The first time Pubert and myself had to see the dean of student affairs because we filled the campus fountain with bubble bath and used it as our own personal bathtub. Campus security came right as I was starting to brush my teeth and informed us we had to put our clothes back on and see Ms. Carter.
The night after I had won our conference cross country meet, being that I was in a celebratory mood, we went to a field party. Cumberland was pretty lame on the whole, but one of the students who was local had property way out in the hills and out some gravel road, in the middle of nowhere, where occasionally he would throw a field party. There were usually a couple of kegs in a the bed of a pickup truck, and a big bonfire, around which all fifty or so normal human students would congregate and consume large amounts of foamy beer out of red solo cups.
On this occasion I drank roughly half of my weight in alcohol, which wasn't a whole lot at the time because I was skinny as can be. Actually it was probably about ten cups full, a lot for a runner with little body weight and lots of miles in the legs. So drunk was I that I completely blacked out. The rest of the story I had to piece together from my friends and from what campus security told me.
I woke up the next morning with a ticket on my desk, which informed me that I was on campus drunk and I would have to pay a fifty dollar fine and meet with the dean of student affairs. As if this wasn't bad enough, when I went out to my car the back seat was covered in vomit. My little Suzuki Esteem would smell like Twizzler scented vomit for the next couple of weeks, against my best efforts to clean the sonofabitch.
Joey was the designated driver, which meant he was the least intoxicated. Fortunately he was able to get us back on campus without wrecking and running into innocent bystanders, and thinking that the back seat was the best place for Day and myself to sleep off our drunkenness, he left us in the car and went into the dorm.
Not too long after he left us, campus security swung by to see two passed out retards in the back of my car. We were ushered into the dorm, forced to sign our tickets, and released to our rooms. Ultimately, Day and myself would have to tell our coach what happened which we did. We were not allowed to run the next race, which was regionals. We had to attend four two hour "alcoholics anonymous" classes, where we were joined by a couple of football players that had been busted from the very same party. None of us took the class seriously. The lady who was our instructor was very agitated by this. I felt bad for her, but I have to admit, it was pretty funny how the football players made a mockery of the process when she herself took it so seriously.
So the lasagna in the face would see us back in Ms. Carter's office. This was just another notch on the belt for the Triple S, which was slowly but steadily gaining a reputation on campus as a troupe of oddball trouble makers. Ms. Carter, who was the dean of student affairs, told us we would not be allowed to leave campus until spring break. Ms Carter looked an awful lot like Janet Reno and had way too much power for a person with no PHD. She was a hard lining lesbian and would see to it that we did not leave campus until she said we were good to go. This would be about the time things started to get really interesting.
Robitussin Disneyland is not your parents idea of a theme park. It is four days in the Smokey Mountains with Day and Joey and Clifford. And we did not even bring any drugs with us. Spring break was to be a time to recharge the batteries. I was the one with the car, so I got to sleep in the back seat while Day sped down the interstate. We picked Clifford up from Corbin sometime around noon. We made it to Sevierville by two, and had parked the car and started walking by 5. The initial hike was to be six miles, all uphill, to the top of Clingmans Dome. It was the most dome I would get for the first half of my college experience.
Day would be the leader. After all, he was the oldest, and he had the knowledge of these forests. Clifford was our nickname for Joseph Hurtgen, who was a childhood friend of Day's. I got to name him, and since he reminded me of Martin Short's character from the movie Clifford, he became Clifford. We call him that to this day.
Four dumb ass boys thinking they know how to navigate the wild is what the Hindu call Avidya, which is "ignorance." It is also the ego consciousness, which leads to desire, Karma, and rebirth.
Joey had the bright idea to take only two sleeping bags. This would allow the other two individuals to carry other accoutrement's. We took with us four granola bars, four bananas, four apples (all stolen from the cafeteria, we made do with what we had available as industrious and resourceful college students) two cans of Bush's baked beans, a couple of fruit snacks. All in all, not a lot for a three day hike of almost 30 miles.
Pubert and Mono did not make the trip with us. This marked the beginning of a new direction for the Triple S. They went to Wisconsin and had sex with girls. They slowly started drifting away from the Triple S, and we probably considered them the lucky ones for it. Pubert had Jessica on his mind. Mono fell for the fat girl named Sarah. His excuse, fat bitches need loving just as much as skinny ones. Keep in mind that Mono was a trollish looking outdoors man and would have been the perfect compliment to our outdoor extravaganza. Alas, we would have to make do with what we had.
At any rate, we made it to the top of Clingman's Dome by twilight. It was still relatively warm at this point, so we pitched a tent and called it a day This was the worst idea imaginable, as the temperature would drop to near freezing with winds exceeding 30 miles an hour once it was dark. Our tent barely managed to stay pitched, and we had to put the two sleeping bags together to make one bag for all four of us to huddle together in. We barely slept at all that night, it was so terribly cold and miserable. If we had only known that twenty minutes further ahead down the hill was a cozy little campground. It was where we should have camped.
So day two started extra early as we were ready to get moving and get the blood flowing. The sun rose and the day gradually heated up to 70 degrees or so. We separated ourselves by about two minutes each, so we were each walking in solitude for most of the day. It was so very peaceful. Being out in the wilderness like that, you don't realize that it is the only time in your life that you don't hear the "sounds of man" in the background, like cars, or televisions, or any of the other things that fill the spaces of silence in our day to day lives. All you hear is quiet, nature's peace. You will actually start to fall into a trance and it is magical and it is something that most of us have gotten away from in our modern society. I will never forget the hike that day and becoming "one" with the Smokeys.
We walked over ten miles on this day, and set up camp again at the end of the day. We had eaten through the fruit and granola bars, so it was time to get a fire going and eat the baked beans. You have no idea how good baked beans are after you have been hiking all day and have had little more than a granola bar and a piece of fruit the entire time. Sitting there, content in the woods with a fire going, talking about cosmology, existentialism, and women; I can think of nothing better to do on a beautiful spring evening with three of my very best friends. We fell asleep and slept well that night.
Which was good because when the morning came, so did the rain. We had about ten miles to go, so we packed up our stuff and just started hauling ass. We were ready to get out of nature. We were getting soaked to the bone, and we were cold, tired and hungry. About 8 miles into the hike that day we managed to piss Day off and he ran ahead. This was good because he was able to locate the car and save us some time getting back. What did we find in the trunk? A bottle of wine? We uncorked it and celebrated and drove off, back into civilization.
We made it to Lake City where we found the first pharmacy available, cleaned out the DXM, and went to Lake Park. As the cough medicine started kicking in, we decided to run barefoot over the cold soft grass, nimbly avoiding stepping in goose shit. It was a cross country race, but this time it was full contact. We plowed into each other over and over, and finished by jumping into the ice cold lake. One who is Robo-running is less sensitive to physical as well as thermal pain. In fact, it is quite nice chilling like an ice cube in freezing cold water when you are under DXM's influence. It was a magical day there at Lake City.
Once we got back to campus, we gathered as much brush and wood as we could find so we could start a camp fire. Which we did, right in the middle of campus. Once we had got the fire started campus security told us to put it out. We told them we were going camping. They said we needed to put out the fire. We asked them if they wanted to join us and roast some hot dogs. They physically came over and stomped out our fire. There were no further repercussions. We escaped without any criminal charges, which was a surpirsing first. Maybe we were starting to wear the establishment down? The battle may have been won, but the war was far from over. The established Southern Baptist cadre is like poison ivy. It is invasive and will take over a countryside. If you try to navigate through it, you will be touched at some point by one of its toxin covered leaves which will leave you irritated, scratching yourself, and going to the store looking for medication.
