How to Lose a Football Fan

I was there in 1975 when Stanford banished the Indian as its mascot and the fans adopted the band’s Tree as its new symbol. I was in Berkeley for The Play in 1984 when the Cal Bears ran through a prematurely celebrating Stanford band, to win the Big Game. I sat through rainy chilly nights in November and obscenely hot September afternoons. I celebrated NewYear’s Eve of the Millinium by watching game films with the team in Long Beach as a prelude to the Rose Bowl. But now, as the new Stanford Stadium nears completion, it looks as if I won’t be there next fall.

This is not an important story,but it is a sad one about a thirty year relationship gone bad. We loved our football seats. We were on the top row,on the aisle, under the flagpole, on the fifty yard line. When Stanford announced that they were tearing down the stadium to build a new one, our first reaction was “Why?” We were told that Stanford needed to boost season ticket sales, but we could have told them that winning football games was more important to attendance than new seats. Then we were told that to sit between the forty five yard lines we would have to cough up an extra $1000 per seat. I was invited to a focus group discussion—one of a dozen or so—of season ticket holders. We told them that college athletics is not a big ticket event, rather it is a family and community outing. We cherish the people we sat with, the tailgates, the visiting under the oaks, even the dusty, unpaved parking lot where we jockeyed for lawn chair and cooler space on game days. We were assured that the parking would not be affected, but that the ticket price would go up. We told Stanford not to expect us to join the Buck Club (truly its name) to sit on the fifty yard line.

The Athletic Department listened to our feedback about our long time seatmates, and offered us an option, to sign up for seats with others, in “neighborhoods.” Aha, we thought. Something good may come out of all this change. We can plan for the rest of our lives by getting a block together that we can share and trade, and grow old together. Our young adult children began to plan on inheriting these tickets. Just think, said I, only 20 more years and we will celebrate 50 years of Stanford football, together. Our tailgate of about thirty people was composed of classmates from the 70’s, both undergrad and grad school. In March we signed up as a neighborhood and paid $560 a couple to Stanford--a 38 per cent increase in ticket prices over the prior year. Our designated neighborhood leader met several times with our own personal liaison from the Athletic Department, who assured us that with our longevity as season ticket holders, our history of donations to the university, and the number of alumni in our group, we should have very good seats indeed. We began to hope for the 40 plus yard line. And then we waited.

Shortly after the deadline for returning season ticket holders, Stanford issued a press release in which they revised the parking plan around the Stadium. Only the Buck Club folks—the $1000 or 2000 a seat folks—would be allowed to park in the lot immediately adjacent to the Stadium, known as Lot 2. In the lot where we had been tailgating since 1975. The regular season ticket holders would be banished across a four lane road, with no rest rooms and more importantly, no history. Yes, we felt betrayed, second class citizens, but we also felt that we couldn’t complain because we didn’t have our seat assignments yet. Enough people did complain that several weeks later the Athletic Department returned half of Lot 2 to us normal season ticket holders.

Finally we got our seat assignments , 5 months after the focus groups began. We weren’t in the 30 to 45 yard section. We weren’t all together. And others were listed in our neighborhood who had listed other preferences. One couple was seated in the end zone. (They have PhDs from Stanford, a son with degrees from Stanford, and are founders of a publicly traded company. ) I began to feel very bad about this. I called the Ticket Office. I asked to speak to our personal liaison, the architect of our fate, the person who had sentenced 30 loyal fans to the twenty-something yard line for the rest of our lives. I was told that I could only speak to the young lady responsible for this undesirable section. She told me our seats could be worse, and that lots of people would like to have them.

Today I am going on an invitation-only tour of the new Stadium, supposedly an effort to convince me our seats aren’t so bad. It won’t work. You can’t talk to me about sight lines or feet from the field. I participated in a long and onerous process, followed all of the rules and was treated poorly. The relationship is hanging by a thread.


And so I envision an end to this fan’s participation in the game day experience. Watching it on my big screen tv, having my old friends over for barbecue, and clicking the remote when Stanford plays poorly—it sounds better and better.


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Bunny Hops

Easter in San Diego featured an egg hunt, candy, and the same bunny as last year. Andrew loved the Easter Bunny, and got up close and personal.

Stanford Football Boots Season Ticket Holders from Cherished Tailgate Lot

Stanford University is not known for treating its community well. Relations with surrounding Palo Alto once deteriorated to the the point that the university had to assign a community relations officer and institute a Community Day to improve relations. They have done it again with their long-time football fans, many of them alumni and many of whom are simply people who enjoy college football.

In tearing down the venerable Stanford Stadium, which really had nothing wrong with it according to many observers, Stanford knew they had a public relations problem with their season ticket holders. The Athletic Department held focus groups with season ticket holders to find out what would attract them to a revamped Game Day experience. Many of the attendees of these focus groups were senior citizens, on fixed incomes, with over twenty years of attending Stanford football games, in the same seats and with the same neighbors for decades. Some of them were second and third generation fans. They were told up front that the best seats in the new stadium, between the 45 yard lines, would go to those who would pay an annual premium of $1000 or $2000, above and beyond the ticket price. And the ticket price would go up also. This didn't go over well.

The focus group attendees swallowed the bad news but tried to advise the Stanford Athletics staff in a rational way. They said, keep the tailgate experience the same, don't pave the parking lot or assign tailgate spots. Keep the Game Day experience a family experience, affordable for the community, an activity for young people. The staff assured them that nothing would change about the tailgate area and that provision would be made for a family plan ticket.

On April 3 Stanford announced that the prime tailgate field, next to the stadium would be barred to all but the 5 percent of the fams who paid the Buck Club premium. http://www.stanfordstadium.com/press/040306.html
Season ticket holders would be sent to park across a major street, a longer walk from the stadium and less accessible.

Most season ticket holders, having already agonized over losing their cherished 50 yard line seats, view this as just another Stanford attempt to please its heavy hitters. For many it's a "well, what are you going to do" situation. And yes, many of them will adapt to a more crowded, less atmospheric place in which to gather before the game. The candelabras and flower arrangements and banners might seem a little silly over there. They'll have to stop partying much sooner to allow time to get into the stadium. And they will have to walk past their old haunts, past the heavy hitters in their Winnebagos, who have paid to be insulated from them. It will be less tempting on those torrid September afternoons to go out at the half and have a cold one. Much easier just to go across the street and get in the car and finish the game on the radio.

Who are these season ticket holders? There is a group of thirty or so of them, all from the class of 1970, who have been attending games ever since they were in the band. There is another set of band alumni from 1982. There are PhD's from the electric engineering department. There are adult children of alumni and staff, who grew up on Stanford football, and who now bring their own children to the games. There are Stanford Business School Graduates from the 70's who give to Stanford but chose not to buy the premium seats. And there are the younger alumni who fit Stanford football in between their children's weekend activities.



And what about the Chosen Few, who have paid their money and inhabit the seats formerly owned by those lesser beings, the season ticket holders? They are all members of the Buck Club, which last year presented a check to the Atletic Department for sever million dollars. They have bought in to the concept used by pro football teams, of an elite "club level" experience. They will have separate entrances, separate concessions, and of course all of the best seats. This concept has worked well in college situations where the college dominates the town, and the game is the only game in town. Say small town Oregon.

And what is Stanford giving these Buck Club donors, in giving them Lot 2 next to the Stadium? They are giving them a dusty, sometimes muddy, field nestled between El Camino and the Stadium, dominated by live oaks, with a few dumpsters strategically placed for their refuse. Venerable rest rooms. On Game Day Field #2 became a village, with season ticket holders politely vying for their favorite tree, under which they set up tables and tents and barbecues and folding chairs. Sometimes a zydeco musician would entertain. Stanford Indian banners flew to commenorate the now=banned mascot. Many folks arrived for breakfast to hold the spot of the members of their tailgate. Oh the tailgates. The menus ranged from beef tenderloin to cracked crab. Burgers and dogs for the children, who seemed to enjoy the outdoor meal even more than the adults. More than once young alumni flew in lobsters and boiled them up on site. Silver candelabra and red and while ribbons decorated linen covered tables. Flower arrangements were popular, in red and white of course. It was all very Stanford. In a bad football year, and there have been many of late, the season ticket holders could rejoice on the success of their tailgates at Field #2. No more. That uniquely Stanfor experience has been booted.

You may argue that the party will continue across the street and a few blocks away. But the people who made up the event are now segregated and scattered. Not every tailgate opted to pay the price for the "club level" seats. Even families are split, with older fans on fixed income not able to pay the price, and young people unwilling to spend their discretionary money to sit with heavy hitters. The tailgate would have kept the party going, kept the Stanford tradition alive, despite seat locations.

And what of the Heavy Hitters, those Buck Club folks who now have Lot #2 all to themselves. They may notice that they have lots of space to spread out, that it is quieter in the parking lot. Their adult children and grandchildren won't be hanging out and throwing the football==they will be across the street. Oh they might stop by on their way in to the stadium, but they won't be hauling in the barbecue and charcoal, the coolers of soda and beer. If these Heavy Hitters want to host a tailgate in Lot #2 they will have lots of hefting and hauling to do. Not to mention cooking. But then maybe they don't care. Maybe they will be like the Cal gentleman last year, who was invited to step out of his trailer (in Lot#2) and join a Stanford tailgate. He declined, politely, as his caterers were about to arrive.

A Stanford football game has always been a contrarian event. It was once said that the sound of crackers with brie being crunched at the tailgates would drown out the sound of the game. In this elite setting dress down was the thing, and a dusty field was a cherished site for elegant meals and fine wine. But no one ever argued that winning was not important. The Stanford football team has not had a winning season in almost half a decade. The university has angered its fan base by fixing a stadium that was not broken, by changing the rules about who could sit where, and by breaking its promise about the tailgating experience. The season ticket holders, who this year were asked to pay an extra $80 per ticket with no promises of a Big Game ticket, might just decide to pass on the experience. Wonder what the tickets will bring on EBay?

I have recently acquired a small bundle of old family photos--some over 100 years old. One photo is of my grandfather, Thomas Edwards Mills, in 1887, aged about three. He is wearing a dress, and has shoulder length curls. The back of the photo is inscribed: "Tommie E. Mills, to his dear Grandpa" in faint, almost indecipherabole copperplate. So this piece of cardboard thad I hold was written on by his parent, probably his mother, my great-grandmother. The photograph is faded but I can see that little Tommie is bracing himself against a table that holds a vase of flowers. Photography in those days took several minutes. I'll bet it was hard for him to hold still. His right hand--the unbraced one--is a bit blurred against the white of his dress--perhaps he moved it. His face is severe, concentrating, I imagine, on the immense effort of staying still. I imagine that three was the earliest age that one could ask Tommie to stay still for a picture.

Leap forward several generations and more than 100 years. I am using a scanner and computer to capture the photograph in digital form. I have the technology to enhance the photo, to increase the resolution and the brightness, so that we can see details long lost in the original version. I see his chubby fingers spread out on the tabletop, I observer that Tommie is wearing little high top leather shoes--they must have been expensive. The face that looks out at me now is the face of the sixty year old grandfather that I remember so fondly. I am so pleased that I have recovered the details of his three year old self--and yet, as I look back at the original, faded cardboard, there I seem to see the real Tommie E. Mills. For he is indeed faded in my heart and indeed is lost to almost everyone still living. The mother who dressed him for the photograph lived only 9 more years, and no picture remains of her, just the copperplate and the look on Tommie's face as he stood so still for his mother.

Birthdays and learning to blow raspberries

Drew drove Homer to sit in Virginia's lap for protection, but when Owen arrived for a crab fest and to inaugurate a week long celebration of his third birthday, Homer disappeared. So no photos of the alpha dog today. Just two little boys with the same high pitched giggle we remember from their mother's childhood.

Texas

I left for Dallas on Sunday the 22nd, to stay with my sister. I caught an earlier flight but my baggage came in on a later one, over an hour later. So my sister and I shopped at the outlets near DFW. My mom drove down that same afternoon (she is still driving, but picks her time of day. On Monday we went to the Hunt family ranch, Game Creek Ranch, stopping at DFW to pick up my cousin Ann from Tucson. This was a surprise for Mom, as we had told her we were picking up the ranch managers wife as a favor to him. The ranch itself is very beautiful, 5000 acres plus or minus, with a 14 suite ranch house situated on a hill that overlooks the property. We stayed until Thursday, hiking, shopping, lunching at Rough Creek Ranch, which Conde Nast declared the "best lodge in North America 2005). I think Game Creek rivals it. We saw elk, oryx,sable, and deer on the Hunt Ranch, and buffalo at Rough Creek. We also saw hunters, and if I ever thought hunting was cruel and weird, I reinforced that impression. To hunt "mixed bag" the hunter dons an orange hat and walks into a field with a couple of dogs. He finds a likely bush and circles it with the dogs, hoping to flush a quail or pheasant. When the bird flies he shoots at it, often just a yard or tow away. This is sport? On our way into Rough Creek on a one lane blacktop road we saw a beautiful pheasant standing by the side of the road. On our way out the same pheasant was lying in the same spot--road kill or hunter kill, I can't say which.

We celebrated Mom's 85th birthday Thursday night with dinner at Margarets in Dallas, and on Friday I flew to Houston for the board of directors meeting for the Rice Alumni Association. I love being a part of this group. Friday night we had cocktails at the Rice President's house--he is David Leebron, formerly dean of Columbia Law--met all day Saturday, and on Sunday Karen Rogers picked me up for breakfast and a ride to the airport. All in all it was a great trip.

January used to be a month of darkness and gloom. Now I am just grateful to have the time to hibernate, yes, but also to get out in the short sun. Last weekend we went to Santa Cruz, to Steamer Lane, to see the high surf. It was actually Homer's trip. Here are the photos:
Things I have done so far in January 2006: bottled wine, lunch at Stanford, played bridge, went to book club, Chinatown in San Francisco, planted primroses

Sunday I go to Texas for my Mom's 85th and a minireunion with sister and cousin. And then to Houston for the Rice Alumni Board meeting and a visit with Karen.

San Diego was lovely and warm and sunny. Joe got a new telescope mount which we took to a local oceanside park for viewing. Andrew couldn't quite master the one eyed look. Andrew is so excited with life, with running and chattering and trying to be part of his world int he most grown up way possible--and sometimes it is frustrating. Most of the time he repeats the words until he gets them right, recognizes the concepts we are talking about, and very often persists in his own view of what is right in the universe. ("lots of cars" to take to the park when we say "choose two")

Drew no longer needs his doggies close to hand, and he is willing to sleep a little in the afternoon, even when there are extra grandparents in the house. His smile is wise and his eyes sparkle and he does know that many people love him.

View Christmas photos at www.joehessfamily.shutterfly.com.

Hess Times 2005

An annual report of sightings, glimpses, occasions of joy and pleasure, post cards of the fast-paced and global lives of our family.

The Best of Times

Mary and David and Drew are settled, for now, in San Diego. Mary finished her first year of law school, concentrating intensely on intellectual property law, and is now half way through her second. We visited San Diego after a June trip to Catalina…you know, “26 miles across the sea…” Then in August we all went to cousin Taylor’s wedding in Georgia, and on to the beach at Sea Island. Drew just grew and grew and ran everywhere, chattering about his world of zoo trips and swimming lessons. He turned two at the end of August, just as Dave returned from several weeks working at Kyocera’s facility in China.

Like a Rolling Stone

Last Christmas Jon was in the Czech Republic, and then spent the month of January on the southern coast of Portugal. For much of the spring and summer he lived at home, working long hours for Borders bookstore and for a startup eldercare company. It was a pleasure to catch a glimpse, to occasionally cook a meal for him, to hit the golf ball with him, or to watch his softball team. Currently he is living in San Francisco and working at a Borders bookstore in Union Square, and snowboarding whenever possible.

Retired Again

Virginia worked herself out of a job. She so enjoyed the people at Stanford that she just did more and more…until the parttime job seemed full-time, and even when she was on vacation she thought and worried and fretted about it. So she retired again, and as Joe says, “she’ll keep doing it until she gets it right”. In the meantime, she had been elected to the board of the Rice University Alumni Association (she didn’t know she was running but was pleased to accept), which entails three trips a year to Houston. So far the work has been to give advice, which she loves to do. And with more free time, she spent two weeks helping with Drew while his Dad was in China, went on a Panama Canal cruise with her Mom (the highlight was the Costa Rican rain forest.), enjoyed her nephew’s wedding parties in Dallas and Georgia, and traveled to Baltimore for a girls’ week with old friends. And she made time for volunteer work with the American Cancer Society.

Not Retiring at All

Joe seemed to spend most of his time in Japan and Canada this year, with customers in Tokyo, Montreal, and Calgary. He managed to see Drew almost once a month, and told him bedtime stories over the speakerphone on occasion. Joe and Virginia spent Thanksgiving in Texas for the first time in 31 years, in Dallas and at a ranch very close to the town where his father was born 100 years ago. Brazil is his next destination, probably in January. He still builds telescopes in the garage, and would love to find a very dark sky in a quiet place for retirement. But not yet.

So the family is scattered, but closer this year than last Christmas. We are taking pleasure in the here and now, thankful for health and loved ones, and truthfully pay less attention to the externalities that used to be so frustrating. We will all be in San Diego for Christmas Day, competing to play with Drew and his toys. We wish you a very happy holiday season, peace, and good cheer.

Not Just No

Celeste, Andrew's other grandmother, reports that he now speaks in complete sentences. Not just "No" but "I don't want to do that." A new variation on the terrible twos. Adorable.

Jon turns 25

The day was autumnal, chill, foggy, but the sun broke through just about tailgate time. Each tail gate gets better. This one featured Dan's pulled beef tacos and Joe's tangerine margaritas.My spinach chicken enchiladas. Fruit and cheese and a gigantic salad. The football was the best in several years. Passes were caught, kicks scored, and the other team was baaad. Afterwards we had a crab fest. Mitch and Judy cooked the crab. It doesn't get any better than this day. Savor the moment.

Darth Dog

Perfect Days

Each day is a gift of discovery, of time stretching out before me, to be spent, hoarded, given. My time is my own. I am so enjoying the nots: not doing hair and makeup, not commuting, not opening an office, not plunging into the world of others, not spending my energy in a world not my own, not having a life, not commuting in darkness among joggers and bikers half seen, not feeling like doing anything else but repeating the same patterns.
Wednesday was a particularly wonderful day. Jon and I drove over to the coast mid morning, with Homerdog. We stopped at Cowell Ranch state beach park and hiked half a mile down to the beach and the ocean. We saw only three other people, hundreds of artichoke plants, and a fence gate shaped like a spouting whale, in the middle of the field.
Our next stop was Arata's pumpkin farm, set in a coastside valley to the east of Highway 1, four miles south of Half Moon Bay. Farmer Arata builds a corn maze every year out of corn bales, stacked 5 high, way over my head. He doesn't draw it out before construction, but it is intricate, clever and very difficult to escape. It took Jon and me half an hour, and we had to collaborate, that is, I stood at interesections while he checked out each offshoot, so as not to get lost. Before we teamed up I went in by myself, only to find it a creepy experience: just corn and blue sky and no sounds, no other people.
We took another half hour to pick our four pumpkins, to be added to the front yard display we already had. Red pumpkins, green, gray, and pumpkin orange. Afterwards we stopped at Two Fools Cafe in Half Moon Bay for lunch, on their patio, in the shade. A most excellent day.

Book List from my book group

ST. FRANCIS ALUMNI MOTHER'S BOOK CLUB

BEL CANTO
ANN PATCHETT

ENEMY WOMEN
PAULETTE JILES

THE RED TENT
ANITA DIAMONT


THE PIANO TUNER
DANIEL MASON

THE THINGS THEY CARRIED
TIM O'BRIEN

THEIR EYES WERE WATCHING GOD
ZORA NEALE THURSTON


EMBERS
SANDOR MARAI

DESERT QUEEN
JANET WALLACH

THE DA VINCI CODE
DAN BROWN

BALZAC AND THE LITTLE CHINESE SEAMSTRESS
DAI SIJI


THE BONESETTER'S DAUGHTER
AMY TAN


THE SECRET LIFE OF BEES
SUE MONK KIDD


BREAKING THROUGH
FRANCISCO JIMENEZ

THE DIVE OFF CLAUSEN'S BRIDGE
ANN PACKER


MIDDLESEX
JEFFREY EUGENIDES


THE BEND IN THE RIVER
V.S. NAIPAUL

THIS MUCH I KNOW IS TRUE
WALLY LAMB

WHAT I LOVED
SIRI HUSTVEDT

BRICK LANE
MONICA ALI


ANGLE OF REPOSE
WALLACE STEGNER

BLESSINGS
ANNA QUINDLEN

OLD SCHOOL
TOBIAS WOLFF


KITE RUNNER
KHALED HOSSEINI


TRAVELING MERCIES
ANNE LAMOTT

THE MASTER BUTCHER'S SINGING CLUB
LOUISE ERDRICH


HANNAH COULTER
WENDELL BERRY

THE OTHER BOLEYN GIRL
PHILIPPA GREGORY


THE KNOWN WORLD
EDWARD P. JONES


THE SHADOW IN THE WIND
CARLOS RUIZ ZAFON

round and round we go

hello world, Andrew here

Nana V takes on 2 year old

I told some folks I had been to the spa: lots of exercise, especially early in the morning, and not much food. Others I told that I had been bonding with my grandson. Still other I told I had been run ragged and defeated by a two year old. All were true.

I hope that Andrew is not your typical two year old. Surely I am not that old, that out of shape, that an ordinary toddler can reduce me to gibberish. He never stops running, walking, climbing. He doesn’t sit down very often. Not in stroller, not in a high chair, not in a wagon, not in a grocery cart, no never. (See, I am beginning to sound like Green Eggs and Ham, one of our favorite books of the week.)

Every morning the challenge was to run off the excess energy. Some days we walked to Gymboree, a baby gym designed to work out the adults as well as the children. Andrew is not much into group activities, so when Miss Janice asked the children to get into a circle, Andrew was likely to head for the far corner and a climbing tower. The music in our neighborhood Gymboree was heavy on the Beach Boys, music of my generation. Go figure. After Gymboree we would get in the car for an excursion, to take advantage of Andrew’s best hours. Shopping for shoes was good. Off to the mall and the StrideRite store. To get to the store we had to pass a series of fountains with bronze dolphins leaping and swimming. Andrew wanted to join them, so after some 30 minutes of coaxing him along the string of pools, we picked him up and briskly walked the last 50 yards to the store. He did not like having his foot measured (“Cold” he said.) Alas, they no longer have the X ray machines of my childhood, the ones where you could see the bones of your foot inside the shoes. We quickly settled on the only pair of dark Velcro athletic shoes in his size, and forked over the $50.

More shopping for cute fall sweats and polo shirts was not tolerated well by Andrew so he left with the other Nana, after we had determined that he was not quite ready for a 3T jacket. I joined them at a food court where we ordered a Happy Meal for him and Rubios mahi mahi tacos for us. While the food was excellent, the real focus of the meal was on yet another fountain, just adjacent to our table. He was mainly content to run his plastic car (from the Happy Meal) around the edges of the fountain, but of course we didn’t want him to wander more than 5 feet away from us. So it was up and down as we chased and ate in turn. Another little girl was throwing pennies in the fountain with her mom, so I had the bright idea of teaching this old tradition to Andrew. Wrong. He took the coin but did not master the concept of throwing it away. Actually this may be a good personality trait, one we should encourage. But it meant that we had to stand over him at all times, fearful that he would eat the coin. The plastic car was itself an object of curiosity. The back half was hinged and would flip up, including the wheels. “Broken” Andrew said. “Open Doors” he asked. They don’t open, we replied. But then we had never seen such a strange toy. Later my daughter took one look at the toy and pulled and swiveled and announced “Transformer”. Oh yes, the toys of our children’s childhood. Silly Nanas, we should have known.

The day wasn’t over yet. A short nap later, Andrew was ready to rumble in the kiddie pool in the back yard. Dressed for swimming in his swimming diaper, trunks, shirt, and hat, he took the dribbling hose and watered all of his trucks and outside toys. We hoped that the excess would green up the yard, which was dying from a dysfunctional sprinkler system. Even such an innocent activity required close monitoring, as Andrew liked to water the patio (more puddles) and tended to slip and slide in the kiddie pool. Following an hour or so of water play, he needed…..a bath.

The two Nanas were a little tired by this time, so we decided on a clandestine operation. Dinner for Andrew in front of his favority Thomas the Train DVD. My daughter sees television as an Evil Influence and is very strict in allocating his time in front of the screen, so this was definitely off the clock. We wheeled his high chair in front of the screen, fully prepared to wheel it back if we heard her 4runner arrive. Andrew ate heartily and promised not to tell Mommy he had been watching Thomas. The other Nana was especially pleased that we did not get caught. I reminded her that in our childhood we had TV trays just to facilitate this activity.

Handsome is....