Now this is a NY Times NCAA tournament article about my alma mater to which I can actually relate...

...it has a nun in the headline!

When I attended Xavier University in Cincinnati, Ohio, as an undergraduate (H.A.B. '81), the Musketeers were not a basketball powerhouse. We struggled when we played Thomas More College from across the river, after all, and a man named Tay Baker was our coach.

It wasn't until Xavier beat Georgetown sometime in the late '80s that I knew something different was happening at my alma mater.

Xavier, remember, had gotten rid of football in 1973 (although I just learned they have club football team now), so my fond memories of Xavier include Lucretius, Homer, Horace, Kate Chopin, Thorstein Veblen, How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying, Georges Feydeu's A Flea in Her Ear, the Flying Karamazov Brothers, and the screening of The Last Tango in Paris that was prevented by local prosecutor Simon Lees, rather than a single sporting event.

For what it's worth, we did have bocce courts on campus, and the President, Fr. Mulligan, S.J., swan every morning in the University pool and could be spotted walking across campus, in his towel and sandals, heading back to the Jesuit residence.

I'm looking for a hard-headed woman...

A co-worker who shall remain nameless has taken to riding -- as often as possible -- a very nice bike she calls "Myrtle." It even has a little bell. However, because she rides on the sidewalk and stays mostly in her neighborhood, she refuses to wear a helmet since, as she argues, a helmet (especially those aerodynamic ones so popular with the kids!) just "wouldn't go with Myrtle."

"Safety first," we say.

Right, Sister?