Story 37: A whale of a tale and other college stories

       

    When you are in college you meet people from all walks of life, and hear some true stories and some tall tales.  I was once informed that you can get high smoking a dried banana peel (not true), but I didn’t bother to try it although my friend Barry did (Explains a lot I suppose).  My freshman year had a lot of stories. 

SUNY Albany had a policy of increased occupancy “The more the merrier.”, code for overcrowding. Our suite room initially had seven people four in my room alone.  We had two Davids, friends from Long Island, an African American guy named Keith who for some reason always took showers at 2:00 am,  a Ukranian dude named Andy who taught me how to say “Good night” in his language, and Long Islanders Phil and Alan who offered me a bong hit on my first night of college. I declined because I was a health nut back then, and strangely did push ups in the suite room instead.

My roommate David once told me how during the Jewish holiday of Passover he went to Oneonta College, did cocaine, and then scaled matzah down the hallway like a baseball card. So much for tradition. A lot different from when I used to scale baseball cards at Hebrew School.

When we were in college, we would also often go to a local bar named O’Heeneys to drink. O’Heeneys was known for green beer on St. Patricks day, and a urinal trough large enough to fit several cattle.  It was the place at the time. Fortunately, my brother was nice enough to give me his ID, and since he was two years older and I looked just like him I always could get into bars.

After getting drunk, we would frequently go to Souvranos pizza parlor, and order a few slices. One night in particular I recall walking down the street eating pizza, and seeing one of my roommates urinating down a slide in a children’s playground.

“Some kid is going to have quite a ride tomorrow.” He boasted.

I just shook my head and walked away.

Another time,  my friend Josh went to Dunkin Donuts at midnight and was asked if he was there to apply for a job.  Josh was probably high at the time, and answered “Yes.”

He was asked questions like “What type of berries go into the blueberry muffin?” I don’t know if got the job or not, but he apparently scored well enough in Albany that he eventually transferred to Cornell.  I would hate to see what might have ended up in some of the donuts and muffins if had gotten the job.  The blueberry muffin might be shaded green.

Speaking of food, our college food program was called UAS. I think it stood for University Auxiliary Services.  We joked it stood for “Use Alka Seltzer.”   I remember seeing graffiti In the college bathroom that said: Flush hard it's a long way to UAS.

We also had a Kosher kitchen on Dutch Quad which I was a participant.  My brother Bruce was famous for piling trays of food double decker (he loved to eat).  One time there was a controversy because somehow several shrimp egg rolls had found their way into the oven.  Later, the head chef Yoel would do an impression of Rambo, by fire bombing the oven to kosher it.  There was a lot of head shaking, but I ate a few egg rolls without complaint.

  People watching was also a past time in the dining hall. My friend Mike would constantly look back and forth at the many beautiful girls walking around the hall. My friend Jerry would say “Mike you keep this up you are going to hurt your neck,”and sure enough  one night Mike turned his head quickly, and injured his neck. It wouldn’t be the last time however.

Festivals at college were also fun.  Their were toga parties, beer balls in the suite, Mayfest, and of course halloween. Bruce and I once dressed up as Hanz and Franz (characters from Saturday Night Live) stuffing newspaper into our clothes to make us look more muscular.  The outfit got a lot of compliments. 

 The whale story comes from Columbia University.  Whether it is true or not I am not sure. Apparently there was an English professor who always assigned papers about the book Moby Dick. He also really liked Columbia’s football team.

The football team had a tradition that everyone turned the same paper in because they knew the professor loved the team.  The paper reportedly had a big picture of a whale on the cover, and always received an “A.”

One year however, one player was nervous about getting caught for plagiarism and turned the paper in, but left out the picture of the whale. He got the paper back with an “A” and the professor apparently wrote underneath, “Good paper, where’s the whale?”

Life Lesson 37: College is a time for experimentation, learning, and personal growth. Be open minded because it can often open you up to new experiences, new friendships, skills for life, memories, and hopefully “A whale of a good time.”