The ring symbolizes Manges early-90s stint as quarterback and receiver on the Harvard football team. Having never set foot on the Ivy League college campus, this I.U.-trained journalist can only think of George Plimpton, the writer of Paper Lion. Adapted as a feature-length comedy starring Alan Alda as Plimpton, the book follows the writer’s experiences as he tries out for the Detroit Lions. The film includes a sequence during which Plimpton - who never played football for Harvard — sings his alma mater’s fight song.

Certainly that scene has to stir up some kind of memories for Manges.

“That doesn’t bring back any memories,” Manges says. “Watching Paper Lion brings back memories of watching Paper Lion the previous time — or reading Paper Lion — or Alex Karras.”

You’ve gotta love a reference to Karras — the Paper Lion co-star/pro football player-turned-TV’s adoptive father of Webster. All Karras aside, though, Manges needs to give up some more details about The Program.

“Well, we had a hundred guys on the team,” he says. “At any one time we had 11 people out there on the field ...” “Put their jocks on just like everybody else,” Johnson adds.

Suddenly — thanks to a simple jock-strap reference — these two lawyers seem so much more human, even life-like. With Manges serving as Fort Wayne’s preferred lawyer and Johnson spending his days as an employment attorney, it’s a wonder how these guys muster the time and energy necessary for maintaining a working band.

“We don’t,” Manges explains. “We really don’t. We allow our personal lives to fall into utter decay. Our professional and personal lives are in total disarray, freeing us up to jam.”

“It’s something that happened almost by accident,” Johnson says. “We didn’t get together and say ‘let’s be a band and try to play all over the place.’

I don’t know whether if this is something that I want the whole world to read, but we haven’t worked very hard for it. It’s been one of those things where we play here, we have a great crowd. Somebody else hears about it, they call and book us and we go play there and we have a good crowd and

somebody else hears and we end up playing somewhere else. We really don’t do a lot of work to try to line up gigs. They just sort of come.”

“We’re real lax,” Manges says. “We’re slackers about the band. We’re playing for fun. That’s what we’re playing for. To the extent that we even get gigs or have anything that looks like a real band to anyone else, it’s all just serendipity because we’re playing for fun and whatever else comes comes.”

Born near the end of 94 in Johnson’s basement, Misfit Toys began as a private jam session for Johnson, Manges, guitarist/vocalist Randy Spencer and drummer Tim Diss. They decided to take their music to the people upon being invited to play a wedding gig. Misfit Toys went on to perform some open-mic sets at the Dash-In before being booked at the coffee house for a Thursday-night show. Since then, the band has performed numerous times at the Dash, Munchie Emporium, during the Three Rivers Festival and some block parties.

Besides hearing renditions of tunes made popular by such artists as Cracker, Bob Marley, the Grateful Dead, the Band, Billy Preston and Sly and the Family Stone, the Misfit Toys audience can also expect some original compositions and a special-guest performer or two, or three or four. The band regularly brings into rotation drummer Charley Shirmeyer, percussionist Rich Karcher, keyboardist Jim Teel and vocalist Melissa Perkins. One may also expect a unique surprise from time to time.

“We had a guy shave his head on St. Patrick’s Day at Munchie’s last year,” Johnson says.

“Actually Blaine (Stuckey) — co-owner of the Munchie — shaved the guy’s head as part of the show,” Manges says. “Not one of our heads.”

“Just some random patron,” Johnson says. “He had this big mop.”

“We don’t have dry ice and flashpots,” Manges says. “We’ve got drunken guys getting their heads shaved on stage.”

As we continue our intense conversation, Melissa Perkins — on the job as a Dash server — graces our presence for a few moments.

“What would you say about the band,” Johnson asks Perkins. “How would you describe our music?”

“Don’t ask me any questions right now,” she says. “I don’t think I’m coherent.” Perkins pauses for thought. “Eclectic. A nice variation of choices of what you do. Nice groove.”

Is it the nice groove that keeps her coming back?

“Oh yeah,” Perkins replies. “The nice groove and the nice guys. They’re wonderful people.”

“You’ve got that right,” Johnson says. “Put that in the article.”

Yeah, these cats are so nice I can’t wait until their next show. I might even buy them a beer. Probably not, but it doesn’t hurt to know their favorite brands.

“Beer,” Manges says. “Free beer or beer someone else has bought.”

“I like Red Stripe,” Johnson admits.

“I think it’s all good,” Manges says. “I don’t come to someone’s house and they’ve got a free beer and it’s Blatz, I will not go ‘Aw darn — Blatz. I’m not drinking this.’ I’ll say ‘Thank you. May I have five or six?’ “

“What the hell is Blatz?” Perkins asks.

“It’s an old-timey beer,” Manges replies. “It’s the beer that’s named after the sound you make after you drink it.”

“Okay. For a second you scared me because I thought you were gonna say something about a bodily function I produce.”

“Well, that’s what I said.”

“That’s exactly what he said,” Gary confirms.

Manges continues: “The sound.”