Time to dig up another old story

I'm kinda psyched.

In about a week, Ruth and I ( along with the kids, of course! ) will be taking a trip to our Alma Mater, Cornell University. It's been a while since I've been back, and I kinda miss the place.

Well, actually, it hasn't been *that* long. We did visit Cornell back in June of 2004 for Ruth's 10-year reunion. However, while it was a fun trip ( It was probably the first road trip we took Michael on ), we didn't get much of the college experience. Classes were no longer in session at that point and most of the dining halls were closed when we were there. This meant that we didn't get to relive the experience of eating dining hall food ( Unlike most universities, eating the dining hall food at Cornell was a good experience. Cornell was consistently rated as having some of the best dining hall food in the USA. I think this is mostly due to the fact that Cornell has a top-ranked school of hotel administration ( Managing dining facilities for a hotel is a big part of hotel administration, and I believe there is some connection between the Hotel School and Cornell Dining ) as well as a School of Agriculture, which I believe supplies some of the fresh ingredients used in the dining halls ( For example, there was one dining hall that served ice cream made from milk from on-campus dairy farms ). ), and we didn't get to peek in on classes in session. We also spent a lot of time going to pre-planned reunion events. The events were nice enough, but they didn't really bring back memories ( good or bad ) of our time at Cornell. Plus, the food at these reunion events was consistently awful. We spent quite a bit a money to be official participants at reunion weekend, so needless to say, we were a little disappointed. I'm not saying we weren't glad we went, but we left wishing we could have experienced more.

Well, we'll finally get our chance to do more in about a week. We'll be at Cornell while classes are in session. I think Michael is going to be excited to see all the big lecture halls ( I'd love to sneak him into a Math, Physics, Astronomy, or Chemistry class, but I have a feeling somebody would notice that a really old guy and a really young guy were in the lecture hall. ). We are definitely going to eat most ( if not all ) of our meals at the campus dining halls. We'll only be at our hotel for two nights, but that should give us plenty of time to tour the campus because our hotel is right in the middle of the campus. I'm kinda excited that we'll be staying at The Statler Hotel. The hotel ( and the Cornell School of Hotel Administration ) is one of the things that make Cornell unique. It was pretty common for science and engineering majors like myself to make fun of "Hotelies" back in our Cornell days ( After all, while we Engineers were toting around Math and Physics textbooks, we would see Hotel students toting around books with titles like "Meat" and "Poultry" on the front cover. ), but Cornell's Hotel school is ranked #4 in the world and #1 in the USA. Cornell does have a very strong Engineering School, but it's certainly not ranked as high as #4 in the world, so in a way, I guess the Hotel students went to a more prestigious school than me. In any case, if you've ever been to a nice hotel in the USA, I bet there's a pretty good chance that the manager of that hotel was a Cornell grad ( and carried around a book with "MEAT" written in 3 inch letters on the cover. I swear, this textbook didn't say something like "Introduction to the Culinary Arts" or "Introduction to Restaurants Management" or even "The Science of Meat". It just said "MEAT". This still cracks me up more than 20 years later. I know the person who I saw carrying that book is probably managing a big Hilton hotel today and is making huge buckets of money, but I still can't help making fun of this. ).

So, it will be good to go back again - for real. I guess the last time Ruth and I went back and actually visited a bunch of our old haunts was October of 1994. That was Homecoming weekend - the first homecoming after Ruth graduated. It was also notable in a way that could lead to an amusing story. It was notable because Homecoming 1994 was the last time in my life I actually got drunk.

Now, I'm not trying to claim that I've never touched alcohol since then, but if somebody forced me to give them a yes or no answer to the question "Do you drink?", I think I'd have to answer "No". I think that for all practical purposes, "No" would be the most accurate answer. Why do I believe that? Well, let me put it this way: In my adult life, I've been to about 30 different weddings that have an open ( free ) bar, and I've ordered about 3 alcoholic drinks combined from all those 30 open bars ( All 3 of which were a single glass of white wine, because I was curious about how the wine tasted. ). If I can turn down free alcohol in a world were lots of people seem to view open bars as a license to get smashed, I think I'm allowed to say "I don't drink.".

However, back in 1994. I still didn't mind having a few beers with the guys. Well, I wasn't the type of guy who would go out with the guys often, but every few months I would get together with my college buddies after work, and we would have a few beers - not too many beers ( I was still living at home, after all ), but I certainly didn't shy away from alcohol back then.

So, all that being said, it wasn't that surprising that my college buddies and I ( a whole bunch of us decided to attend Homecoming Weekend together that year ) found ourselves in a local Cornell bar one night that weekend. Ruth was either with her friends or with her cousin ( who was a grad student at Cornell at the time ), but I don't think she ( or any of my buddy's girlfriends ) were in the bar that night. I think my buddies and I wanted to reserve that night for male-bonding. Male-bonding is an underrated thing, and for better or worse, a lot of guys can't do the whole male-bonding thing without alcohol.

So yeah, there was quite a bit of bonding going on that night. So much so that we got a little bit silly. Well, I guess I can't speak for everyone, but I got a little bit silly. The bar was only a few blocks from the apartment where a bunch of us lived our last two years at Cornell . After we left the bar, I got this crazy idea that we should all visit our old apartment right then and there. Never mind that it was past midnight and that other people were certainly living in "our" apartment by then. I thought we needed to visit our old apartment, and all the other guys agreed.

Plus, I needed to pee.

I needed to pee really bad.

I needed to pee, and for some reason I thought the best place to pee would be my old apartment.

So, we all stumbled over to our old apartment building, and I got on the intercom with the current residents of our old place. It turned out that there were women living in the apartment ( The apartments had usually held about 6 people ( almost always college students ) with a bunch of bedrooms and a common bathroom, kitchen and living room. ), and I somehow convinced these women to let us come upstairs.

I didn't really give it a lot of thought at the time, but looking back I've got to say ....

What the hell were these women thinking?

Now, I'm not a college girl, I've never been a college girl, and I'll never be a college girl. However, if I was college girl, and some random drunk dude buzzed our intercom and asked if he and his friends could come up to our apartment, I would tell that guy to go to hell.

I mean, wouldn't any sensible college girl tell the guy to go to hell? Why on earth would you want to let some random drunk guys come up to your apartment after midnight?

I dunno - it just boggles my mind.

OK, putting aside the fact that these girls shouldn't have even considered letting us into their apartment, they did let us in, and we got to see the old place. Let me make it clear that we were completely harmless. As far as I knew, none of us had any ulterior motives - well except for me - I still needed to pee. I fact, I don't think I was in the old apartment for more than 5 seconds when asked if I could use the bathroom. In retrospect, this was an extremely RUDE thing for me to be asking. These people had just let my drunk ass into their apartment, and now I'm asking them if I could use their bathroom? I'm a bit embarrassed when I think about it now, but in my defense, I did ask nicely. I believe I told them that using their bathroom would be a "nostalgic journey" for me. Yes, "nostalgic journey". Well, I guess they didn't want to deny me my nostalgia ( Either that, or they decided to just let the crazy drunk dude do whatever he wanted, as long as that meant he would be leaving soon ), because they did let me use their bathroom.

After my little bathroom excursion, we all headed out of the apartment ( but not before I profusely thanked the girls for letting my take my "nostalgic journey" ). That was pretty much the end of the "excitement" for the night.

After that, we all called it a night and headed to wherever each of us was going to spend the night ( Note: We were all staying someplace within walking distance. No cars were involved, so we were all safe in that regard. ). I was staying with Ruth in her cousin's apartment. We had a futon to sleep on, but I didn't really sleep well that night. By the time I got back to the apartment, my body was rebelling against all the poison I had put in it. I felt rather nauseous, and spent the next 2 hours just sitting awake trying to fight the feeling of nausea. The last thing I wanted to do was make a mess of any sort in Ruth's cousin's apartment. Unfortunately, it was only a matter if time before I was holding my head over a toilet bowl. I didn't wind up making a mess ( by the time I gave in to my nausea , I had sobered up quite a bit, and I actually scrubbed the inside of the toilet bowl so it looked as good as new after my little mishap ), but I was rather embarrassed by the whole experience. It was at that moment that I decided that I never wanted to get drunk again. Sure, it was sometimes fun to drink with your buddies, but I decided that it wasn't enough fun to make the potential aftermath worth it. To be honest, I was kinda bored with drinking by then. Drinking was certainly a novelty the first few times I tried it in college, but by the time I got to the age of 24, the novelty had worn off.

So anyway, I don't have much to say other than that. It's 1:31 AM, and I really should get to bed. I'll just close by saying GO BIG RED! Cornell won its first ever NCAA basketball tournament game on Friday, and later today ( Sunday ) they'll be playing in the 2nd round of the tournament. I'm not expecting them to go far in the tournament, but it will be fun to watch while it lasts.

Rich

Edit: March 21st: Cornell 87, Wisconsin 69

WooooHooooo!!!!!

Cornell becomes the first Ivy League team since 1979 to advance to the the Sweet 16!