I was thinking about this event tonight. So I pulled out my book files. This piece is copyrighted by me. Just saying. Enjoy!
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Chapter 2.14: Homecoming ‘86
Sunday, October 12, 1986 At summit, aides work on accords
The
girls arrived in a large mass, and they’d be there all week. Zeta Tau Alpha (ZTA) were our partners for
homecoming, which meant all of us would build a float, put together some kind
of dance routine to go with it, drink too much and screw like wild animals in
heat. Zeta was one of the “up and
coming” sororities looking to become one of the elite houses, and, in their
eyes, homecoming with Skull was their ticket to that goal. The guys?
They just wanted some hot women to fuck.
And, as Geno put it, these women felt “grateful and indebted” to us. “Easy pickings.”
The
overall theme for Homecoming was “Penn
State: A Whole New
World.” Sometime in the previous weeks,
our Homecoming chairman, Sly, and theirs got together and decided on our
particular theme: “Mickey and Minnie go to Penn Space.” Seriously.
At
the chapter meeting the week before, Andy asked for volunteers for the various
things that needed to be done. Chumpy,
the house manager, was in charge of float building. Zit was to lead the “Crazy Band,” the people
who would dress up and dance in front of the float. The pledges would help where needed. Everyone was expected to help with the float.
I
volunteered for the Crazy Band. After
all, if I didn’t get involved, they’d never accept me. Besides, each of us would be paired with a
Zeta all week. Maybe I’d get lucky and a
get a cute “grateful” one!
Homecoming
week officially started Sunday afternoon.
Chumpy and some of the brothers who were good with tools built the
wooden frame of the float on top of a rented flatbed trailer (it would be towed
by someone’s pickup truck.) Chumpy’s
partner from Zeta was Becky, a cute blonde with large blue eyes on a broad
face. As a bonus, she was even shorter
than Chumpy!
As
those guys sawed, hammered, nailed, and drank, the Crazy Band met in the Club
Room. Zit and his counterpart, Jody, a
dark haired Zeta with brown eyes and a fading tan, outlined what we were going to
do. I looked around. There were twenty four of us: twelve guys and
twelve girls. The Zeta girls were very
cute- not overwhelmingly gorgeous, not Barbie dolls, but definitely hot. And grateful.
“We’re
going to dress up like Mickey and Minnie Mouses” Jody said. “We’ll all have red shirts, just like this
one.” Zit held up a shirt. “And have mouse ears and tails and other
stuff. It’ll be really cute!” Jody said.
The
guys smirked and the girls giggled.
The
shirt was red with white printing. “SKULL
ZETA HOMECOMING 1986” was in an arch above cartoons of Mickey and Minnie Mouse
in space suits. Below them, in large
letters read “Mickey and Minnie Go To Penn Space!” We’d have the shirts in on Thursday. Hopefully.
Jody
started announcing the partners by couple.
My partner was Lisa, a petite girl with an average body, bleached blonde
hair to her shoulders, and brown eyes. I
could tell she was thrilled to be partnered with me by her disgusted sigh.
At the time I
didn’t realize it, but many of the pairings were made by sisters’ request. Now I wonder what Lisa did to piss someone
off.
“I’m
Lisa and I have a boyfriend” she said.
“I’m
Lance and I don’t care” I replied with a tone that left “bitch” implied. I was already starting to get irritated by
the sorority attitude. I was beginning
to see why the brothers had so many bad nicknames for sorority girls: they
seemed to think their shit didn’t stink.
“The
song we’re going to do is the Penn State Fight Song.” Zit said.
“Jody has put together a dance routine that we should be able to do even
if we’re all fucked up- which we will be.”
We
all cheered.
The
week went quickly. I spent a lot of my
spare time at the house, either practicing the routine on the front lawn or
“pomping” the float. Pomping was gluing
wads of colored tissue paper to the chicken wire stretched over the frame of
the float.
Most
of the time there were at least two or three people working on the float. At night, all of the pledges, ours and
theirs, as well as many others would swarm all over it. Of course, we were on tap the whole time.
Skull House. April 1987
Wednesday, October 15, 1986 City Charges 27 in Bribery Case
The
shift was long and very busy. I was on
burger board and Ashley was on register.
I was working until three as usual- she was done at one. Jill worked next to me most of the day, but
was back doing dishes as Ashley finished work.
Judy had off- she was doing fraternity work. Probably pomping.
Ashley
clocked out, and as she walked by I stopped her.
“Um,
I was kinda wondering if you had plans for Saturday night?”
“Not
currently” she said, smiling.
“Well
my house is having a formal Saturday night, and I was, um, hoping you’d like to
go to it with me.”
Oh, real smooth,
Lance. What woman could turn down an
invite like that? God!
“Sure!”
she said. “Sounds fun!”
“Great! I’ll fill you in with the details later!”
“Ok! I have a sorority meeting tonight from seven
until around ten. Call then?”
“I
will! Have fun!”
After
a minute or so, I could see Ashley walking across the parking lot toward University Drive. Her jeans were very tight. She had a great walk- unlike any other person
I ever dated. Poise, Grace: she walked
like a Woman.
Thursday, October 16, 1986 House passes largest-ever spending bill
The
week ended with a flurry of activity.
Our pledges were given a choice: work on the float or work the standard
Thursday night party. They chose to work
on the float (with the Zeta pledges).
That meant that the Last Pledge Class (the guys who just got in,
otherwise known as LPC) had to run the party.
There was a saying in the house: “You’re not done pledging until you’re
done LPC.” Of course, all of Zeta was
there as well. The brothers took turns
by pledge class working on the float as well- a schedule was posted on the
second floor bulletin board. I did my
time with the Spring 85 class, who called themselves “Full Force.”
The
party was absolutely packed as the Zetas brought their friends (boyfriends
“discouraged.”) The Zetas were going all
out- each one wanted to be invited to our Homecoming formal (apparently it was
a status thing) so they were dressed to kill, flirting and drinking hard. A lot of hair flipping, arm touching and
laughing at dumb jokes. Hell, a couple
of them even spoke to me in a non dismissive way! It was a good night to be a Skull.
Friday, October 17, 1986 Major bills delay exit of Congress
The
day was picture perfect. The leaves were
in full glory, as if they too were putting on a show for the returning
alumni. Classes zipped by. Crazy Band was to meet at 3:30 at the
House. I blew off my 5:00 EDPSY
recitation again.
Crazy
Band Happies started at 4 (after a couple of more run throughs on the front
lawn.) There was a whole case of
Thunderbird and a keg of beer- just for us!
So we crammed all thirty of us into the “Commissary” downstairs and
toasted, shouted, and sang. It was
packed so tight that we all got free feels.
We all wore our red shirts and jeans.
I
never felt so “included” in my life up to that point.
As
we drank, a couple of sisters worked through the crowd, painting the tips of
everyone’s nose with black circles and they drew mouse whiskers on our
cheeks. Other sisters pinned big black
paper Mickey Mouse ears into our hair.
We were each given a black “tail” made of ribbon. We were to put these on ourselves, but many
of the sisters received “help.” We
looked like a bunch of drunken cartoon mice.
At
4:30, we all did one last chug of beer (toasted to “Penn Space”) and piled into
trucks driven by hopefully more sober brothers up to the IM building near
Beaver Stadium, where the parade started.
We
parked out back with the float and staggered up to Curtin Road. It was a madhouse- people in all kinds of
costumes were packed together as the floats slowly swung into order. We were surrounded by Aliens, baby dolls,
cats, dogs, vegetables, planets, bathing beauties, and cross dressers. Everyone seemed drunk or drunker than I was. One of my fellow mice passed a bag to me with
a bottle of the Bird in it. (The bag was
labeled “CHEESE.”) I took a big swig and
passed it to another mouse. The whole
thing was a drunken kaleidoscope in the setting autumn sun.
Bumped
into a whole band of people dressed in tin foil with green faces, and green
pipe cleaner antennae with little foil balls on top.
“Lance-
is that you?” I heard a familiar female
voice ask.
Turned
around- and there were Judy and Virginia
green faced and tin foiled. We pointed
at each other and laughed.
“See-
told you you’d catch lettucitus!” I said
to Judy.
“What
are you? A mmman or a mmmouse?” asked Virginia.
“Comeer
and I’ll show you, babe!” I
replied. They were smashed too.
“Where
in line is your house?” Judy asked.
“Number
one. Top of the heap! Always!”
“Bullshit!” Virginia
said, laughing.
“I
think we’re nineteen or twenty in line.
I think” I said.
“We’re
fifty three!” Judy said proudly.
“You’ll
be here forever!” I said.
“Tell
me about it!” Virginia said.
“We’ll
be done and back to drinking before you even get started!” I said.
“We
have a keg on the float and a lot of plastic cups” Judy said.
“That-
that’s good thinking” I said. “I wish
we’d thought of that.” I saw our float
pull into line. “Gotta go! Time to be Mousey!”
“Have
fun!” Judy said, smiling.
“And
don’t call us spacey!” Virginia said, smiling as well.
We
stumbled into place in front of the float.
The Cheese made more rounds. Good
thing we each had partners or many of us would’ve fallen down. Our float had an Old Main in the back, but
done up as a space station. Projecting
out of it, not unlike a huge dick, was a Blue and White rocket with “fire” and
smoke” like it was leaving the station. The
sides of the float were white with “Mickey and Minnie go to Penn Space” in Blue
letters. On the float rode Saint and his
counterpart Melanie, dressed in “spacesuits” with rented Mickey and Minnie
heads.
The
float ahead lurched forward. They were
doing some kind of farming thing, and everyone was dressed like rejects from
“Hee Haw” complete with the girls wearing “Minnie Pearl” type hats with price
tags attached. Anyway, Lisa was
shamelessly flirting with Steel, one of the new pledges, who had the spot next
to us. I guess she only had the
boyfriend when I was around. Anyway, we
waited, I dunno, maybe a couple of minutes, then we started out. Gave the float ahead maybe a twenty yard head
start.
We
staggered along waving and shouting to all the families, kids, and the few
alumni that lined the route. Lets face
it- most alums wouldn’t arrive until later- they all had jobs and PSU was and
still is a long drive from anywhere. The
parade was for the townies. Still,
that’s cool.
Our
float, towed by Cheese’s truck followed us.
Some of us hung back and leaned on the float or the truck for
support. It was gonna be a long mile and
a half.
About
the middle of each block, we would stop to do our little song and dance. The parade moved slowly, with lots of
stops. We kept running into the float in
front of us. Their Crazy band did some
kind of square dance. I think if our
group spun around like that, we’d have a lot of people puking on the street.
As
we turned right onto College
Avenue, my drunken haze began to lift and the
hangover kicked in. I guess it was all
that exercise. By the expressions on
some of the other mice’s faces, I wasn’t alone.
Thank God the closest marching band was some distance away. The drums would’ve killed us all. Still, the crowds on College Ave were bigger, and full of
students, especially girls. So there I
was, dressed like cartoon mouse, strutting in front of half the co-eds in
school. Still, I was doing so with the
Skulls, which made it instantly cool.
Hey babe! Would you do it in our
house? Would you do it with a Mouse?
As
we neared the judging stand near the University’s main gate at College and
Allen, I saw a large number of Skulls and Zetas standing and cheering for
us. A bunch of Zetas camped out there
all night to save the spot. The float
ahead pulled away from the judging stand and we ran into position to the cheers
and applause of the crowd.
I
was really fucking nervous. Don’t fuck
up, Lance- they’ll hate you if you do.
Don’t fuck up!
I
heard the familiar “one-two-three!” and we started in with our routine.
“HAIL!
To the Lion, loyal and true.
HAIL! Alma Mater, with your white and blue.
PENN! STATE! forever, molder of men, *
FIGHT! for her honor—FIGHT!— and victory again.”
* “and women” wouldn’t be added until a few
years later.
The
routine was simple- it was easy to tell that the designer, Jody, was a cheerleader
at one time. And we executed the routine
fairly well. I think.
We
finished, cheered, shouted things like “Go Penn State!” the moved on. My throat was shot by this point. Alcohol and shouting don’t mix- go figure.
The
parade tuned north onto Curtin road, headed uphill. We did our routine once more (in front of
Beta and Fiji,
where we changed the lyrics to “Skull house forever” just to piss them
off. The few of their people that were
there booed. We then continued uphill
where the parade dispersed in front of Rec Hall and the Lion. We cheered and hugged. Many of us hopped onto the float to ride back
to the house. A few walked.
As
the float pulled away, I looked back at the Lion. Crouching.
Watching. Watching another parade
go by. Waiting for tomorrow.
As
we rode down Atherton toward Beaver
Ave, the wind felt cool on my sweaty body. My ears flew off.
The
House was immaculate. The whole ’Hood
spent every hour they could (when not going to class, pomping, drinking,
fucking, or getting stoned) repairing, painting, and cleaning. All this so the alumni would think we were
responsible, trustworthy young gentlemen.
But the alumni weren’t stupid: they were Skulls too- so they knew what
was up. They appreciated the effort
though.
A
table covered with a crisp white tablecloth fronted by the fraternity flag was
set up in the foyer. On this table was an
incredible selection of “top shelf” liquor and some mixers. A pledge manned this bar, ready to bring ice
when needed. Alumni poured their own
drinks.
The
Hood was dressed in sweaters and nice pants, as were the alumni. Most of the alums gathered in knots of people
around their own age. Deep drunken
laughter rang through the halls.
I
smiled, drank, spoke briefly to some alums, drank. Eventually, I ended up in the second floor
bathroom. There I saw three old alums,
all wearing nice suits, all holding huge wads of wet toilet paper. They took turns throwing the wads at
Triangle, where they stuck to the brown wall.
The old, distinguished men laughed like naughty kids.
Fall 1986 "Informal Composite" Photo by Chuck Fong
Saturday, October 18, 1986 Logbooks tie contras, Fla airline
The
cold wind cut through my coat and sweatshirt and pounded on my hangover. The bright sun spotlighted the hurried leaves
in all their glory. If my head didn’t
hurt so much, I’d be dazzled by the beauty.
As it was, it was just a long walk uphill to the stadium. The headache set up camp right behind my
eyes. Jesus Christ- I gotta stop
drinking so much! How many did I
have? There was all that Thunderbird and
beer, and all those drinks at the House.
Just thinking about it made me want to puke. I wondered if a puddle of vomit could be
easily hidden by fallen leaves. And
would the colors match?
I
filed into the stadium alone among eighty some thousand others. I sat high in the section, near the lip of
the stadium. I looked around and saw Jen
and Emily from down the hall. I walked
over to say “hi” and they asked me to sit with them. Yes!
The
#6 ranked Nittany Lions scored early and often.
As always, every time a ball sailed through the uprights into the
student section, it was passed back, back, back, up and over, out of the
stadium. (This tradition ended when the
upper deck was added to the south end.
Shame. It was fun to watch.)
At
halftime, the Alumni Blue band took the field and they were really good. The dedication of these people really
impressed me. I mean, they must’ve
practiced this routine. Don’t they have
jobs and stuff? When did they find the
time? Then again, when I thought of
alumni, I thought of “old people.” It
never occurred to me that they might’ve just graduated last May.
Anyway,
somehow I survived the game without puking.
I had a blast talking to the girls.
They didn’t see me as “a threat” so they didn’t bother putting up their
attitudes. The Lions beat Syracuse 42-3. The girls and I walked back to Beaver
Hill. I was hurting, but happy, and
collapsed back into bed.
Beaver Stadium Seating from back of 1986 Season Ticket
The
sun was all but gone when Ashley and I arrived at the House. She wore a dark green gown that flattered her
figure and showed off her ass, but had shoulder pads and sleeves to her
elbows. Hey, the 80s weren’t exactly a
Golden Age of fashion! Still, I thought
she looked great!
I wore my drab
light gray suit and a red tie. I wasn’t
a fashion plate, but that said, I wasn’t the worst dressed. Some guys looked like they never heard of an
iron or a comb (grunge was still a few years away from being in fashion.) The House was decorated with black and yellow
streamers. The alumni were all dressed
in nice suits, mostly black or charcoal gray.
Brothers without dates, few as they were, talked to the alumni, their
wives and girlfriends.
The dates were
dressed like this was the social event of the season. Maybe it was.
Beautiful gowns, hot cleavage showing tops, jewelry- it was like a
prom. All the Zetas who were “lucky”
enough to be invited tended to flock together when not with their dates. The guys assumed that the girls all knew that
to come to a Skull formal meant that they had to put out that night. Surprise, surprise! Lisa, my dance partner was there! Boyfriend?
I introduced Ashley to some of the guys, but we mostly kept to
ourselves. After all, no one was falling
over themselves to talk to us.
Dinner was catered
and served by the pledges. Chicken
Cordon Bleu. After dinner, all of the
brothers went downstairs to the party room, leaving the women upstairs.
With the pledges.
Chairs were set up
in rows downstairs. I sat near the back
and watched as many brothers and alums lit cigars, talked and laughed. This was the annual “State of the Chapter”
meeting with the Alumni Corporation. And
the pledges?
“They get to try
to ‘scoop’ our dates” Garbo explained.
“What does that
mean?” I asked.
“They’re upstairs
hanging out with the girls. If one of
them can score, no one can retaliate against him. Even wives aren’t off limits. Is that your girlfriend you brought?”
“No.”
Garbo
laughed. “Well, good luck!”
The meeting was
called to order by Henry Keller, who was maybe in his late sixties. He’d been involved with the House constantly
since graduation all those years ago.
After reading a list of brothers who had died in the past year, we had a
moment of silence. Then they discussed
House business, the balance sheet, House issues, and so on. There were discussions and arguments. It was kinda interesting, but not
really. I lost my buzz.
Took about an
hour, then we filed back upstairs. Ashley
was sitting in the club room with a few girls who looked like Barbie
dolls. They stopped talking as the guys
approached, hooting and hollering. Ashley
smiled.
“Your pledges are
very nice” she said. “A couple of them
invited me upstairs for some champagne.”
“I noticed that
you didn’t take them up on it.”
“I don’t like
champagne. Besides, it wouldn’t be
right” she said. “Some of the girls went
with them, though, so I’m sure they’re not lonely.”
I noticed Lisa was
nowhere in sight.
We hung around
with that group for a little bit, then Ashley wanted to leave. Her sorority had a special church event in
the morning, so she wanted to make it an early night. I walked her home. We hugged.
She went inside. Alone.
