Tulane University - Jambalaya Yearbook (New Orleans, LA)

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the dorm-ouse When awake, usually between 6 p.m. and 6 a.m., the Dorm-ouse feels safe within his womb, hiding in his room, encased within his tomb. College is to while away four or five or six years learning how to be a slob. Class is that rare ritual of diversionary activity — finding another place to rack out occasionally. Registration is to schedule your classes between one and three in the afternoon, and to see that you never have to walk up a flight of stairs or cross Freret Street. Luckily, Eddie ' s is just on this side of your self-set territorial limits. In any case, you don ' t go outside at all if the temperature is below 60° or if it looks like rain. You just remain inside your room — your pride and joy, your warm mother, your lover, your wife. Your new lady friend lives in. She has ample knobs and she ' s colored. Her name is Zenith. When you ' re bored with Zenith, you go and console your friend General Electric, who really likes to open up. The General is full of the good things in life — like food. Or 500 hits. And last, but not least, is your bed, with whom you share your most intimate moments. She says you talk in your sleep but only use four-letter words. If you can manage to stay in bed all day, you figure you ' ve just about broken even with life. Life is also an all-night bridge game. You do emerge from your cocoon to fly high every Friday and Sunday night. No matter how bad, boring or bloody it might be — come rain, or sleet, or dark of night — you cannot miss seeing a free flick. As everyone knows, the show must go on. At least until you light up. You ' ve been in the same room for five years. Advisors come and advisors go, but you live on. Tacked to your door is a sign stating, I am Who Am. People walk by silently and reverently. . They respect you and occasionally come to you for advice. Especially at registration time. You know the secret love life of every professor on campus. You can get a freshman ' s car registered, a library fine erased. You know when the next bust will be. The Greenie cops call you by your first name, the ladies at Bruff give you an extra helping, and Herbie knows you well enough to grimance as he walks past you. You are a lurker. If you are up during the day, there is nothing better to do than to go over to the U.C. and lurk for five or six hours. Your booth is the second from the jukebox, unless you retire to one of the tables to play bridge. You know Fast Freddie and Manny down in the pool hall; they reserve table five for you. Basically though, you are a child of the night. You love dark corridors, gloomy skies, hard blues. Your favorite book is Dracula. Other people on your corridor don ' t know your real name. They refer to you by silently shaking their heads. You do have a nickname the whole dorm knows though, pointing out your peculiar idiosyncracies. It might not be Birdman or White Rabbit or The Alien , but it is recognizable enough. 10:30 p.m.: Pretzels and beer and It Takes A Thief. PAGE 26 L

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the frat rat Like the other rats, you — the frat rat — have your own distinctive costume, which you believe is a signal flag to members of the opposite sex that you are the type of man who reads ■Playboy — i.e.. a real plastic swinger. From your fashion-collared pocket-stayed Gant shirts to your weejun boots. you are in the height of style. Those of you frats who are rich, but don ' t want to be particularly ostentatious or engage in conspicuous consumption, own only a regular Cutlass instead of a 442. Even so. it is equipped with a vinyl roof, black vinyl interior, a stereo tape deck with a four- speaker system, and bucket seats — with the middle hump covered by a pillow so you and your date can. thus neutralizing one of the most effective means of birth control today. To create your own rhythm, you can also use your variable-speed windshield wiper. Booze and boobs used to be your staple. On big outings, you were always ready with a bottle in the car as soon as your date got in. When fixing a date for one of your brothers, the greatest compliment you can pay a girl is, Like, man, you ' ll really dig her: she can drink me under the table. For you know you have to pour drink after drink down the almost-insatiable Newcomb gullet before you can hope for some ACTION. In the liberated Tulane of today though, grass has assumed all the mystique of a fifth of Scotch or Bourbon. Now when you pick up your date, you often just ask. ■ ' Hey. baby, ya ' wanna turn on? ' In one way or another though, you are still looking for your Southern Comfort. You sucker pledges into joining the fraternity because they pay the dues. They are greeted by the Face — the rush chairman with the $100,000 smile. Funny how all you big brothers, who promised the freshmen to get them dates and to tutor them, now either ignore them completely once they are pledged. or go to them on a Friday before a football game with a Hey, Sam, I PAGE 28 bet you know a lot of freshman girls in your classes. Your brothers are your real pals until they get the paddle into their hand, with a sadistic gleam to their eye — then watch out! When drunk though, you form your collective womb, and hold hands, and sing. and stomp through the beer sludge while your dates look on. Cute, isn ' t it? Your greatest possible pleasure is a football weekend. If you want to be true to your name as a frat rat. you must already be bombed at the pre-game cocktail party. The purpose of the football game itself is to get your date excited, to yell obscenities and to thereby parch your throat. And after the game there is the glorious dance, more appropriately called the ball. You have Playboy nudes on all four walls and your bible is the Frosh which comes out every year just in time for you to call up prospects to inquire. Say, do you look as neat as your picture? And would you like a date with a real live Frat Rat?