School Year 1988-1989

My First MPS Meeting

If life had a soundtrack, my freshman year in college, it would have been "The Liberty Bell March," the theme from Monty Python's Flying Circus.

That year gave birth to a number of traditions, that survived at least while I was a Monty Python Society member. That year was manic fun. We were explorers on Planet Weird.

I didn't know what to expect at my first MPS meeting, but I was accepted with open arms, and not a little tickling.

At my first meeting, Sept. 14, 1988, so many attendees showed up that we had to move the meeting from a small classroom in Boucke Building to the HUB Lawn (which in those days was far larger and could comfortably accommodate a mass of roughly 75 unruly Pythonites; I understand it's since shrunk to half its size and will one day consist of nothing but a patch of grass with Ode de Capa, a.k.a the Fighting Red Onionhead, a.k.a Roger, sitting triumphantly on top. But I digress...)

The president at the time, one Floyd Crossman, told us our first big activity for the year would be the Homecoming Parade, in which we were to follow a Holy Grail theme. He also asked us if we had any other suggestions for activities. This massive group of people was full of unruly ideas, such as Olympic Hide-and-Seek and a Twit-of-the-Year Run. The latter would bear fruit. Fresh fruit.

Another of our suggestions was to move Ode de Capa. A group of brave freshmen gave it a try, but desisted when Floyd told them the campus police had been cracking down on people. Someone had recently been suspended, he said, for disco dancing on a car. We told him that being on a car at the time was probably immaterial, but Floyd convinced us not to press our luck.

My mother warned me my face would stay that way some day.