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Gary Barta and Kirk Ferentz Find a Time Capsule

Carver_hawkeye_medium
Gary Barta's office, in an empty Carver Hawkeye Arena

Barta2icon_medium  Secretary!
Iconliljon_medium  Yes sir?
Barta2icon_medium  Call Kirk Ferentz and get him over here immediately.  I have something to show him.
Iconliljon_medium  Yes sir.  Also, can I please have Thursday off?  I think I might get picked in the NBA Draft.
Barta2icon_medium  Absolutely.

Half an hour later

Iconliljon_medium  Kirk Ferentz is here.  Should I send him in?
Barta2icon_medium  Right away.
Iconferentz_medium  Did you know that kid is out there refreshing ESPN.com every fifteen seconds to check his draft stock?
Iconbarta_medium  I don't care.  I didn't call you to talk about my secretary's inevitable run in Mexican professional basketball.
Iconferentz_medium  Well, I'm about to land our fourteenth scholarship punter.  I'm thisclose to assembling Punter Voltron and you interrupted me.  So there had better be a good reason why you called me.
Iconbarta_medium  The guys working on the new golf facility uncovered this old chest filled with stuff.
Iconferentz_medium  What, like bullion?
Iconbarta_medium  Yeah, bullion.  The fucking thing is filled with soup cubes.
Iconbarta_medium  It's a time capsule from 1900.  It's filled with all these artifacts and pictures and stuff.  And it included this picture, which I thought you might find interesting.

Ferentzbarta1900_medium

Iconferentz_medium  Wait, is that...
Iconbarta_medium  Yep.  According to the writing on the back, that's your great-grandfather, Dirk Ferentz, and my great-grandfather, Bartholomew Barta, circa 1900.
Iconbarta_medium  Dirk, of course, was a recent German immigrant and head coach of Iowa's Western Conference champion Hooverball team...
Iconferentz_medium  ...Hooverball wasn't invented until 1930...
Iconbarta_medium  ...and Bart Barta was Iowa's recreation director at the time.
Iconferentz_medium  ...Actually, Iowa won the Big Ten football championship in 1900...
Iconbarta_medium  I bet those were the days, right?  No press, no fundraising, no golf coaches being wooed by Southern schools, no facilities to maintain.  Hell, no football.
Iconferentz_medium  ...Iowa was 7-0-1 that year in football...
 Iconbarta_medium  Just intramurals.  Not a care in the world...
Iconbarta_medium  /looks off into distance, enters daydream

Barta1900icon_medium  /taps on tin can tied to a string leading out the door
Barta1900icon_medium Ferentz?  Ferentz!  Ferentz, come quick!  I need you!
Ferentz1900icon_medium  What is it, Bartholomew?
Barta1900icon_medium Do you understand the joke?  It's like that ole chap Alexander G. Bell and his assistant Watson!
Ferentz1900icon_medium  Oh Holy Ghost, Bartholomew.  Is that why you requested my presence?  For juvenile humor on a wire?  I have very important business to attend to.  We play Grinnell College this sabbath day.
Barta1900icon_medium  Come now, dear Dirk.  Let us put our cares aside and have fun at the expense of that old chap Jamie Pollard Sr.
Barta1900icon_medium  I know, old friend!  We shall send him a telegram as that renowned leader of the gridiron Pop Warner, he who left those dastardly Cyclones for the savages of Oklahoma in 1898!  Pollard will be funderburked into believing Warner desires a return, and we shall all have a laugh when he learns otherwise!
Ferentz1900icon_medium  But Bartholomew, I am quite busy.  My Irishman assistant coach wants to attempt a formation known as the Double Wing, wherein our backs will impersonate live chickens during the scrimmage in order to deceive the opp...
Barta1900icon_medium  Ames Iowa STOP
Barta1900icon_medium  Attention Jamie Pollard Senior STOP
Barta1900icon_medium  This telegram hails from Carlisle Oklahoma penned by your old chap Pop Warner STOP
Barta1900icon_medium  Life has been hard here in the former Indian Territories STOP
Barta1900icon_medium  The dust rolls through the plains like an Iowa State quarterback in motion STOP
Barta1900icon_medium  Oh how I wish I were back in your presence friend of mine STOP
Barta1900icon_medium  Please take me back to the quiet comfort of Ames sir STOP
Barta1900icon_medium  I simply cannot go on without you Jamesies STOP
Hankins1900icon_medium  I say, old chaps, are you penning another razzing of Messr. Pollard?
Barta1900icon_medium  Why, Dirk, if it isn't our old chap Hank Hankins, coacher of the golfers!  What brings you to these modest offices, old friend?  I hope good news and good tidings!
Hankins1900icon_medium  I'm afraid not, Bartholomew.  As you well know, our mashers of the mashie have excelled as of recent times, nearly winning the conference title.
Barta1900icon_medium  Yes, and proud we are of you and your golfers.
Hankins1900icon_medium  Well, our modest successes have not gone unnoticed, and I have been offered a position in Georgia, coaching golfers in a clime where the players can practice throughout the four seasons.  I'm a native of this fair state, and I appreciate greatly the opportunity to work for this fine institution of learning, but it is a tempting offer these Georgians have made.
Ferentz1900icon_medium  On the same token, dearest Bartholomew, the stresses of coaching our successful gridders has made it difficult, nigh impossible, for me to partake on a holiday away from the city.  I desire and shall greatly appreciate any efforts made within your grand powers to secure me some sort of flying contraption with which I may transport myself abroad for eighty to eighty-five hours per year.
Barta1900icon_medium  I'm glad you, dear Hank, and you, dearest Dirk, have brought these items to my attention.  Be assured your friend and confidant Bartholomew has already -- dare I say -- read your minds and has solutions for your problems.
Barta1900icon_medium  First, for you Hankins, I present the answer to your climate dilemma.  I present the Bloodpunch Weather Control Machine 2000!

Weather_control_machine_medium

Barta1900icon_medium  With this machine, you can make the Iowa climate bow to your every desire.  Your peggers can peg every day regardless of season or precipitation!  Your team of Alistair Mackenzies will be unstoppable!
Barta1900icon_medium  And as for you, Messr. Ferentz, I wholeheartedly agree that a personal flying machine is necessary.  Therefore, our scientists and students have developed the following prototype.

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Barta1900icon_medium  As you can see, both you and I can fly freely throughout the skies, not as a zeppelin does but rather like a swan.  Or a bat with a horn, in your case, Dirk.
Barta1900icon_medium  And best of all, the devices are all paid for with a generous donation from none other than Rockefeller Vanderbilt, the old copper magnate and vagabond!
Barta1900icon_medium  So, my dearest chaps, with your fears assuaged and your wants given, what say you sign these lifetime contracts?
Hankins1900icon_medium  Well, I see no reason to ever leave Iowa!
Ferentz1900icon_medium  As do I.  With my signature and seal, I give you my word.  Never again will my eye wander.
Barta1900icon_medium  Wonderful!  Now, how's about we send another telegram?
Ferentz1900icon_medium  I am quite busy preparing for those Grinnell Tigers, Bartholomew.
Hankins1900icon_medium  And I with my newest links prodigy, Pete Pakistan.
Barta1900icon_medium  Barta1900_medium
Ferentz1900icon_medium  Oh, fine.  Dearest Hankins, find a bottle of fine spirits and we shall compose this telegram.
Ferentz1900icon_medium  Tell those old Bugeaters from Nebraska that they can join our conference if they transfer all their programs of study to Lincoln, that godforsaken dust cloud.
Barta1900icon_medium  As if we would ever allow such a disreputable institution into our fine coalition of  intercollegiate cooperation and athletics.
Barta1900icon_medium  Methinks life in 1900 is swell.  Swell, indeed.  In truest fact, old Bartholomew might well SIR
Barta1900icon_medium  I was saying, BarthSIR
Iconliljon_medium  Sir, I'm sorry to wake you, but Pat Harty is outside.  He's asking if you know why Sean Keeler was fired while he still has a job.
Iconbarta_medium  Iconbarta902_medium

Iconbarta_medium  Because the modern world is a dumb place, that's why.

Meanwhile, in Ames, circa 1900

1900pollardicon_medium  Dearest Pop STOP
1900pollardicon_medium  You have no idea how your most recent cable touched my heart STOP
1900pollardicon_medium  I will send a train at once to collect you and your family and...
1900pollardicon_medium  /picks up newspaper

Popwarnernews_medium

1900pollardicon_medium  Pollardinconsolable1900_medium

1900pollardicon_medium  /is inconsolable