Favorite memories of college

I don't know that I have a single favorite, but one fond memory I have is the "continuing education" students in summer session. (I attended during summer session so I could take a smaller load in the regular semesters, and make it up in the summer so I would not fall behind.) A lot of these guys were high school coaches or shop teachers who were picking up extra credits so they could teach a class or two in addition to their other duties.

The fond memory is the poker parties we would have. I've always done well in poker ever since I learned the odds table in adolescence. With the coaches and the shop teachers, I learned the finer, subtler points of poker playing culture. There was only one bad incident, and that was when I took a pot, and one of the older guys reached across the tale to look at my cards. I put my hand down and covered it, and he glared at me, saying: "I wanna see your hand." One of the coaches, a bull of a man, intervened, saying: "You didn't pay to see 'em, so back off." He was also the guy who got me to look at the odds again, and play strictly on the odds. You might sometimes throw out a winning hand, but by and large, you will play your cards much better, and take home the money of the more emotional and less rational players.

The great thing about it was being in the company of men in their 30s and 40s who treated me as just one of the guys.

Stealing a bus.

We did return it so I guess in theory it was borrowing.

Wait - my daughter is in college ---- no - I mean all the studying and learning --- yeah that's it all the learning!

OK, we need more than just "stealing a bus". Details, girl, details.

As I read that, I kept hearing Han Solo yelling "Never tell me the odds!"

I was (I guess I still am) a sorority girl. I was president of my chapter which meant I conducted the initiations. I'll never forget the looks in some of those girls' eyes.

I don't remember all of it, but 4 of us attempted the "100 beer" challenge. We had a very large stack of beer in the dorm room. (the challenge is 100 beers from 12:01am Friday to 11:59pm Sunday. Only 1.3 beers per hour if you do nothing else like sleep or class or study...)

Also, many fond memories of playing rugby and doing various activities surrounding playing rugby.

Basically drinking. I drank a lot in college.

It was senior week --- they had buses as transportation to all the events (a smart move on the college's part). So after one such event - which included a Red Sox game - they had all the buses lined up and ready for us all to board.

My friend and I wondered up to the first bus in line and climbed in - it was running with the keys in place while all the bus drivers were just hanging out together not watching us young adults.

Some other friends/classmates came on board there was maybe a dozen of us - one of the guys went to the drivers seat to change the radio and turn up the tunes. I yelled come on lets just get outta here - being tired of waiting ....

So he did just that - drove off. We all laughed and asked if he ever drove a bus before - his answer No - he did confirm though that he hadn't been drinking - we were at least smart about that.

Upon getting close to the campus - we said well we can't just drive on campus they will be waiting for us. So we stopped near to the campus and ran in the back way and just went to our various on-campus apartments.

Believe me they were none to happy when we boarded the buses for the next event the following evening.

Memory?

Um, I can't recall. I remember talking to a professor one afternoon and then it was a few years later. My drinking was a priority at the time.

We weren't so ambitious - or maybe differently ambitious.

We removed a table and 6 chairs from a pub - as well as everything on the top of the table. I sort of remember carrying out a pitcher of beer, a couple of glasses and a chair - I think the story was we wanted to drink outside. Not sure how the table was liberated. We loaded everything into my friend Bob's pick-up truck, piled into a bunch of cars and left.

The fellas took the table and chairs back the next weekend.

I've still got a couple of the glasses - totally generic - no logo - but handy and part of a memory.

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My main memory of engineering orientation was a pub crawl that at one point took us to the Lanc, a local strip bar. I wasn't wearing my glasses and wasn't paying much attention to much of anything. Looked up at one point and asked, are they fighting? are they okay? uproarious laughter from my companions and a question - what do you think they're doing? uh that woman is fighting with that guy for her coat. uhhhhh Beth - they're a strip couple. oh. apparently I hadn't noticed they were both naked under their raincoats.

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what did I learn at university? the stuff related to my degrees was remarkably useless in real life. the things I learned in a couple of ethnomusicology electives were what I've used the most in real life. I can still dissect John Barleycorn in several version and always recognize the sound of sackbuts and hurdy-gurdys.

Going to the pub at lunch & learning to ski!