Fall 2009 Retrospect: Turkey Bowling

Logo of the Underdog Sports League of Portland's Big Turkey Bowling
(i.e. the least ridiculous turkey bowling logo I could find)

November 22nd, 2009: RHA Turkey Bowling

Anyone familiar with Christopher Moore's Bloodsucking Fiends: a love story will also be familiar with the noble sport of Turkey Bowling, as played by the Animals of the Safeway night shift. Pick up your 12-pound Butterball, line up ten diet sodas at the end of the aisle, and let the bird fly, so to speak. (The diet soda part is important. Diet sodas are easier to clean up than sugary sodas. The residue's not as sticky with diet sodas, so keep that in mind when you plan to make a turkey-related mess.)

Thank the Great Gobbler that W&M is just as nerdy as I am, because the Residence Hall Association held a turkey bowling championship.

Irene Morrison-Moncure, Class of 2011,
the championship winner, hurling her bird.

Held in the Crim Dell meadow, competitors could enter with a donation of a canned good for charity and bowl a fowl to win Wawa gift cards. And with finals only a few weeks away, Wawa gift cards are like gold. Thanks to the 24-hour Wawa on Richmond Road, W&M students live on Wawa foodstuffs, particularly during finals.

The pins, prior to their meleagrine destruction.

Competitors lobbed their birds down the lane at water bottles (decorated in Thanksgiving decor, of course), sending plastic bottles and frozen birds spinning into the frosty November grass, and fun was had by all.

However, just before I left at the end of the festivities, I discovered an atrocious deception made by these RHA representatives:

Oh, horror! Not a Cornish Broiler Chicken!

The birds were CHICKENS, not turkeys! So what if chickens are probably cheaper and definitely easier to throw? Their bird of bowling was inaccurately advertised! That's some heinous f*ckery most foul right there.

Happy Thanksgiving, William & Mary.

Strike!

Grand Illumination 2009!

Yay! Pretty!

View of the Magazine's fireworks from outside Bruton Parish Church.
Edges of the Capitol's fireworks can be seen on the left.

This was my first Grand Illumination, so it was very exciting for me. I missed the Fifes & Drums, but I arrived just in time for the fireworks, apple cider in one hand and iPhone camera in the other. (Much thanks to the study abroad fundraiser that was handing out cider and cookies!)

I was really amazed by the mass of people gathered in Colonial Williamsburg for the event -- more than I've ever seen in CW at one time. It must have been thousands, all packed together on Duke of Gloucester street, huddled against the cold and gazing up at the fireworks; yet people were saying that this was a small turn-out compared to previous years.

Colonial Williamsburg has really suffered this past year or so, despite the neat programs they've recently started (and the opening of the Charlton Coffeehouse, which I finally visited this weekend and is SO cool, go check it out). It's not a matter of CW being less interesting, relevant, or enjoyable; it's just that everyone's broke. Attraction sites around the country are suffering the same losses, but for a great institution like Colonial Williamsburg to suffer like this, that's a real tragedy.

So if you and your family are looking for somewhere to visit this holiday season, consider spending a day in Colonial Williamsburg. And attend 2010's Grand Illumination!

(The holiday parade being canceled due to bad weather was a real bummer, though. I'll just have to make sure to see it next year.)

And so the holiday season truly begins...