Term Party

I spent my college career at Michigan State – 5 years (3 undergrad and 2 years of grad school). I was in an off-campus housing unit the entire time. Like other such housing units (fraternities and sororities), we had a number of social activities. One of the major ones was our annual term party held in early June. We held this at a camp in the small town of Wolverine that was owned by a former member of the housing unit. Renting the camp would typically have been way in excess of what we could have afforded, so we had a unique way of paying for it. In the early part of the quarter (MSU had not yet made the conversion to semesters), several of us made the trek north (about 200 miles – a little less than a 3 hour drive) and spent a weekend opening up the camp for the summer season – cleaning the rooms, sweeping all the floors, making all the beds, clearing all the walkways of winter debris, etc. This would have taken the owner and his wife several weeks or he would have had to pay someone, so it was a good trade of our hours of work in return for a weekend rental about two weeks later.

On term party weekend, we carpooled north to Wolverine. Carpooling was necessary because not many in college owned or had access to cars. After the evening meal, we could gather around the campfire or meet in small groups in the main open room. On Saturday many of us went canoeing on the nearby Sturgeon River or hiked on trails around the campground.

Saturday supper was an award ceremony with a number of interesting awards. In 1970, the first time I went with a date – the girl who I had recently begun dating and to whom I would get engaged that fall and married the following summer – I got the MO cup. The MO was marked on the glass cup as standing for “Most Outstanding” and was passed on from the person who had won the award the prior year. But privately, we guys know that it stood for “Make Out” and was given in recognition of that dubious award.

In the evening, the camp owner brought his hay wagon – pulled by horses and loaded with bales of hay fit sitting on. The hill behind the camp – with the darkness of being away from the “civilization” that we were used to in East Lansing – offered a nice view of the stars and was a great view for couples.

On Sunday many of made the trek to the nearby town of Petoskey (about 25-30 miles away) and attended church there. After lunch we regathered in our carpools and made the journey back to East Lansing – giving us enough time for any class assignments which were due the following day.

Our ride back was a pretty interesting one. There were six in the car – 3 guys and 3 girls – as this was a time when cars still came with bench seats. To pass the time we told a “story” which could have as many as 26 lines. The first person said one line which was “I went to the store and I saw a ____” where the blank was an adjective-noun pair each starting with the letter “A”. Everyone else listened. Then the next person repeated that line and added “and _____” where the blank was an adjective-noun pair each starting with the letter “B”. This continued around the six of us with the “story” growing with each repetition. So your mind was consumed with having to remember an increasing number of word pairs as well as having to compose the next alphabetized pair when it was your turn. And with the silly pairs that were being said, the amount of laughter was also growing.

It’s now over 54 years since that event, and I can still remember all 26 of the eventual word pairs. In fact, I can also repeat them in reverse alphabetical order. For those who care, here they are (with a few editorial comments):

·       Adorable aardvark

·       Brown bear

·       Kooky cat – not a “C”, but sounds like it

·       Delinquent dog

·       Enormous elephant

·       Fastidious fish

·       Gouted goat

·       Huge heffalump – from Winnie the Pooh

·       Inquisitive ibex

·       Jumbo jet – the first non-animal, but we were pretty forgiving given the amount of laughter in the car

·       Klean kitchen – not a “K” here, but this will balance out the “C” above

·       Lamentable llama – starting to make pairs with long words to make them harder to remember

·       Morose moose

·       Nefarious nodule

·       Opulent owl

·       Petoskey’s pavement – we had been here earlier that day

·       Queer quirk

·       Redundant racoon

·       Sterile stegosaurus

·       Tintinnabulating tutor

·       Unforgettable umbrella – sounds like a good idea

·       Voluptuous vacuum cleaner

·       Wonderful Wolverine – another town we had been in

·       Exuberant xylophone – hard to come up with “X” words

·       Yellow yak

·       Xenophobic zebra – ah, here’s the missing “X”

 

Ah yes, such wonderful memories of those earlier years – but of course the best part was my date for the weekend – the girl who I’m still married to!