University of Oregon - Oregana Yearbook (Eugene, OR)

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THE FRESHMAN COKE DATE: AS American as apple pie COPY BY BILL LOVELL An old friend of mine, Bill Shakespeare, once wrote, in the course of one of his amusing little plays, A Midsummer Night's Dream to be exact, that: The lunatic, the lover and the poet Are of imagination all compact. lV,i,7-8l Having at various times in my young career considered myself to be all three, I now shall attempt to analyze, naturally in a warm, witty, and urbane manner, that vast feudal hangover known as freshman dating. l'You wonder how these things begin . . . well, this begins with a glen. It begins with a season, which for want of a better word we might as well call September. So begins a speech from The Fantasticks, c: little gem which has made c: fortune for Tom Jones and Harvey Schmidt. Sub- stitute che S.U. fishbowl for Ho glen in El Gollo's speech and the drawbridge creeks open. For at the University, the fishbowl is where it all begins, with a high ritual known as the coke date. 26

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The coke date is as American as ulcers and apple pie. It is the standard opening, king's pawn to king four. And, like most rituals, it once had a purpose. The purpose was to get one's date pie-eyed drunk. I can already hear the chuckles that line will bring. Chuckle, chuckle . . . this from case hardened fraternity men for whom the suggestion that one's date could become drunk on coke will only serve to deepen their impression that all writers are dangerous utopians who cannot be trusted with reality. But I swear on a stack of Ripleys that what I say is true. Back in the dark mists of time, in the Eugene of our parents' day, things were a little different than they are today. In the late thirties and early forties, when Marty Frat-man took Molly Freshman out for a coke date, he aimed his Chevvie not for any antiseptic atmosphere like that of today's fishbowl but for one of several roadhouses not far out of town. He would, upon arrival, order his date a ucoke with a knowing wink to the proprietor, who would invariably misinterpret his guest's honest inten- tions, and bring back a drink containing more than the standard syrup and carbonated water. But enough of the golden age. In today's fishbowl one can't even get his elixer in a real glass, but instead has to settle for a paper cup, while the Mothers' Club beams its approval. But that's progress. And progress is still what's on the coke-dating male's mind, and this fact rather dampens the enthusiasm of the above-mentioned Mothers' ClUb-an organization made up in large part, by the way, of women who, a generation ago, sat in the roadhouses sipping cakes with their evil-intentioned dates, many of whom are now their husbands. For the coke date still serves one of its original functions. It is a preliminary for greater things to come, such as drive-ins, ski weekends, and the granddaddy of them all, to swipe a phrase from Pasadena, the Fraternity house dance. 27.