In 2005 I finished graduate school and Morgan came out to help me pack up my room. It was blazing hot in Cambridge, and we went out for a ride on the Minuteman trail. Morgan and I made it out towards Lexington, he on his rollerblades and me on my roadbike, both listening to some prefuse 73. We stopped in a field and had a bit of an indulgence...Next thing I know Morgan is rollerblading down a steep dirt trail on his rollerblades, giggling hysterically, and I nearly had a moment of incontinence from laughing so hard..

At the Cheese Pizza

Morgan was babysitting me one night - he was maybe 9 or so - when my parents went out to see Mumenshanz or perhaps Ordinary People. He was in charge of making dinner. One of his signature dishes was an English Muffin Pizza, which I will share the recipe:

• One English Muffin, split
• Ragu sauce
• Velveeta Slices
• Pepperoni Slices

Toast English muffin. Coat with Ragu Sauce. Place pepperoni slices on Ragu sauce. Lay cheese slice over pepperoni. Microwave for one minute in RadarRange. Serve hot enough to burn roof of mouth.

This particular night we were out of pepperoni, so in lieu of the pepperoni, and to ease my pain, he decided that we were running a restaurant called "The Cheese Pizza", which had its own jingle that went like this:

"At the Cheese Pizza,
At the Cheese Pizza,"

Catchy, no?

The Tin Medal in the Space Trolley Olympics

In our backyard in Winnetka, Illinois, in 1976 or so, my father set up a zipline-thing we called the "space trolley". It was connected to the back screen porch and a willow tree on the other end. If you were sitting in the screen porch it made this incredible whining sound, as if the porch were a giant speaker for the wires. This meant we could not ride it when Mom and Dad were out on the porch drinking Stroh's and eating Bousin cheese.

Morgan at one point decided that we were to have a "Space Trolley Olympics". After we each completed our runs on the space trolley--which I believe we judged on speed and style--he declared himself the Gold medal winner, and for me - he invented the Tin Medal-evidently I didn't even qualify for the silver nor gold. I think the silver and gold medal were awarded to Puppy Pullman and Abby Rabby, our stuffed animals.

Rafting

Gates of Lodore, Green River, Utah. We had a small group on this trip - Sarah, Andy, Max, Dick, Paul Minogue. There wasn't much water this time and we spent most of our days dragging the boats off of rocks.

Fresno Bee Article

Fresno Bee story on Morgan

UCSB Story

Here's a link to the UCSB story on Morgan