Domers, but certainly everyone...I'll start...
Freshman year Spring Break...a bunch of us headed south to Ft. Lauderdale...heard about a huge beach party one evening...showed up only to find that we couldn't get in, because it was only for "Greeks" and ND didn't have any Frats...'chastened', when we returned to campus we decided to 'create' our own Fraternity using letters that did not exist on any Greek listing...showed up the next year with 'official' looking cards (just like our friends' from legit frats) and T-shirts sporting our letters...got in and had a great time!
(btw...still have my shirt...and the card (somewhere))!
Got some thick plastic from a hardware store and told our dates to bring beer-slide-friendly clothes to change into. We all had four or five runs down it before the RA showed up.
Things went rather poorly from there.
The student government used to get the Huddle cart out in the pre-dawn hours to drop Easter Eggs all over the quad a few days before break. They had candy and a numbered slip inside, which you could redeem at Hammes for surprise goods. The lower the number, the better the prize (music, team gear, gift cards, etc.).
Sophomore and Junior year, a friend of mine (now with the U.S. Attorney General's office) and I would put on all back and hide on the ground by LaFortune. As the cart was started and they began slowly navigating the pitch-dark quad, we followed from a distance, scooped as many as our backpack would hold, and went back to Morrissey in my common room.
From 6-7, we opened all of them, keeping numbers 1 to 25. As you could only turn in 1 per student, we kept 1 and 2, gave the rest to friends and roommates, and put the candy in a bowl for communal enjoyment.
Some prick rated me out, I literally got called to the Assistant Rector's office (lied about it), and come the following year, a "spotter" followed the cart that morning.
basketball games within and outside of our dorm were real cool. Debates about sports first, then politics and music next. The comeraderie without fraternities beyond great.
We did have fraternities at my school. Started college August 1978. Animal House had been released a month earlier, so it was a good stretch in history for fraternity life, particularly at a school where fraternities/sororities were center stage in campus life.
We had a great house w/ a terrific bunch of guys. As freshmen, everyone lived in the dorms, and "rush" did not occur until January. The pledge classes began thereafter, to include a pledge class "pimp" perpetrated upon the members -- some juvenile type prank done in the dark of night (usually in April). The more clever the "pimp" -- the more respect given to the pledge class. But, it was always stupid stuff. Another meaningless tradition.
April 1980. I was a sophomore, living in a house with about 75 - 80 fraternity brothers. We had 3-4 per room, but used "rack rooms" (one on each floor)(about 30 beds each) to accommodate sleeping quarters. It was a school night. About 3:00 - 4:00 AM, there was commotion in the hallway. A few of use got out of our racks, only to discover a horse in the downstairs hallway outside the rack room that resembled Secretariat. The pledges had stolen a horse from the university stables, and walked the horse 1-2 miles across campus to the fraternity house. The horse was stressed and starting to kick and bounce out ceiling tiles.
This was not funny in real time, although the sociopath pledges thought it was a scream. But, the grown ups realized immediately that this was a disaster in the making, and that we had just selected a pledge class who lacked any basic judgment or common sense. Even amidst a campus climate back then that gave fraternities free reign, we went into "Ray Donovan" fixer mode, uttering "Holy Shit!" over and over. Three upperclassmen guided the horse back to the stables with Jason Bourne like stealth. Meanwhile, several of us spent a couple hours cleaning the crime scene -- removing horse shit, animal odors, hoof prints in the yard, etc. The house had never been so thoroughly scrubbed. It was a full on chemistry lab, removing any and all traces.
Miraculously, the horse was safely returned. But, undisciplined brothers had to tell their Suzie Rottencrotch bitches about the big caper. Word spread. A few days later, the Dean of Students called the house officers up to his office for a grill session. It was a Dean Wormer scene -- stonewalled the rumor (No Dean, ... first we are hearing about this ... seems very far-fetched ... a horse?"). We left in tact, .... "never to be spoken about again."
Thank God there were no cell phones and social media back then.
your cerebral cortex...Thanks for that! Hope you don't mind if I pass it along to my BIL who was President of his frat at CAL...it might pry loose some stories to share with the family.
Not trying to go "one up the bat handle", but in the spirit of the thread, I'll share another experience...again related to Spring Break.
Fast forward to Senior Year...we got tired of the Lauderdale scene and decided to fly over to Nassau (The James Bond "Thunderball" movie was released the previous December and the island piqued our interest...plus, at that time it only cost $25). We were not exactly flush with cash for hotel rooms, so we found a rooming house that had one room left on the second floor...we took it...ALL of us (6 or 7 in a one bed room)...two days later we came back from the beach to find all our stuff out on the lawn...turns out, when the land lady found out there was no more water in the well, she made the quick decision that there were more than two or three people up there...fortunately, some female friends we made took pity on us and let us use their floor. Who knew an island wouldn't have a limitless shower water supply?
Senior year, a spring Sunday afternoon, one of the guys (future Air Force pilot)(from Pittsburgh) rented a small plane from the local airport and buzzed the house about 8 fookin times. If we were on the roof with tennis racquets, we could have swung and hit his airplane. He was that close. I can still see his fat face laughing uncontrollably as he yanked and banked over our heads ... and kept doing it. Straight out of a movie scene.
Every year, we had a Halloween date party. Playboy Magazine rated the party in the Top Ten college parties in the nation. Our neighbor's Viking Party was the same weekend. Also made Playboy's list. If you a were a bird, being invited to either of these parties meant you had "arrived" to campus stardom. I hate costumes. That particular year, I went as Colonel Henry Blake .. whatever. In any event, setting up for the party was a major undertaking as the house was converted into a forest with a makeshift pond (dry ice), with a bridge, and lit torches in the front yard .. all leading to the front entrance. Yes, ""we had 'em at hello." A huge Great Pumpkin sat atop the front slope of the roof with a spotlight shining on it. Darkness was required for full effect. So, why not take a rifle and shoot out the overhead city streetlamps? And of course, make sure those shots are fired as a police cruiser drives by. "Oh shit ... bad timing" But, to my surprise, Officer Friendly just rolled down his window, and said, "Good shooting ... you boys have fun tonight .."
Later that night (post party 1:30 AM), I toured the carnage, bodies sprawled everywhere, and I find one guy face down in the pond. He went as Mick Jagger, and was laying in his underwear. Pulled him up, and he was still breathing, smiling, asking if I had seen his date, -- ala Goalie Jim Craig at Lake Placid looking for his dad after the miracle on ice.
After finally going to bed, we hear screaming in the rack room. One guy, still very drunk, is leaning up against a bunk (which he believes is a urinal), spraying all over the guy in the lower bunk, who is cowering under the covers as he is showered with urine, fearful that his electric blanket would start to sizzle. Good fun.
was the true inspiration for 'Animal House'...again, thanks for sharing! (Good writing, btw).
Somehow we all made it through...got degrees (many advanced) and made our marks. Fortunately, our kids didn't follow in our footsteps ;-).
Can't you divulge your school?
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Was in a bar right next door sitting beside an old African American. We chatted about sports and then music when out of the blue he asked if I wanted to see James Brown at the old opera house. I had no idea who he was but I said sure. He took me around the back and in the alley broke out a joint and asked if I wanted to get high. Once again, this was a novel experience for me (at that time), but I said sure. Then he got someone to let us in the stage entrance and suddenly... I was not in Kansas anymore. Funny thing was, even though I was a white college kid in an ND sweatshirt and everyone else was black and putting on the ritz... I felt invisible because no one paid me any attention at all.
Link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ek9-HGHT1Pk
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