We recently published the first issue of the 826 Valencia Quarterly. Some of the writing was the result of a particular workshop or field trip, but a good deal of work came from Bay Area students who submitted their writing to us through the website. Brian’s is one of many stories that arrived via e-mail.

On December 7, 1988, forty-seven years after Pearl Harbor, injustice once again struck the United States. The setting was a bobsled track just outside Calgary, in the lush country of Canada, where the elk roam free and the people walk as straight as they would if being anally probed (or something). It was, on this day I mentioned earlier, a place where one man (and his small metal sled) almost made history. The man’s name was Dennison Dieu, a Frenchman by name and a redneck by nationality and nature; the sport was the luge. The first question you ask might be: “How close did Dieu come to history?” The answer, of course, is very close. Very, very, very close! After years and years and more months and months of training (and a long night of nervous bingeing and purging), Dennison Dieu finished fourth, missing out on an Olympic metal and lifelong pride by only three one-thousandths of a second.
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