NEWS FLASH

Informed sources claim to have discovered evidence that neither Gage Coulon nor her soon-to-be-ex fiancee, Julian Dierkes, have diplomas from a proper high school ...Julian is rumored to have made a feeble attempt, but then decided to take a path of less resistance already travelled by Gage...our sources continue to be amazed how far you can get without a proper degree...

THE GHOST OF WEDDINGS PAST

Julian is reputed to be a notorious overdresser at weddings...in 1989 he and his brother were seen being the only people dressed up and in suits at a back-woods wedding in someplace remote (might have been sacramento or modesto, who can tell)...that wedding also served as an inspiration in some other ways...julian and gage have decided NOT to conduct a quick (two minutes max) ceremony in a remote corner of the front yard before all of the guests have caught on to the fact that something important is about to happen and the couple and the families have decided NOT to spend the first few hours after the ceremony unwrapping and cataloging the various toasters and microwaves that they are looking forward to receiving...they will, however, be picking up on the idea of having relatives provide some of the music...manfred is said to have made firm assurances about NOT limiting his performance to country and western tunes...but if you ask nicely, he might dig up one or two of his old favorites and cut loose...

ON THIS DAY IN HISTORY, SIX YEARS AGO

Julian beat Ansgar in chess and has vowed never to play again to preserve that record...

ON THIS DAY TEN YEARS AGO

Julian was the proud owner of at least fifteen odd and novel baseball caps. The elk cap is held in fond memory by those lucky enough to have seen it in action.

ON THIS DAY TWELVE YEARS AGO

Julian and his brother Ansgar were just about to embark on their famously instructional bicycle tour of the Swedish countryside. Their adventures were to include such highlights as...leaving the lights on when parking the car in the long term lot (this story repeats)...singing every song they did or didn't know the words to...tipping over the neat little luggage cart attached to the tandem a great number of times, at least once at top speed when racing down a mountain...well, ok, a hill...still, they claim to have been going EXTREMELY fast and escaped with their lives only by sheer coincidence...also the trip featured attacks by vicious animals, waking up to find Julian sound asleep with his head in a puddle, and that famous lesson in personal...well, its personal and you'll just have to ask him yourself.

OTHER EVENTS IN HISTORY

Twenty years of field hockey!...no, it's not a girls' sport...tweny years of friendship with our chief fireworks engineer...coming to blows with the grade school teacher and returning triumphantly from the school psychologist visit...that famous and never properly diagnosed childhood illness of "aua footi" apparently contacted while living in the US...getting scared, bolting the front door and taking over the parents' bed and then sleeping through the doorbell, the cat's screams, the phone ringing, people shouting and the neighbor banging against the window, all at once...Julian's brother claims to have been out of the country at the time...