Ever have one of those days that start out pretty ordinary, only to have your world turned upside down by something you ran across in a magazine? Kind of like that J. Geils Band song Centerfold, where some poor guy finds out his high school sweetheart happens to be a centerfold model for a “girly” magazine. One has to wonder why he was even looking at the magazine, but the point is that such surprise revelations can be pretty shocking.
For me such a moment came as I was reading through my alumnus magazine from the University of Oregon’s College of Arts and Science, Cascade. It was towards the end of the magazine and I came across an article entitled, What Does it Mean to be a Duck? and there was the picture of the University of Oregon’s mascot. All I can say is that my blood ran cold and my memories had indeed been sold because I knew my beloved mascot was a sleestak from the Land of the Lost.
As you can see from the side by side comparison pictures, there can be no doubt that all these years, the University of Oregon duck has been a sleestak posing as a duck.
I grew up watching Land of the Lost, rooting for Marshall, Will, and Holly to find their way back home. I often wonder what it would be like to eat one of those giant strawberries or have to evade the dreaded sleestaks. Never could I have imagined that fantasy would cross into reality and innocence would be taken so dramatically.
When I saw that picture of my beloved mascot though, I knew the real world “ain’t no Never Never Land.” No, it is a dangerous place where lizard humanoid creatures have infiltrated one of Oregon’s most sacred institutions of learning disguised as a feathered friend. This duck is one foul fowl. Who knew that he was actually a lizard from another dimension masquerading as a symbol of all that is loved and wet from Oregon’s institution of higher learning and sports prowess?
Fowl indeed.