O – H ….. I – O!

It is late Monday night, and Levitt and I just completed an entire day’s worth of Freako-chat in Columbus, capital of Ohio and proud home of the Ohio State Buckeyes. A buckeye, we learned today, is a tree whose nut looks just like a chestnut but is poisonous. We also learned the OSU cheer, which even we were able master in a short time. It goes: “O – H” … “I – O.” We also learned it is not a good idea to casually whistle the Univ. of Michigan fight song, as I am for some reason wont to do (a remnant of having watched “The Big Chill” a few times many years ago), especially when OSU is playing Michigan on the upcoming Saturday. Anyway … we gave three Freakonomics talks today: one to a big audience of OSU students, faculty, etc.; one to a small audience of OSU honors students; and one to a small group of executives at the Limited. The Limited, headquartered here, owns Victoria’s Secret, Bath & Body Works, Henri Bendel — and, as of not so long ago, C.O. Bigelow, which started out as a wonderful old apothecary in Greenwich Village. When I first moved to New York, I used to go into Bigelow just to sniff the air of the long-vanished metropolis. Well, the folks at the Limited were asking us about incentives and so on and I mentioned — in jest — that one downside of traveling around to give talks is that we’re away from home so much, and maybe we should bring home some Victoria’s Secret product for our (respective) wives. Lo and behold, on our way out we were laden down with big gift baskets of Bigelow booty. It looks like really good stuff, and I predict our wives will more easily tolerate our next trip.