Antioch College - Towers Yearbook (Yellow Springs, OH)

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172

Page 173 text:

f' LN when it is pitch dark, the rest stumble in and ask why the hell anyone ever picked such a lousy place for a fire and why didn't you get more wood and other similar interrogations cal- culated to add a note of gaiety to the occasion. By this time the fire is a magnilicent smoke screen and the original expeditionary forces retire to rest their srnarting eyes, as do most of the others. No matter how starving any member of the party was at the outset he is usually sated now. There are always two or three, however, who will not let well enough alone, and soon the Lucullan feast is being prepared. A section of chicken wire is spread across the fire and the steaks are placed upon it. After minor burns are received by those attempting to cook the meat, the coffee is placed on the fire and the party is Well under way. After charred beef between bread has been downed with gulps of luke warm coffee, and the more severe burns and abrasions have been dressed, the guests wander off by twos for -sirl, leaving the debris to be collected by some suffering guest who then scuttles off to Moxie's for something to eat or to the infirmary for necessary repairs. There are hiking groups who rise at the crack of dawn and trek for miles of a Sunday morning. We shall not attempt to describe these affairs for the very excellent reason that under no circumstances would we get up early on Sunday morning to meet the Queen of Rumania, let alone hiking through the glen. Another very popular reason for staying away from one's room is what is laughingly called swimming. It occupies some I7I

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I seventy-five per cent of the waking hours of the last period in the spring. The actual swimming is somewhat hampered the fact that the Little Miami river resembles nothing so m as vegetable soup. It is warm, it is muddy, and an assortment of weeds continually float in it. These swimming parties pass by the name of mayhem, battery and assault in ordinary society. It is the Antioch equivalent to being taken for a ride, albeit it passes for fun. To go swimming one collects all of what one believes to be one's friends, piles them into a car and zooms down to Grin- nell's. After one or at most two persons paying the necessary dimes for the party fit is an unwritten law that the majority completely forget their moneyj, the car is driven down to the dam. Then comes the Hrst fun. This consists of gathering up the blankets, pillows, books, bathrobes, towels, cigarettes, and victrola which accompany every such outing and crossing the slimy narrow dam to the green pastures beyond where most of the action takes place. After everything has been arranged, one goes in the water. This consists of making a lot of noise, then diving deeply and getting covered with mud. After swimming a few hundred feet one immediately loses all in- hibitions and starts to act as he feels toward everyone. Every party contains a fellow who has never been there before, and whose idea of good clean fun is to push someone over the dam, a process which quickly and not too neatly removes the skin from all knees and elbows, the seat from the bathing suit, and in some cases the rocks below the dam give one nice bruises g also a girl who thinks it is too screaming to pour 173 fl?