work Archives – James D. Hogan

Cat Head

On February 11, 2023

The joys and exhaustion of becoming a college mascot

Tuesday we hosted an event on campus to kick-off our month-long “I Love WCU” celebration. We set up a couple of tables at the university center, we hand out cookies, we generate good will. It’s a fun event, and the most worthwhile part is hearing from students about the things they love most about their alma mater.

The unexpectedly fun part, though, came after the fellow who normally plays Paws, the WCU mascot, called in sick. Rebekah, one of my colleagues, called to let me know. Back in November, Rebekah portrayed the mascot herself in a commercial we produced for Giving Tuesday, but she suggested this time I should don the suit instead. I was wary at first, and later I would find out why she was happy to pawn this off on me, but eventually I agreed. The athletics staff delivered the mascot costume, and I jumped in.

Well…jumped isn’t exactly the right word. You have to carefully strap into the get-up. It took probably ten or fifteen minutes to get it all assembled–not that it’s that difficult, but mostly that the more implements you put on, the fewer fine motor skills you have left. It’s a bit like a band uniform–overall bottoms, covered by a pull-over top (padded, muscular, not English-major-ish at all) that are directly connected to the cat’s hands. You strap on humorously large sandals that are its feet, and you pull on an oversized head connected to a football helmet. Once you’re in, you’re in. There’s no quick exit.

There’s an opening in the cat’s mouth about the size of an iPhone that lets you see out–but even that is covered by black, mesh fabric. The interior carries the lingering smell of a sweaty locker room. When fully assembled, the costume renders you into a human baked potato. I was sweating before I finished getting dressed.

A Change’ll Do You Good

By James D. Hogan

On December 31, 2022

In diary

On leaning into that whole “change is inevitable” bit…

Rarely have major life changes lined up so neatly with a calendar year. Not quite a year ago, I jumped in the car with a suitcase, kissed the kiddos and Kel goodbye (although they’d be coming behind me the next day), and drove up the mountain to Cullowhee. I checked into the Bird Alumni House, which became our home for the next three weeks, and reported to HFR for my first day of work at Western. Later that week, we enrolled the kiddos in their new school, and Kel officially began her full-time work for her own company.

By the time we closed on our house a few weeks later, it had already snowed–twice. And by the time our movers arrived with all our household possessions, it had threatened to snow a third time. (The closing was a round robin of delays, COVID, and weather; the first week in the house, the kids slept on air mattresses, and we ate off a card table.)

I traveled a fair amount this year–eight trips for work, several others for personal matters. In March, we lost our dear Aunt Jean, and the N.C. contingency of the Hogan family trekked through a winter storm to make the funeral. In April, I took Julia on her first “on a plane” trip to St. Petersburg for a weekend. We all made it to Cherry Grove for our family beach week in June, and this fall, I flew back up to NJ for a football weekend with family, including Jason and the Knights Brigade.

We made plenty of trips back to Statesville. So many I cannot count them all.

And We Must Go

By James D. Hogan

On November 21, 2021

In writing

On beginnings and endings, change, and staying un-stuck.

Something there is about the ends of things, the delicate parts where the golden light shines on everything about you before it fades to dusk. Something there is when you know that ahead, just across the horizon, lies the big, the unknown.

For the past nine years, our growing family has made its home in a quiet neighborhood dotted with brick ranches and mature trees. For nine years before that, we lived a few hundred yards away in the next neighborhood over in a cozy split-level on a cul-de-sac.

Kelly is a native of this town, born in the old downtown Davis hospital the college razed a few years ago. She grew up in another brick ranch and tall treed neighborhood not much more than a mile from where our house stands now. She attended school in the same building where she now works, the same place our children learn. Save for the four years she spent away at college, she’s never lived anywhere but within a handful of several square miles in Statesville.

Those college years were formative in many ways.

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