Saturday was a BIG day in Boulder, with Stage 6 of the USA ProCycling race coming through town and finishing on Flagstaff mountain. Jack and I headed straight to the party, in time for me to come down from my soccer coaching high and relax with a bloody mary before the racers came past our friends’ house. All the kids were making signs for the racers, and 90% of the signs said “RORY”. Now, I have a passing knowledge of cycling, I had watched the rest of the stages, I knew the leader’s names, I know the vocabulary, but we are big Tommy D fans, partly because he’s the only professional cyclist to invite the kids over on Thanksgiving for a bike ride.

So when I saw all the Rory signs, I said what any normal person in my position would say, “Rory Calhoun?” Because I don’t know any other Rorys. The answer, “No, Rory Sutherland. He lives in the neighborhood and so and so babysits his three year old.”

Then Dave showed, saw all the RORY signs and said, “Rory Calhoun?”  And I said, “THANK YOU!” But someone else said, “No, Rory Sutherland.”  I sighed.  I mean, I was at a party that started in the morning, everyone was drinking, everyone was having fun, yet no one was catching my Simpsons reference.  I’m not even sure how that is possible.  Has there been a tear in the space-time continuum?  I thought maybe it was the most obscure Simpsons reference on earth until I googled “like a little Rory Calhoun” and got a million pictures of cats, dogs and babies standing on their hind legs like little Rory Calhouns.

I may never know the answer to this riddle, but I feel better now that I have had this blog catharsis.

But I know who Rory Sutherland is now though, because he won Stage 6.

I am glad that I knew his back story before he won the day, and I could say I know someone who knows his baby. Blog readers, that means you have 4 degrees of separation between yourself and Rory Sutherland.   (You -> Me -> Person I know -> Rory’s baby -> Rory Sutherland.)  And I have proof that we were fans before his win, because here are Dave and Jack holding signs, like little Rory Calhouns.