the name of the band is ZALAZ

After a month or two in the making, I finally got around to hanging a few things in the office. When you round the corner and enter the doorway, the first thing you see (before today’s additions) was a photo of the beautiful Ithaca College campus. Moving into the residential areas to the left and right of this scenic mansion are a Sacajawea coin and three signed trading cards.

Yes there are stories behind the coin and the cards.

First, the coin was given to me by my grandfather on my dad’s side. He was mainly referred to as Pap Z.

Side note: he wasn’t just Pap Z within the family, many-a-folk referred to him as that and he would 100% of the time be spotted at local sporting events rocking  “Pap Z” embroidered sweatshirt.

So way back in the year 2006, I was in the greater Pittsburgh area on Christmas break, planning on a spring semester in London. Everyone was giving me money to throwaway invest in a good time overseas. Right before I left, I had a sit down meeting with Pap Z for a grandfather-son talk.

As I was leaving, he reached into his pocket and searched for some money. Before he could get his hand out, I said, “you don’t have to do that.” And then he handed me this coin, which I carried with me every day when I was abroad. About a month after I returned stateside, Pap Z had a stroke. He passed away that November. This coin is one of my prize possessions.

On the other side of the picture of the most glorious campus on earth are three cards from my other grandfather, Ralph. Ralph or Rass played in the NFL between 1954 and 1962 – manly with the Washington Redskins (54-60). He also won a national championship while attending the University of Maryland.  He has a wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ralph_Felton

Anyways, Ralph passed away in January and for Christmas, Abbey gave me these three signed cards. It was a touching gift and I’ll leave my tearful reaction between her and I – damn I just gave it away.

So there it is: an update on one of my four office walls. Tomorrow I think I’m going to address how I managed to retrieve that pen that fell behind my desk.