  G’mornin’ everyone. Recently, Ernst recommended that every day have a column title and specific theme, an Idea which I had already been mulling. My problem was that I couldn’t come up with any good ideas for the Thursday column. Well, that’s what friends are for, I guess. Grampy Stuab threw out a great idea: a retrospective tale of yore recounting golden memories of days gone by. And he suggested I make you laugh.
Make you laugh? Uram’s the specialist, there. I’m just the guy who uses big words and waxes melodramatically about Spider-Man 2. But I’ll do my best. So, after thinking about it, I realized that this is a REALLY good idea. Not only will it give me a chance to practice my narrative writing, but it’ll also (hopefully) be a little entertaining.
Those are the two goals of this here blog, so let’s try it out and see how it works! As an added bonus, those of you out there who DIDN’T know me in college might learn a thing or two about me and my friends, and what made us the upstanding champions of beer and justice that we are today. And maybe you’ll laugh, too. Who knows? In a nutshell, the people have spoken, and I have listened! You’re all VERY fortunate that I’m a loving god, and not a vengeful one.
So without further ado, I present to you the first installment of Thursday’s new column: BOWS & TOES! For those of you unfamiliar with the exercise known as “bows & toes,” allow me to illustrate. Bows &amp; Toes is the cornerstone of pledging calisthenics. All good pledges know how to do them. First, assume a “push up position.” Now, instead of propping yourself up with your hands/arms, lock your hands behind your head and use your elbows to hold yourself parallel with the ground. Then take your right foot, and cross it over your left foot.
Now keep your ass down, and your back straight. And hold it…. (I DIDN’T SAY GET UP!)….Congratulations! You’re in pain! For added fun, try it on concrete sometime. ..okay, Get up… Just thinking about the words “bows & toes!” rolling off of Scott Hart’s tongue take me back to a simpler time.
A time where all you had in your pocket was four quarters, a condom, a Halex, and a Bic lighter. Oh, those were the days. A different theme party every week, food runs, and study hours. Kup took a shot at Dom’s record, Natalie spent her evenings at Phi Kap, and I even scored a couple of times. Of course, I’m talking about that year of years, sophomore year at my alma mater, the Big Dick. Eight young men had come together with a purpose, and we were determined to succeed.
That purpose: get drunk. Okay, not really, it was to buy our friends. Alright, I'm kidding, relax. Remind me to get into fratguy sterotype-bashing mode some other time. Our purpose: to become the best pledge class to ever make it through. And get some play.
On to the show! By “we,” I mean D-Generation OX, my pledge class. A quick rundown of the cast of characters, using nicknames to protect the innocent. Buff : The self-described leader of the group. A Big man with a Big heart, and a semi-functioning brain. A master tactician and motivator, he was our inspiration.
Heed : The guy with the big head. Even though mine’s bigger. Suave and debonaire, he was our resident James Bond. Or, more accurately, Dirk Benedict. He was the Faceman. A lady killer and leader in his own right.
Everyone knows that, though. What few know is that, like his Big Brother Bruce Banner, he was a powderkeg/headcase all the way through pledging. Always on edge. Not good. Me : You know me, you love me. Or you wouldn’t be here.
I’m sort of the runt of this particular litter. But I’m the runt with the heart of gold. The runt with the heart of gold and the emotional inferiority complexes. I tried to keep things lose through self-deprecating humour, often to little success. Jewbacca : The hairiest guy I’ve ever known. He was the superpledge that knew all the information we had to learn first.
He always took everything WAY too seriously, but somebody had to. The Wop : The little Italian rugger. Known also as MightyMouse, he takes inferiority complexes to a whole new level. Hell bent on making the most money and proving that he’s the Little Rambler that Could, back then he was just concentrating on having rock-hard abs and not having other frat guys Shivers his girlfriend’s timbers. Durty : The crazy semi-Canuck who’ll do anything for a laugh. At that time, he was hardwired to his roommate, The Wop, who had near total control over him.
Not a bad thing, but the truth’s the truth. When you roll with Durty, hilarity always ensued. Of special note that he was my twinstar, as we shared the same Big Brother. The Frog : At the time, I only really knew the Frog as ‘the dumb kid from Comp Sci class.’ By the time I was finished pledging, I knew him as ‘the dumb kid from pledging.’ Now, I know him as ‘the dumb kid with the chef for a dad.’ He’s the only kid I’ve ever met that’s lazier than I am, and that’s saying something. He’s a sweetheart, though, and is actually really witty, if you give him time to plan his jokes in advance. And finally, today's star, AWOL : Okay, so you’ve got a highly decorated Army reservist in your pledge class, this should be cake for him, right?
He should have no problems taking orders or learning stuff or getting yelled at, right? WRONG. When he was actually there, he was freezing on the line. Take for instance, this exchange during “alphabet practice,” which I’ll give as today’s story, since this column’s already too too long. We’re in the basement of the Sketch House, trying to go home. The Sketch House was our off-campus crackhouse where a few of our senior brothers lived.
Nesteled in the semi-sketchy part of town, it was a great place for parties and new-member education. Basically, the place was a a hellhole, but it was OUR hellhole. Anywho, we’d been there for a lonnng time, and it’d been a wretched night, because we can’t get the alphabet right. This is where we had to go one by one down the line taking turns saying a single letter of the Greek Alphabet. If we finally get it right, showing an ability to know the alphabet and work as a team, and we do it quickly, we get to go home. Well, every.
Single. Time. We get to AWOL on “Omicron” he screws up and says, “O-MY-cron.” And all the brothers laugh at us. Bows & Toes ensue. Hopefully I can express the humour in this situation. AWOL’s a pretty prideful cat.
He’s the kind of guy that’s never made a mistake in his life—just ask him, he’d love to tell you all about it. If there’s room for both you and his head in the same room, you’ll have a great time hearing all of his war stories. So anyway, the guy has a complete and total mental block when it comes to foreign languages. I learned this the hard way when I convinced him to take Latin with me Freshman year, and witness as he nearly found a way to fail the course. Twice. I’ve copied the kid’s homework, gotten caught, and NOT been chastised by the Prof, because he said, and I quote, “If you had to resort to copying AWOL’s homework, you must’ve been really desperate.
Just don’t let it happen again.” So for me, it wasn’t surprising to listen to him fail again and again and again. After EVERY time, the brothers would stop and say, AWOL, it’s pronounced “Oh- ma- cron.” And he would stand there, against the all, his mouth would twitch, his eyes would squint, and, without fail, he would sputter “Oh- MY- cron” like a baby trying to beg for its bottle. Hilarity would ensue. We’d be blamed for not helping him with his problem, and Bows & Toes would occur, again. After about an hour of this, it came down to this one, final exchange… BROTHER: AWOL, if you can say “Omicron” you all get to go home. AWOL: Oh… Oh… Oh… MY-cron….
BROTHER: BOWS & TOES!!! ..I still don’t think he can say it correctly. Jackass. Until next time, get back to work, -apk 
