Last week I visited Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, to give two talks—one on my fly work (now winding down) and the other on evolution, creationism, and religion. My host was the genial Morris Levy who, with his wife Maria, did a lot to make my visit comfortable and pleasant. On the last day, before I took the bus back to Chicago (there’s no airport in Lafayette), they took me on a sightseeing tour of campus. Here are a few holidays snaps from that tour.
The first stop was the football stadium. Purdue’s athletic teams have the unusual name of “The Boilermakers”, which, according to Wikipedia, stems from the school’s reputation (still high) for engineering:
The nickname ‘Boilermakers’ goes back to 1891 when the Purdue football team defeated nearby rival Wabash College in Crawfordsville, Indiana 44–0. An account of the game in the Crawfordsville Daily Argus News of October 26, 1891 was headlined, “Slaughter of Innocents: Wabash Snowed Completely Under by the Burly Boiler Makers from Purdue.” Engineering education in the 1890s at Purdue meant hands-on work in the forge room, where students heated and molded metal, just like the “blacksmiths” and “boilermakers” the football team was called after defeating opponents. The local Purdue press picked up on the name, with a notice in the November 1, 1891 Lafayette Sunday Times, “As everyone knows, Purdue went down to Wabash last Saturday and defeated their eleven. The Crawfordsville papers have not yet gotten over it. The only recourse they have is to claim that we beat their ‘scientific’ men by brute force. Our players are characterized as ‘coal heavers,’ ‘boiler makers’ and ‘stevedores.'”
Outside the stadium is, in fact, a large statue of a boilermaker:
Purdue is a wealthy university, and is big on statues, so one can find some awesome sculptures. One of the engineering buildings is named after Neil Armstrong, the first man to set foot on the Moon and an alumnus of Purdue. (He and one other astronaut, whose name I can’t recall, got their start as majors in aeronautical engineering at the school.) Although Armstrong died last year, he attended the dedication of this building and the unveiling of his statue, which shows him sitting in an informal pose:
My favorite statue of all, though, was this one in front of the veterinary school. It shows a bunch of domesticated animals and two vets taking care of them. The skeletons of a few animals are also shown on their outsides, a macabre touch that I could have done without. But really, this is a cool group of sculptures that evinces a certain sense of humor.
Note the cat to the right of the horse’s foreleg.
Of course I had to be photographed petting the kitty (note the innards; what is that thing?):
The new president of Purdue is the former governor of Indiana, Mitch Daniels. He lives in a large and spiffy house on the edge of campus, and we drove onto the spacious grounds so I could take a picture. I was told that although this is the official President’s House, he doesn’t live there most of the time:
I had requested to eat at West Lafayette’s most famous restaurant, the Triple XXX Family Restaurant (a name not only reundant, but contradictory!). It’s very old, and is in fact the remnants of the first drive-in restaurant in Indiana, opened in 1929 (for you non-Americans, that’s a restaurant where one can drive up to a microphone, order food, and have it delivered to your car, where you eat it while schmoozing with your date and fellow students). The drive-in part is now defunct, but you can see the car bays below.
The XXX is famous for two things: the Duane Purvis burger, a hamburger with cheese that is underlain by a thick coat of creamy peanut butter, and its root beer, brewed especially for the restaurant by a firm in Chicago. Although the burger sounds dire, it’s actually quite good: the peanut butter nicely complements the meat and cheese. And the root beer, not too sweet or carbonated and loaded with root-y flavors, is a good complement.
Here’s the menu—MEATY! I, of course, had the Duane Purvis and a root beer.
Purvis (1913-1989) was a famous halfback and fullback on the Purdue football team, selected as an All-American player in 1933 and 1934. He was also a superb javelin thrower: his record at that sport wasn’t broken until 1982. Here’s his picture, overlooking the many XXX customers who nom his eponymous burger:
How the burger came to be named after Purvis is not quite clear; the owner told me that Purvis’s son, who still lives near Purdue, related how his dad would put peanut butter on everything, and asked the XXX to prepare him a burger smeared with the substance.
At any rate, the burger lives on in in infamy. Here’s mine, with a root beer.
It was good! This close-up shot shows the melting peanut butter oozing out from under the meat patty:
Here are Maria, Morry, and I, about to tuck into our burgers:
Finally, a group of college girls came in to eat, and I couldn’t help thinking that their poses would make a nice “decisive moment” photo in the Cartier-Bresson-ian sense. I surreptitiously snapped them when they unwittingly fell into a sort of pattern.
Next week: Appalachian State University, with an awesome schedule of nomes and sightseeing. Besides my talk (there will be a secret word to get a cat drawn in your copy of WEIT), I’ll be talking to the atheist and secular student group, as well as a class in religious studies.
My wife graduated from the Purdue Veterinary School in 1981. Neither of us has been back to W. Lafayette since then. If my rotting brain cells can recall correctly, there was just way too much bible-beltism for our Eastern tastes. I hope it has changed somewhat since then.
Did you catch the post on creationism at Ball State? There may not be a Hedin at Purdue but the Bible Belt does indeed still stretch into Indiana.
I am not sure how many other astronauts came out of Purdue, but I suspect you are thinking about Gus Grissom. Grissom was from Mitchell, Indiana, the second American in space, and died in the fire in Apollo 1.
You didn’t get a pork tenderloin sandwich? That is the iconic food of Indiana diners (whether flattened and breaded – or not).
Grissom, White and Chaffee. Not a good day. Hard lesson.
It’s not a good idea for scientists to go “schmoozing” with their “data” – it makes them less able to portray their results in an unbiased, objective manner! (I know – lame joke in response to a typo).
Ha ha you beat me to it. I figured it is more Freudian Slip than typo 😀
Yes, and if one were lucky, one would get to “massage the data,” Ar! Ar!
Thanks for this post and photos about Purdue and its West Lafayette campus (much changed since I attended in 1972-76!).
The Triple X does have landmark status among the locals. (A close second might be the “Chocolate Shop” tavern in the Village area just east east of the campus; it may have a different name now.)
I have some friends who swear by the Triple X and its food, and others who have “sworn off” due to one or another instance of apparent kitchen-borne gastrointestinal distress.
Jerry, I predict that you will enjoy Appalachian State and the town of Boone, NC. I visited once, so that I could go to Grandfather Mountain and (a little further away) Blowing Rock. Now, unlike then, you can buy alcoholic beverages by the drink in Boone, but automobile parking on-the-street and in public parking lots is either expensive (metered) or scarce.
Also, the Great Smoky Mountains National Park is a hop, skip and jump away, if you haven’t been there before. Maybe a quick jaunt to Cades Cove and Clingman’s Dome (a convenient max 1-mi. ascent to an observation tower on the TN-NC line and the second highest peak east of the Mississippi River after the highest, Mount Mitchell, close to Boone), if you have the time, and if more time perhaps also a day hike to Ramsey Cascades or Rainbow Falls. (I assume you’re flying into Asheville, which has its appeal, including the culinary.)
1) Did they tell you that Amelia Earhart was on the Purdue faculty, too? There’s a swell pic of her with the Lockheed and a wonderful ’36 Cord (also an Indiana product) convertible in the Purdue archives.
2) If the Purvis burger is good, it wouldda been better with crunchy pb.
“He and one other astronaut,”
Probably more! According to the website linked to below, Purdue produced 23 astronauts!
http://www.purdue.edu/space/
Morning All,
I believe the other famous astronaut from Purdue was Gene Cernan – commander of Apollo 17. So Purdue boasts both the first and the last men on the moon. Quite an achievement!
I really like those lifelike statues, esp. the cat of course.
Happy to see that you and I have shared the Duane Purvis All-American experience. And XXX is quite a place!
But there is one thing I don’t understand. Bob Griese was also an All-American football player at Purdue. They have his picture on the wall at the restaurant. Wouldn’t the “Griese Burger” be a natural fit?
I was intrigued by the “Triple XXX” name & I wondered if it stemmed from a ranching brand symbol, but not so it seems, it’s rooted [ahem] in brewing [the XXX on steel beer kegs from a certain brewer in Texas, so maybe THAT originated from a ranch brand way back] & the switch to soft drinks due to prohibition.
There were over 100 “Triple XXX” root beer outlets & the full history of the brand & associated *Thirst Stations* is HERE
History of that particular restaurant is at their website HERE
Some great photos throughout the site if one clicks around the pages
There is still a Triple XXX Rootbeer Drive-in in Issaquah, Washington.
Been there, done that. Can’t say I was all that impressed with their brew.
I’ve not been back to Purdue in a long time. I got a Master’s in EE there and it was the toughest university I’ve been to. I learned a great deal there and have a very high opinion of their engineering school. It was cold there! (But no colder than Chicago I imagine).
Artistically speaking, I do believe the shot of the four girls is quite amazing…
those are women.
Yes, excellent composition.
Attended Purdue 73-76, MS Chemistry. Have fond but hazy memories of The Pub, across the Wabash in Lafayette, that served cheap beer, had paintings of Dogs Playing Poker and, I think, burned down.
Note the bronze qat didn’t need no Vet. And his tail was up for you!
Finally, ahead of its time, a fast food restaurant opened (and closed) serving rabbit. It was called Hop Scotch. Probably seemed like a good idea on paper.
Your talk on your fly work sounds interesting; would you be willing to turn that into a posting here? You may have already done that, but if so, I missed it and couldn’t find it by searching using the keyword “fly”.
Ah yes, Mitch Daniels. Here he is a few years ago:
“And atheism leads to brutality. All the horrific crimes of the last century were committed by atheists -Stalin and Hitler and Mao and so forth- because it flows very naturally from an idea that there is no judgment and there is nothing other than the brief time we spend on this Earth.”
http://www.wane.com/dpp/news/politics/Daniels-talks-candidly-about-his-faith
Thanks for that link. I thought his name sounded familiar, but I was sure I was confusing him with another Republican knucklehead. What do you know? I wasn’t.
Like Marta, my memory made me aware there was something freaky about that Mitch Daniels bugger but couldn’t remember what it was. I suspect it isn’t just his atheist phobia that is unseemly.
What will you pursue after the fly work?
How about something in the area of The Public Understanding of Science, such as Dawkins did? As the song goes, “Nice work if you can get it.” Trust that you could “get it anytime.”
It’s called philosophopause.
Maybe the bronzed statues primed me, but the picture of the girls would look great cast in bronze. I like that picture a lot – nice capture!
The “other astronaut” would have been Gene Cernan. I was at Purdue beginning in September 1952. I did not know Armstrong at the time but did become acquainted later when we were colleagues on the U. of Cincinnati faculty. I had several classes with Cernan including Naval ROTC.
Grissom was an Indiana native but was not, as far as I know, a student at Purdue. True, a large number of the astronaut corps were PU grads. Cernan, however, was a contemporary of Armstrong and fellow lunar mission astronaut.
According to http://www.purdue.edu/space/astronauts.html Gus Grissom did in fact attend Purdue, getting his BSME in 1950. Grissom Hall is in fact the name of the main Aeronautical Engineering building on the main campus.
Thanks for the pictures as well, they brought back many memories of my five years there. I haven’t been there since I graduated in 1991 and, though the status are new, I’ll never forget the color of that brick.
(Doesn’t Purdue still have an airport? I took a flight from there to Chicago O’Hare once.)
I grew up hearing about Purdue from my father, an alumnus. My youngest brother graduated from there too.
So here’s a song I heard many times:
Oh, Purdue, oh, Purdue
How you make my heart quiver
With your old Sweet Shop*
And the Wabash River.
Oh, I love you with my heart
And I love you with my liver.
Oh, Purdue!
By the river.
*possibly Chocolate Shop, as mentioned above?
One time I told a friend from southern Indiana about my Purdue connection and he sez: “West Lafayette? I wouldn’t hit a dog in the ass with that town.”
Of course the chocolate shop is Harry’s Chocolate Shop, which is now a bar. motto: Go Ugly Early.
I have been to the Purdue veterinary school/clinic many, many times. I wish I’d known about the XXX. For a few months I used to bring my sweet shih tzu for a cancer study (transitional cell cancer of the bladder) and I’d drop her off in the morning then hang out in town until it was time to pick her up in the afternoon. Back then (only a few years ago) there was a Borders Books with a coffee shop and free wifi.
Could someone kindly enlighten a poor Scotsman on what the hell is “Miracle Whip”, which appears to be standard on most of their burgers? It sounds like cream, or perhaps a cheap dessert, but surely not.
Ha ha it’s sorta like maionnaise
Indeed, it’s a kind of “Icantbelieveitsnotmaionaise”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracle_Whip
But it tastes better than mayonnaise. More zesty.
“Miracle Whip” is somewhat like mayonnaise, only much sweeter. It does not belong on a hamburger. Neither, for that matter, does peanut butter. For god’s sake. There are rules about these things.
This is a recipe for making your own big Mac sauce and the main ingredient is miracle whip. I had never heard of it before and was amazed to find it in supermarkets here in Australia.
To me it tastes identical to the real thing.
Having worked at maccas 30 years ago while at school, I was familiar with how to make big macs and so made some up.
A week later I went and tried the real thing and found that mine are a lot nicer.
Probably due to better quality ingredients.
Damn, now I want one.
Link – http://www.grouprecipes.com/23322/make-your-own-damn-big-mac-sauce.html
Thanks, everyone. More fun than just Googling it. Has anyone done a taste comparison with salad cream, which is a disgusting (to me) mayonnaise substitute in the UK?
Never heard of it.
So, the work on your fly is about to be zipped up?
Glad to know that.
I’d like to know what “American” cheese is, please. Some kind of cheddar?
No. It is an uninspired excuse for real cheese. Bland.
Not much different taste or texture wise from Kraft American Singles cheese food. Which is not really cheese, hence “cheese food.” I always wondered what that means. Is it food for cheese, or . . . what?
not ‘cheese food’ but rather ‘cheese food product’.
(But is it cheese-food product, or cheese food-product? That I do not know.)
Maybe like Cool Whip it is an “edible oil product”.
About the only use I have ever found for it was to wrap up a dog’s pill so it would be more readily gobbled down.
Yes, “American” cheese is a sort of bastardized Cheddar. You can buy the same thing in Canada labeled “Canadian” cheese.
In its defense, it has better melt properties than Cheddar, which tends to separate into separate oil and non-oil phases when melted.
Like the American gods the cheese is also fake.
Melted hula hoops, the yellow variety. 🙂
Grania – you don’t really want to know…
From WQiki: “Today’s American cheese is generally no longer made from blended cheeses, but instead is manufactured from a set of ingredients[1] such as milk, whey, milkfat, milk protein concentrate, whey protein concentrate, and salt.”
It often comes plastic-wrapped in individual slices, and if you forget to take the wrapping off, you won’t notice the difference in taste.
Thanks Nick. Sounds lovely.
So, basically processed cheese. You can get that over here too, but no country will put their name to it! 🙂
AKA “plastic cheese” 🙂
Damn, Jerry. You are making me miss West Lafayette which I didn’t think was possible considering how bad a time I had when I lived there.
Love the photos, Prof. C.!
Really good photo of the young women! And yes for peanut butter on burgers! Or maybe even better, cashew butter. 🙂
Nice shot of those young ladies!
I used to live right down the street from the XXX during my Purdue days. Lots of good memories of the whole area. Thanks for the great photos, Jerry!
Hm, didn’t know about the source of the “Boiler Maker” moniker and I teach at Wabash. Good to know.