This weekend I am going back to my fraternity house for a benefit event to raise money for my fraternity brother’s daughter to go to college. He passed very suddenly right after college and it is really an event I look forward to every single year, despite the very crushing reason we gather together. I have opined on Quincy and his legacy before, but this is a comedy blog, so I’ll keep it funny. You can donate here if you would like to help an amazing young lady pay for her education, btw. https://www.paypal.com/donate/?token=2woD3_9s5eUKoFkqf3SNpEaMIHkB59_AVlMMdLwbKA2qs1OE1chkff2M-fg_A9k8eB4KUG&country.x=US&locale.x=US
When I first moved into the frat house the summer before my sophomore year, it was like a dream. I had a pool table, sand volleyball court, a grill built into the deck, huge stereo, plus 33 other friends (coming soon when school started) and really, my first place of my own. Me and my high school buddies Stotts and Honk were drinking some beers when two soccer players made it in early for soccer two a days, my fraternity brothers Boyer and Nate. We started playing drinking games with tequila when one of the guys (name redacted) said, “I have the key to that Bobcat outside. We should take it for a ride!” All five of us drunkenly walked out to the parking lot, where they were tearing everything up for a new trail and parking area leading to campus. We fired the little earth mover up, my pal jumped on the roof and we yelled our cheers and drank our beers…then about 12 seconds after starting it, the one town cop car pulled up over the hill by the tennis courts, not 30 yards away. We scattered like roaches.
Two of my friends ran into campus to throw them off our scent…or maybe because they were drunk. Unbeknownst to both, the college had put a brand new rail in. The athlete of the two hit the rail at full speed and ended up missing a week of practice with deep thigh bruises. The smoker of the two also hit it right after having seen the athlete hit it and almost broke his leg. On the other side, my other buddy saw a clearing and ran to the woods. He happened to pick the clearing that was a clearing only because they had shoved all the broken concrete with steel rebar sticking out down that part of the hill. He bounced down the hill and by God’s grace, happened to roll under a huge piece of concrete that shielded him from the cops while he bled.
What happened to you, Chris? I saw another gap in the woods. I ran full speed and realized it was a six foot drop with an enormous ceramic pipe for drain off into the ravine. I fell down two of those six foot drops and in the process of falling, lost my sandals and I was already shirtless. I slammed into the pipe full force from the fall. The last drop was filled with thorns and briars that had grown up in the hole and I had to push through with all my strength, the barbs ripping open my arms and chest. I then ran deep into the woods in the dark with no shoes on, hearing the cop yelling behind me. After 15 minutes, I crawled back to the house and found I was ten feet from the cop, still scanning the woods with his light. Back into the woods! YAY! I finally, after an hour, belly crawled and ended up being the first one back. Over the next two hours, all five made it back – no one arrested. One of my buddies did get stopped by the cop who had backup by then. He was walking back from the other side of campus, limping from hitting the railing, intoxicated and looking rough. The cop stopped him – “Were you one of the guys trying to ride that Bobcat.” “What Bobcat?” he said. The cop let him go. Keep in mind school hadn’t started yet and there were probably 12 students on the entire campus. Crack police work that night.
Over the next several days, four of us had limps, cuts and I happened to lie down in poison Oak or Sumac as my entire torso was a red rash. It was so bad, I scratched it open with a dry towel and poured bleach into the cuts. It finally stopped itching, but I had chemical burns for six months on my stomach. I did however finally find the beer coozy I lost that said “BEER: Not just for Breakfast anymore” that I bought in Myrtle Beach my senior trip after high school, so it wasn’t all dark clouds, everyone!
Well, I learned my lesson that night. OK, not really, other than don’t take your shirt off before you commit grand theft bulldozer. “Hey Chris, you never said what happened to the fifth guy, the one who thought of the whole idea?” Oh him. The only one not bloodied and battered? The guy who thought to steal the Bobcat in the first place. He found a nature trail and ran to a clearing lickety split. He didn’t have a scratch on him.