(This photo of me teaching in 2021 comes courtesy of Gregory Urquiaga at UC Davis.)
Last spring, on the final day of my first-year seminar, a senior named Elizabeth carried a big pink box through downtown Davis as I gave her and her classmates a public art tour. She lugged it past every mural and sculpture I showed the class, and when we reached the courtyard behind the Pence Gallery, she opened it: donuts and éclairs for everyone, bought with her own grocery money. She told me afterward that our walking and journaling seminar was one of her final classes at UC Davis, and she wanted to make it count.
I understood the impulse. This fall I’m teaching that seminar, “Victory Lap: Journaling Our Long Walk Together,” for one of its final runs before I retire next July. Each Monday we meet somewhere new on campus, walk, talk, and close with an entry in our hardback journals. I’ve begun calling this year nostalgia in progress: I miss experiences while they’re still happening.
This past Monday, the campus gave me two more moments to miss.
We started at Mrak Hall, where we stopped to regard Robert Arneson’s two eggheads out front, and where I told my students about Emil Mrak and Larry Vanderhoef, two of the three UC Davis chancellors I admire most. The third, Gary May, employs someone I spotted next, Chris Macias.
I’ve known Chris for about ten years. A UC Davis alumnus, he spent 18 years at The Sacramento Bee as a features writer and critic, covering music, food, and regional culture. He came home to campus to write speeches for Chancellor Gary May, and he has frequently guest-lectured in my journalism classes. Between visits, we run into each other around campus and town and sometimes meet for a daytime beverage.
When Chris learned that my students keep journals, he lit up. Keep writing, he told them, even after the quarter ends. Then he described the Gateway District, the stretch of campus anchored by the Mondavi Center and designed to welcome prospective students and other visitors.
So we walked it: past King Hall to the Alumni and Visitor Center, then to the Mondavi Center, the district’s focal point. Out front, standing on a bench, I recounted some of my favorite Mondavi experiences (in the audience and on stage).
I also told the story of bringing my dad and stepmom there in 2002, just before the performance space opened. The three of us compared it to the Kennedy Center in Washington, where my father spent so many evenings reviewing plays, and where we later held his memorial service.
Our last stop was the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art. I was concluding my introduction when Cesar Chavez, the museum’s manager of visitor experience, stepped outside. He wondered whether he’d forgotten a scheduled tour. I told him ours was unauthorized, a trespassing tour. He laughed, then gave my students a preview of what’s coming: The Gift of Fashion, a show of haute couture gowns and jewelry from Maria Manetti Shrem’s own collection, and California Dreaming, a major exhibition with David Hockney, Judy Chicago (with whom I once danced at a conference after-party), and Ed Ruscha that opens in Florence next spring before arriving in Davis. Then he invited anyone interested to apply for a job at the museum.
I had known Chris for a decade and Cesar for about four minutes. Both treated my students as honored guests. On the first day of class, I promised my students guest lectures from local notables without knowing who they would be. Previous impromptu guest lecturers have included my local heroes: Spanish professor Bob Blake, my deeply compassionate friend David Breaux, and artist and musician Heidi Brekebrede, who sang my students the City of Davis Song in 2021, back when my outdoor seminar was among the first UC Davis classes offered during the Covid lockdown.
These surprise visits belong to what I call the UC Davis advantage. A class like mine can wander across the largest UC campus for an hour and crowd no one. After I dismissed the class, one student told me Davis feels safer than Seattle or Atlanta, two cities where she has lived, and then asked about Poetry Night. At UC Davis, we also trust students to manage real institutions, including the Coffee House, Unitrans, The California Aggie, and KDVS. On Monday, the advantage wore two faces: an old friend and a new one, each willing to devote part of a busy day to teach a group of first-year students they had never met.
My former student Elizabeth had bought pastries because she knew her time at UC Davis was running short. When you know you’re near the end of something, you start handing out what you have, as I am doing with all my teachable stories. Chris handed my students a piece of advice, and I plan to take it myself. This quarter will end, and next July my teaching will, too. I’ll keep writing.
The weather will be as pleasant as you would expect from a mid-October evening, so I hope you will come join us at Sudwerk, home of the Pub Quiz with Dr. Andy. Last week. The Mavens took a rare week off, so during the dinner hour, the host traveled from table to table like the disguised Odysseus amid the suitors. Somebody took him in.
Join us on the patio if you can get a reservation or arrive early enough. As for the quiz, expect 31 questions on a variety of topics you should know something about, this week with extra questions on notable films, a topic that I never tire of even though I rarely visit the cinema houses these days. The Varsity is his favorite.
In addition to topics raised above and below, expect questions tonight on the following: animals, anniversaries, athletes, babies, blockbusters, borders, brands, carnivores, championships, classics, classics, comedies, commonwealths, companies, countries, crops, definitions, diamonds, dogs, drones, elections, endorsements, European countries, factories, families, farmers, films, frequencies, fusions, governments, hearts, hockey teams, horror films, insects, joints, jurists, lawyers, lifespans, loans, lost masterpieces, mayors, mayors, mergers, musicians, nineties, novellas, novels, Oscar nominees, peppers, petals, pianos, poets, prizes, quarterbacks, quests, reading speeds, recent releases, restaurant chains, revenues, romances, schools, secretaries, shouts, sixties, songs, states, storms, streaming services, superheroes, symbolic fathers, thirsty people, TV dramas, universities, vermin, voice actors, water rights, western cities, current events, and Shakespeare.
For more Pub Quiz fun, please subscribe via Patreon at https://www.patreon.com/c/yourquizmaster.
Thanks to all the new players joining us at the live quizzes and to all the patrons who have been enjoying fresh Pub Quiz content. Certain friends have upgraded their memberships recently, which I really appreciate.
We are now past 150 Patreon members, including people who have upgraded their paid memberships! You know who you are, and I salute you! I also incidentally salute Heghnar, Cathy, Kevin, Christine, Caroline, Bobby, Prescott, James, Damian, Meebles, and Bill and Diane! Thanks also to The X-Ennial Falcons, and The Nevergiveruppers! Every week I check the Patreon to see if there is someone new to thank. Maybe next week it will be you! I also thank The Original Vincibles, Summer Brains, Still Here for the Shakesbeer, The Outside Agitators, John Poirier’s team Quizimodo, Gena Harper, the conversationally entertaining dinner companions and bakers of marvelous and healthy treats, The Mavens. Thanks also to my paid subscribers on Substack.
Thanks to everyone who supports the Pub Quiz on Patreon. I would love to add your name or that of your team to the list of pub quiz boosters. Also, I sometimes remember to add an extra hint on Patreon. I appreciate your backing this pub quiz project of mine!
I also want to recognize those who visit my Substack the most often, including Elaine, Michael, Luna, Jean, Ron, Myrna, Maria, to whom I send sustained compassion.
Best,
Dr. Andy
Three questions from last week:
- Books and Authors. The current number one best seller in actor and entertainer autobiographies is titled The Steps. What living Oscar-nominee wrote the book?
- Film. With a title starting with the letter V, what new film stars Anne Hathaway, Dakota Johnson, and Josh Hartnett?
- Youth Culture. A 2026 HalloweenCostumes.com survey found that 15% of people start their Halloween planning on what social medium?