So I’m wandering through the greater Fort Douglas area, as I’m wont to do, imagining this splendid area back in the day when it actually was a fort. For some reason I get this Stepfordian image of perfectly outfitted soldiers and their Cleaveresque families enjoying the good life, devoid of crime, drugs, and reality TV. I’m poking fun, but I can actually see it here: the lawns are still meticulously trimmed and manicured, the old theater looks like something out of, well, an old movie, and the buildings themselves are satisfyingly red brick, perfectly symmetrical, and placed confidently in their lots. Before you think I’m poking fun again, I write this as I lean against one of the many ubiquitous white picket fences in the neighborhood.

The U's Surplus and Salvage building

But on this particular stroll I stumble across something I honestly have never noticed up here. Apparently the U has a “Surplus and Salvage” business going on. There it is, at 210 Connor Street, in a grand old warehouse of a building. It looks for all the world like a shoe factory but step inside and you’ll find a never-ending garage sale, only with some pretty cool stuff that will never find its way to your neighbor’s driveway on a Saturday morning. I know BYU used to do something like this with its used practice pianos (my advice, never buy one. Those boards have been hammered more times than Lindsay Lohan). But what I saw here was something in a different league altogether. This is the cache of one-time treasure the U has used to its completion and must now take the proverbial iceberg out to sea.

Ever thought to yourself, “Boy, I wish I had an Onan natural gas generator”? Well, apparently you can get one here, along with a myriad of other trinkets and gadgets. Recorders, cameras, computer processors, in fact all manner of electronics. Pumps, drills, stainless steel counters (one can never have too many of them). X-ray machines, a forklift, even something they’ve dubbed an “exam chair.” I’m trying it out now. Don’t like the vibe, think I’ll pass. There’s even a hotdog roller. Whatever the hell that is. I am, however, seriously considering the “meter variac potentiometer.” There are three left and I might get them all in case company comes over.

I did learn that educational and government agencies get first dibs on everything, and the public can have a go 15 days after that. They even set up a Dutch auction where they reduce the price on certain items as the month wanes on, after which the next month’s load of stuff comes in and that great circle of consumptive life starts all over again.

Great. Another potentially expensive addiction. See where taking walks gets you?

Chris Shelton came back to town last week. That may not mean much unless you remember a paunchy redheaded kid who played U baseball like a rhino that just woke up in a glass factory. He was one of those guys you loved to watch, even if you didn’t love baseball. He always had a smile on his face (smeared in sweat) and his was always the dirtiest uniform on the team, which in my book is the sign of a true diamond rat.

I started paying special attention to him after he left campus and eventually made his way up the ladder to the Detroit Tigers, the team with which I grew up and am proud to say have continued rooting for with stubborn and oftentimes painful resolve. Motown loved the kid too. In fact, the Tiger faithful began referring to him as “Red Pop” in homage to his red hair and lively bat. Red Pop is also by no coincidence the name of my favorite childhood soda made by a Detroit bottler, which gives added meaning to the moniker.

Chris’ pro story is typical, really. Kid plays his face off at the U, earns MWC Player of the Year, makes it to the bigs, sets record by hitting nine homers in his first 13 games, fizzles (soda pun intended) by mid-season and a few years and teams later finds himself back in the minors, this time with Seattle Mariners’ AAA club in Tacoma. That brings us to last week when Chris’ team came to Salt Lake to play the Bees.

I’m proud to say that Utah still remembers Chris Shelton. Every time he came to the plate, a chorus of cheers filled Spring Mobile Park, and a noticeable gang of family members and well-wishers behind home plate began chanting his name. And yes, many were wearing U baseball caps. He was noticeably moved, which ended up biting us big time as his timely hits and excellent defense helped Tacoma beat the hometown Bees. And his uniform? Filthy.

Welcome home, Red Pop.

I’m a biker. Not the annoying kind that scares children or blows up little critters with hand grenades (okay, that was Raising Arizona). And with the weather warming, it has been a joy to get the lady out and cruise into work. Usually the ride is normal and without incident. But lately, an interesting new phenomenon occurs as I growl closer to campus. I find that right around 9^th South I’m immediately engulfed in a swarm of U students on scooters, buzzing along happily, zooming in and out of traffic like drunk bees. My first instinct is to not disturb them with my big black bike the way Marlin Perkins always tiptoed around a pack of hyenas on Mutual of Omaha’s Wild Kingdom. Actually, my FIRST instinct is to ram them. Comes from being a boy in a family of bikers. But instead I choose a more mature tack, one that involves passivity and good old-fashioned people watching.

And more often than not, I’m rewarded for my voyeurism. What amuses me most is the absolute gang-like quality these young commuters take. Sure, the helmets don’t have bloodstained skeletons on them (Hello Kitty is the prevalent choice amongst girls while the boys seem to go with flat black and the occasional subversive sticker) and the jackets aren’t leather with eerie initials and images of Satan’s bachelor pad (although I did see one well-meaning lad sporting a pleather vest with a picture of Spock – nothing is more badass than Spock, apparently). But the herd (swarm?) mentality is impossible to deny, and while I felt a tad silly riding alongside these lawnmowers on wheels, feeling all the time that I’m somehow being secretly escorted to the queen bee to be killed in some weird frat ritual, I do so willingly and with no pretense.

There’s a ritual on the road when two bikers pass each other. You may have seen it. Both riders instinctively give each other a simultaneous greeting – two fingers outstretched and pointing down to the road. And while it’s as close as I’ll ever want to get to a secret handshake, it is more significant than a simple greeting or salutation. The signal hearkens back to the beginnings of the culture, from the ancient of days. It’s a sign to “keep two wheels down,” or, “the shiny side up.” It may seem silly, but it has its place and I respect it, enough never to give it up lightly to hotdogs on bullet bikes…or to kids on scooters. But I think, and I may make my father spew on his Harley wife beater if he ever reads this, that if a U scooter gang ever gives me the sign, I may just possibly almost consider returning it.