Found this photocopy of a page from one of my notebooks from my early days at Temple University. My recollection is that I drew this on the very first day of the first class I took at Temple…Journalism 101 perhaps? I could have doodled anywhere. I chose Temple.

I’m fond of the soft pretzel and diner salt shaker behind Happy’s head.

From 1987 and one of my favorite classes at Temple taught by Steve Zelnick where we read Gulliver’s Travels, Joseph Andrews, Pride & Prejudice, lots of poems, Jane Eyre, and Hard Times.

In addition to the pulleys, surfer, tornado, skull, rocket, and sail ship, this doodle even has a pencil-point race track like we used to create in study hall in high school.

This is a drawing I did of Professor Zelnick the first week or so of class back in the fall of 1987. (He looks a little like Fran Dunphy (Temple’s basketball coach) in my doodle.

This is him today.

Part of my ongoing digging through the rubbermaid tub of stuff that I kept from high school and college days. I think this one was from my painting class at Temple U or just something I did at home. Some kind of bowl or vessel filled with black liquid, coffee? Rough but I like the light.

I took one or two semesters of German at Temple University while studying there in the 1980s. Unlike my French and Italian in high school, I recall very little of the language I’m sure I learned in college.

One phrase that stuck with me was “meine Jacke”.

The professor would act out whatever he was teaching us and I found it quite amusing when he said, “meine Jacke” while he gracefully stroked the lapels of his blazer.

It reminded me of how my father, once, during a heated game of Password, used the hand motion of playing with yo-yo and saying the word, “bob”. (The password was “yo yo”.) It caused a great ruckus, this illegal use of pantomime. The game quickly fell apart as the highly competitive McGlinchey family exchanged accusations of cheating and foul play.

My kids find it amusing, and a little odd, that the key phrase I remember is “meine Jacke.” I find it useful. I actually get to use it a lot when I can’t find “meine Jacke.”