from the stands. Last I heard, mother and son are doing well as displays in a Route 66 roadside museum.
Floor (L-R):
Francis Buxton (Class of '18) I was able to learn little about Buxton, other than that he was an enthusiastic bicyclist, and eventually moved into a puddle in a street near Liverpool.
Amadeus Arkham (Class of '18 1/2) Certifiably Insane, at least according to his diploma, Arkham was from the founding family of the nearby Massachusetts town of Arkham. Participating in a mass suicide briefly in the 1930's, he went on to help create the Nielsen TV rating system, and then to work in the BBC programming department. Last seen eating bugs in his London apartment.
John "Beatnik Steampunk" LeMaitre (Class of '19) If you ever watched TV in the 1960's, you know that everyone has an evil twin - and this guy was mine. Created in a transporter accident, he majored in Divinity and Other Gambles while pursuing his loves of football and gooseberry jam. Upon graduation, he disappears from the public record, although his existence would explain anomalies in my later problems with taxes, the law, and certain personal issues. At least, that's
my story...
Dionysus deSade (Class of '21) Young for the team, his skills on the gridiron quashed any compunctions the fans might have had. Occasionally biting his opponents (and once, his coach), he was amazingly fast, considering his shambling gait. Majoring in Political Instability, deSade went on to own his own car - which he promptly drove into a tree in 1923, after being crushed by a falling boulder in a rainstorm. Found by a wandering paleontologist, he ended up marrying the man's daughter and living the life that only a homonoid can.
? (unknown) I have no idea who this is. In fact, he wasn't in the photo when I first looked at it! No record of this person exists. Perhaps he was an enemy of Josef Stalin, perhaps he's the manifestation of an unhappy 17th century spectre, perhaps I need to take my medication...
Anyhow, enjoy the picture! Here's a similar photo (no doubt, from a parallel universe in which it depicts the University of Michigan Wolverine team from 1900) I found, that may prove of interest to some of you:
quod.lib.umich.edu/b/bhl/x-bl001018/BL001018?lasttype=boo... 