New Texas A&M dorms won't have f***-stick doors?

A. Daniel Bodine

desertmountaintimes.com

The world's goin' to hell in a handbasket! Always has been; always will be. Most people know that. We get daily reminders of it. Mine Thursday was when I read construction will begin soon on a new residence hall at Texas A&M University, College Station. In the background I saw scenes from the old Corps of Cadets days, snappin' to in front of the barracks hall before going to breakfast—Squadron 14, fall in! Forward-d-d, MARCH! Or marching thru downtown Dallas or Austin in a Corps Trip Parade. Hee, hee. First Sgt. Rick Railston's voice will live with me forever.

The new complex will replace three other dorms built between 1942 and 1964, but won't have f***-stick doors on 'em that the old Corps dorms used to have, I'm sure. Times have changed and the school is even co-ed now. But almost 50 years ago, it was different. Much different.

The old dorms were unique in many ways, of course, but what I remember the most are the doors to the student rooms. Who stayed in the rooms, you learned. You always knew where someone slept, because there was a game played whereby you could get even with someone for giving you or a buddy a hard time by going in and splashing water on them at night. Rooms didn't have single beds—had bunks, upper and lower beds. But you knew who slept where. And it was illegal to lock rooms at night. Fire danger.

Now the doors opened inward only, like most other residence doors I guess, but sat exactly flush with the exterior hallway wall when closed—with rounded door knobs as handles on the outside that extended an inch or two on a shaft out from the door, and beyond the wall by inches into the hallway.

To trap someone inside (make sure he couldn't get out quickly), a person in the hallway--e.g., leaving the room and pulling the door shut behind him, say--simply had to take something out of his back pocket and slip it over that door handle to where it caught the wall facing also.

A fudge stick, to use the polite term. To make one we simply took the wooden end of a Coca-Cola bottles case; cut a gap going to the oval-shaped hole-handle; and then slipped that thing over the door when leaving the room.

Caught it snug, 'ya know. Jammed it up against the neck of the door knob, where it extended snugly onto the hallway wall as well. A person from inside couldn't pull the door open, he couldn't. If the job was done right.

Now Aggies since Day One have called such jamming devices f***sticks, the stories went. Normally two people should do the trick—in drowning out an harrassing upperclassman with ice-cold water early some morning when they're sleeping, for instance. Teach that s.o.b. not to mess with you. Or your buddy.

One goes in with a bucket of ice water he throws on the sleeping person's face; and the second one stays out in the hall, so he can place the stick on the doorknob when the other person comes running out. After he's done the evil water deed.

Now, when young, you do a lot of stupid things like this, right? Right!! What are you when young? Besides a yaahoo! A confused, dizzying headache looking for a pillow to land on, and eternally rest on? Yes? But then there's more, too, isn't there?

Some are convinced all people aren't alike; there's a multi-level order in life—starts from the bottom, the bad; then the decent; then the truly good; and to the best. And they themselves, these people are, among those chosen best, of course. They just need a chance to prove it. Hel-lo, opportunity.

That's why this early adulthood stage of life is so wild; that's when you fear the least. For you're not allowed to fear. That's what this voice says. Coming from nervous feet and legs up thru the stomach and chest into your throat finally, into your ears. You hear it--Can't fear. A wild seed was planted in you and it grows like that..

Novelist Thornton Wilder in his classic work, The Eight Day, writes a little on this bent when he describes a certain person's thinking as “...the root of avarice is the fear of what circumstances may bring.” For many of the young, indeed, it's damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead! Right?

Dad use to describe it to me as some people just have this itchiness in 'em. An itch they have to scratch. Maybe at birth a weed gets planted inside their feet—a wild seed, say; a certain attitude—that grows upward to flare into a charlie-horse in their calf--when talk turns to responsibility, and to the importance of being a spendthrift, and becoming stable. And it just grows up the inside of their legs over the years, all the way to the knee joints sometime; and sends messages to the head.

Hee, hee. People who have it often come down with the “bended knee” remorse syndrome—for what “wrongheaded” things they did while scratching their itch. And the f***stick, to me, was one of those times. For no other reason than a “hometown buddy” asked me. I had to; I wasn't allowed to feel fear. And it happened in one of those Aggie dorms. My fish year in the famed Cadet Corps. Squadron 14—Foobird 14!

I used the stick after I slipped into a room about 1:30 or 2:00 one morning. It was in another barracks building up the quadrangle a ways. A cold night in February, 1963. I actually “drowned out” an ol' boy, another fish. He was the roommate--or the fish old lady--of Frog Stephens (I think was his name) of Cleburne, TX, a fellow member of my 1962 CHS graduating classl and a hometown buddy, of course.

Swear I can't remember Frog Stephens first name. Maybe a reader can. I want to say he was the son of a man who had one of the auto dealerships in Cleburne at the time. Nice, friendly young man. His roommate didn't like him apparently. And that was the problem.

The only thing lower than a fish in the Corps of Cadets at Texas A&M in the 62-'63 school year was a frog—e.g., a freshman student coming in at mid-term. They were the only people a fish didn't have to kowtow to. Frog Stephens was in an awful situation. And I heard the bugle call.

The room over in my barracks (when did they start calling them residence halls?) was on the first floor. All I had to do in the winter was just lift a window and set a trash can with several gallons of water in it out on the ground behind a bush to get ice cold. It took only an hour or so.

Frog Stephens told me he slept on the top bunk; his harasser slept on the bottom. He couldn't help me, of course; could I trust someone else to help? I know how to f*** a door, I told him. I don't need any help. So I slipped in alone, and Splash!

The guy must've already been half awake. For he jumped up out of there quickly and came after me, screaming. In my haste, I didn't get the stick on the door good. Maybe 5-6 seconds later the guy had shaken it off the door.

He almost caught up with me in the stairwell between the second and first floors. Coming down those stairs I got a glimpse of him. I was at the midway point where you turn 180 degrees to go down facing the opposite direction.

The only thing I could do was throw the damn trash can up at him, sling it sideways at him. Whether he tripped or not, it bought me a few more seconds. I was out of the building and had disappeared into some bushes before he ever got out the front door. The f-stick came very close to getting me kicked out of school, or maybe even put in jail that night. Or at least highly embarrassed.

But those sticks were popular and used to “level the playing field” during Aggie-Land's old mandatory Corp membership days—to get back at some upperclassman who was giving you a particular difficult time. To put ice in the water was another degree of offense, however.

It's no shocking surprise they're being faded out. Our '62-'63 class was the last class when two-year membership in the Corps was mandatory, as well as the last class before coeducation came to the vaunted old university.

Several days later, after the heat had passed some, Frog Stephens came back to my room and thanked me for the dastardly deed I'd done for him. He was no longer getting the really bad harassment by his roommate.

Still in my role of being obligated to help a hometown, graduating class buddy, I shrugged it off. And probably muttered something like, That's what friends are for.

Life is crazy, yes. What else can you say about the directions it takes you. But that visit was the last time I ever saw Frog Stephens.

Texas A&M University's '62-'63 Foobird 14 Fish Class members. A wild bunch.

 

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Scattershooting while thinking what ever happened to Chuck

By A. Daniel Bodine

desertmountaintimes.com 

Thought of Chuck the other night. Probably the craziest roommate I ever had in my college years. When I met him he'd spent three years in the Army; four in the Marine Corps; and 2 ½ more hiding in Arlington, TX, from his ex-wife, who lived in Virginia. She had three of his kids and had sicced the law on him for failure to make child support payments. Dum-de-Dum-dum... Hee, hee. Get to that later.

What is more significant, I suppose, is how his name is (was?) recorded in that Big Book in the Sky. We're all predestined at birth, let's say, to a positioned seat (or randomly placed in one, just as many will argue now) aboard a constantly swirling/hovering, often darting back-and-forth spacecraft--a spiritual time machine on a voyage, if you will--that's called Life.

One microsecond of an instant before we're born, a seat becomes vacant in this divine Voyager; and then poof! there we are, in it, ready or not. Delivered by Who? Or by what?

A cosmos heartbeat later, we're dared and sometimes double and even triple dared (by whoever or whatever, thru the same imprint a simple mustard seed carries), to not only live out our inherent destiny, to manifest that position given us, but to grow beyond it also—Yo, Bud, to move civilization up a notch!--before our time on the magic time machine is just as magically snuffed out.

To essentially manifest the Great Spirit's vision, is our goal; to work off indebtedness from the opportunity to be placed in one of Life's seat in the first place; and, furthermore, to prove our worthiness for a more honored seat in the future. Should that occasion come up. Isn't that what the Big Book is for?

Now, Chuck, he was always ready to scratch, to get on with it, to prove his worthiness for a better seat. He was so itchy sometimes I became afraid he was risking slipping down a rung or two on that ladder, the one to the Big Book. But I never once said a prayer for him about it, I did. Ashamed, I should be. I guess. Life is hope, right?

Why did I think of Chuck last week? Guilt, maybe. It's the Southwest summer skies. Heavens are full of stars now. The way the various galaxies will swirl off toward the horizons...Whooo! Sitting out back a couple nights ago, the stars—backfilled as they were with the lights of El Paso-- were so close, some of 'em you wanted to reach out and grab and just eat it as a snow cone. Really heady stuff, these Texas summer skies.

But it reminded me, it did, of nights spent on the campus benches at UT Arlington in the summer of '64, when the school was still Arlington State College, I think; and Chuck was my roommate. Those concrete rounders beneath the huge oak trees 2-3 blocks east of the SUB? Those are the ones. View of the skies from beneath those trees late at night, with a little breeze blowing the branches, is awesome.

Spent hours laying on 'em late some nights, whenever Chuck would strike it lucky at barhoppin' and bring some woman home with him, that is. Hee, hee. That was the deal; it was his apartment. I was kind of desperate when he allowed me to move in with him. And I readily agreed to hightail it on notice. Usually a phone call. The benches were cheaper than a motel room.

The management had advised me at my previous apartment I was no longer welcomed, you see. Vacate pronto! I was told. Kinda snotty of the manager. Everyone gets a little raucous with his drinks sometimes. So, lucky I was to've found Chuck at the time, yes. And he knew it.

But the time I spent with him was a real adventure, too. I was enrolled in summer classes at ASC to get my grades up for that fall term (trying to stay out of Vietnam, is what I was really doing); working long hours every evening in the shipping department at Mrs. Baird's Bakery in Fort Worth, to earn a sustainable living.

While pretending all the while--to high heaven, sometime--that I wasn't really madly in love with Ginger; and thus in no way would ever want to do something stupid like get married, settle down and have a family.

Vigilant, I was, fighting that constant, mimicking refrain that some idiot places in the head of the young and the restless at Life's Crossroads; that rhythmic, drumbeat siren of the entrenched los miserables--Society's responsible class—to essentially go throw your private life off a cliff somewhere; and Lend us a hand here, son; will 'ya? We need your help.

You kidding? Look what happened to Chuck? I could easily tell Ginger.

She was too much class for me, anyway. I knew that. A drama student enrolled at SMU, she was going to be an actress. I was going to be a writer. You do a lot of pretending when young. Naive of barriers later on.

She ended up running away years later with some damn hippy with size 13 1 /2 shoes, to hike mountains for a couple of years in Europe. And he wouldn't even buy her hiking shoes. Or couldn't. Last I heard she was squeezing out a living in New York making public radio documentaries.

And Chuck (and those concrete benches on the ASC campus) was how I escaped it all; or delayed it—Life, that is. Maybe it's just my philosophy. But if Life is following a burning fuse—that goes to a powder keg we call God—and the ashes behind you are history, the knowledge you've gained in following the string, then why not go slowly? And experience more of it?

Chuck worked at some firm in Arlington's large industrial district, manufacturing those clear jet aircraft canopies. He'd brought one home with him before I moved in; sealed up the ends with plexiglass or whatever it was; and hung it upside down from the living-room ceiling.

He then filled it with water; put a couple of large, constantly nervous goldfish in it; placed this huge brown bear rug underneath it, as a shine-on-silver-moon lover's do-it-all mat; and then mounted a strobe light on the ceiling in front of the picture window, to make sure you had the feeling this love trip was really going to take you out of the world. Sheesh! Might as well have gone and purchased a lottery ticket.

Walking by and seeing the scene from the outside at night, that strobe light made you feel like someone had slipped LSD into your drink at the last hitching post. 'Course he'd only pull the curtain when he had a strike. Those in neighboring apartments sometimes would ask him later, Chuck, how do you find a woman in her right mind to even think about crawling up underneath that thing with you, huh?

He didn't. I saw a lot more stars looking through the oak tree branches at night on the campus across the street at ASC, than he could ever conjure up with his lighted-up, jet-canopied imitation of a meaningful relationship. Still, I was always a bit wary returning home 4-5 hours later. Afraid I'd find two homicides on the floor. Death by goldfish assault. Oh, so many stories on Chuck.

This was the time, too, when he'd gotten his student pilot's license, and scrounged up an old, vintage, 2-seated Aeronca Champ airplane somewhere. I have no idea why I'd ever agreed to fly with him in that thing. But (isn't this what we always say?), It just seemed like a good idea.

Because it was a student license, Chuck was not allowed to carry a passenger. So I'd drop him off at the Arlington Airport, where the plane was hangered, and then drive over to the Grand Prairie Airport, where he'd fly over to and get me.

He'd learned to fly well, I'll say that for him. Even though both of us were crazy. His thrill was rolling the plane, or flipping it in midair; and the Aeroncas are good for that. The passenger seat was behind the pilot's seat. Chuck would hear me screaming all kinds of obscenities at him for the danger he was putting us in, then turn around to look at me and laugh the laugh of the devil. That was how he had his fun.

In August he wasn't laughing though. Undercover officers executed the Virginia arrest warrant on him then. Came in and awakened us; I think it was late on a Sunday night. His hiding from his ex-wife was over. He was taken to jail. To await what is usually a transfer back to the court of original jurisdiction in lieu of a bond.

I went back to bed, but not before a decision. It was one of those devil/and/a/woman-made-me-do-it things. Since it was the first part of August, his share of the rent was already paid. I didn't have to worry about it for almost a month. And I sure didn't have money to get him out on bond.

But Chuck had left two payroll checks on his bedroom dresser. I want to say each was for six hundred and something. More than enough to make a bond probably. What should I do tomorrow? I thought.

Like any good man in a relationship, I called and asked the better half—Ginger. Don't do anything, stupid!August of '64, indeed, was special. And never once did we have to turn on that damn strobe light.

Toward the end of the last week, on one of the mornings, I went to the Tarrant County Jail over in Fort Worth. Carried the two checks with me. Met an assistant prosecutor in a hallway. I had the feeling the State of Virginia had forgotten they even had issued the arrest warrant.

The attorney seemed glad to see me. I was the only inquiry they'd had on Chuck. He eagerly took the two checks; told me he'd get my roommate bonded out that afternoon. I left.

When Chuck arrived back at the apartment several hours later, I'd never seen him happier. He'd been back out to his workplace, and everything was OK. Some of the guys already had nicknamed him Jailbird. And the arrangement the attorney had fixed for him was to start making sizable payments every month. No problem, Chuck said.

Everything OK with you? he asked.

It was very difficult to make a straight face, but I did it.

Oh, yes. Working and going to school, 'bout all. Got good grades in both my courses. Means I'm eligible to return this fall.

Good, he said.

Yes, life was good then. Made for the stars. Swirls at a time.

--30--

Desert Heat--A Tale of Two Air-Conditioners

 

 The new boy on the block, seen with the remains of the vanquished.

                                        By A. Daniel Bodine

                                   desertmountaintimes.com

EL PASO, TX—Summer heat in the high desert is usually dry, which makes it more tolerable than the humid heat, say, in the Dallas-Fort Worth area or, especially, in Houston down on the Gulf coast. That's important to me; a yard freak, I am. Sweat easily, I do. We're talking 6-7 percent humidity here. Usually. That's dry. Even though the summer day temperatures in the desert are hot.

Now there are some fudge factors in different environments whose values vary with people. I not only have COPD (bad respiratory system, which loves the dry humidity of the desert), but also a very oily complexion (which is especially appreciative of it, too).

People with oily skin can tell personal stories about what feels like their skin crawling--on their faces, their arms and necks, in high humidity—unseen but feelable dirt and grime build-up's; crawlin' up and down their skin every time they move their body, it seems. Compounded when there's high wind to add to those layers, of course. When outside.

Freaks of nature, you say? Come off it! Not in the norm we are, definitely; freaks is a tad harsh though, no? You a hillbilly? Just put it this way:  You'd better believe dry air is important to us!

Now, triple or quadruple that normal humidity index--with the same heat, which is what we had most of June this year (an hellacious month!)--and the misery index soars. Especially if you're living under a swamp cooler in your house. Which we were. Evaporative air-conditioners lower the temperatures by adding water to the air. Increasing humidity.

          

Which is why my wife, Noemi, finally broke down last week and agreed for us to purchase a refrigerated air-conditioning system. Technology has improved our standard of living, it has. Hallelujah! I said. Freed at last! And that makes for a story, of course. Of two air-conditioners.

If you're a gringo from the low country marrying a Latina from the mountainous Chihuahuan Desert-- who's lived most of her life without air-conditioning at night--you're in for a little bit of a challenge, pardnuh. Hummh!

And Noemi will go that one one more. Can't stand much cover, but, too, she gets the awfullest cramps in her legs at night--whenever cool air passes over them for any length of time. We've had to actually get up many times at 2 or 3 a.m. and walk her around inside the house; massage her calves and thighs; just to get rid of the pain.

Talk about a 'twix and a 'tween! I need the cooler air circulating over me to breath easier. But if it gets past a certain point—especially if the air circulating has increased humidity in it—then it creates a bad situation for her. A simple ceiling fan on low is OK usually; at night, humidity and temperature both drop quickly in the desert, which is what makes living in it more pleasant.

When Noemi and I married, early '95, we'd already looked at our situations, and had made some adjustments. Most of 'em were made in my head. Like understanding why it was wise to get rid of the refrigerated air in my home. Besides causing her cramps, that type of cooling was very inefficient then also—it was expensive, the electricity.

I not only was running a system through overhead ducts but I had several compressed-air, window coolers scattered in the house also. I was on a mission--slay the damn heat! Electricity bills over $200 a month were defense expenditures.

There's a better way, she said softly. And for the better part of 16 years (with minor exceptions) we've gotten by mostly with just a window evaporative system, that's cut off at night and replaced with ceiling fans for circulation. Ah...Then came last month. One of the worst ever, some noted here.

The little rent house we'd purchased in '07, and moved into last June, had an evaporative cooler mounted on the roof with ducts to the different rooms. Pretty standard for El Paso. And even though it was in poor condition already, it got us through that first year.

In April I replaced the pads and water pump, and told Noemi just how bad its rotted condition was. We're going to have to buy a new unit, I said. Maybe we can get by for another year, she said. Which is where we left it. For a few weeks, anyway. Until June. And its strange combination of heat and humidity.

I can't take it anymore, I said just before the final week. We've got to purchase a new unit!

Why don't we look at buying a refrigerated system? she said.

And that caught me off balance. I said nothing. At first. Afraid I'd heard wrong. Then: That sounds like a good idea.

She'd seen a special advertised at a nearby building materials center, she had. It can reduce the humidity in the air, it said. Holy smolies, what's this world coming to?

I contacted them on a Thursday morning. Joe came over that afternoon to explain the system. Nice, it was. Really nice. I wanted it. He said nothing about reducing humidity though. (Has echnology increased that much in recent years? And we were in the dark on it?) We didn't ask.

I wanted “to sleep on it” first before deciding, I told him finally. Ok, I'll call you in the morning, Joe said. No, I answered. I'm taking Noemi to the doctor tomorrow morning. She's been having a lot of stomach cramps. I'll call you tomorrow afternoon, I assured him.

When we returned just after noon from the doctor Friday, we finally had a chance to read that day's El Paso Times. We'd laid it on the table before leaving. Noemi is a hawk on reading newspaper ads.

Here's a better deal, she said. Let's call them. She did. James would be out first thing Monday morning, a woman told her. That was good.

I need to call Joe, I then said. I promised I'd call.

Wait! she said. That's not how you do it! Wait until we see this other system!

(So, yeah, a little bit slow of the ways of the world, I am. But like I said, Noemi knows how to adjust a thick head.)

But No le asi, it turned out. Joe's office called at 5 p.m. anyway. He said you'd be contacting us this afternoon about an air-conditioning system, the woman said. Do you still plan on it? We're open until 6.

Oh, I'm sorry, I told her. Long day in the doctor's office. Tell him I'll probably come in Monday or Tuesday. If we don't change our mind. Ok, she said.

Now, have you checked out the efficiency ratings on some of these refrigerated air-conditioning systems that are out these days, huh? They're good, pardnuh. They're really good.

Monday morning James laid one of the slickest presentations you ever heard on us. Not forced air coming out of the ducts, first of all.

“Not the kind that blows strong on you,” he said, "but a soft, gentle stream."

And $2,500 less than the previous carrier, we'd quickly figured. Yes, Noemi was leaning, I could see it.

Then he fired two magic bullets. Noemi caught both of 'em right in the heart.  “And it'll lower the humidity for you,” he said. “You don't have to worry about high humidity.”

And unless you're charging a space rocket battery or something every night in your garage, "your electricity bill each month won't run but about $30 more on average," he added.

Noemi's eyes were sparkling. She looked at me quickly, and the biggest damn smile spread over her face. Those magic words. Like being welcomed into a new, inclusive religious community. I'd heard enough.

We'll take it! I told James.

His crew installed it Thursday. That night Noemi and I both had the best night of sleep we've had in at least two months. Go figure.

--- 30 ---