Senior Week 2000

Apropos of a discussion that took place during Reunion 2010 (more on that later), here are our best fuzzy recollections of what took place during our Senior Week, 2000. In no particular order:

1. Party at College Park w/bands.

Rob and Cope had their two man team intra-house keg drinking competition underway. They brought their own kegs on red wagons. Tony and Joey have a great picture from this day, and there is video evidence of real bad Pearl Jam covers and serious drunken balcony conversations which ensued.

2. Toga Party at Washington Street.

Did this occur senior week? I don't know, but it makes sense. We did well enough at cups, and brought extra clothes with us so we could go out later.

3. $2 cover night at Heartland.

God knows what happened here.

4. Chicago trip, burgers, and Cubs game.

We all brought booze into the stadium, Kev drank his really fast. The Dodgers came into the stands and started fighting with the Cubs fans. Didn't Billick hook up with Kev's blonde prudish friend with name Lauren? Maria and the Trio came with us. Joey got food poisoning from some undercooked Wrigleyville burgers. Bo drove the van, and very drunk Tony on the way home kept making fun of Maria. She got mad at and told him to pass out. Tony did no such thing.

5. Senior Formal @ Century Center.

Drunk. Andy, Tony's brother, and the rest of the Trio went with us. We pre-partied at the Donkey.

6. Guys take pictures around campus (w/First down Moses, etc.)

Again, based largely on photographic evidence. I don't know that there was a sober moment in all of Senior Week.

7. At least one Drunken Donkey party.

Its also probably safe to assume that during at least one of these "parties" we played A-hole and/or I Never at the bar, watched some of The Rock and the Matrix and probably there was at least one fight of the following variety: Mere vs Nikki, Maria vs Tony, Kevin vs ?? There were fire burgers. There was also a condom stuck to the side of the house. Bo's Dad noticed it, but the mothers didn't.

8. Senior Party @ Covaleski Stadium.

We went to a minor league ball game on Tuesday night. Chihuahua races at the Silverhawks game, standing in the beer garden on the first base side. I don't remember much detail, probably with good reason. Later on that week, say Saturday night, we were at a big party on the field. There were tents and a band.

9. Random Washington Street Party

We seem to remember another afternoon party somewhere vicinity of Washington Street. At this glorious event, we got a ride home with Rob and Cope. Everyone was drunk. They chose drivers based on who lost a beer chugging contest. Safe huh?

10. The Trio Bears

Gifted by the legendary trio, who stayed on our couches for some of the week. They did a good job cleaning too, I recall the top of the fridge being caked with a BLACK SLUDGE. God bless them. They probably remember more from our Senior Week than theirs.

11. Graduation Day.

Champagne in the parking lot, and lots and lots of memories left behind the threshold of the JACC.

Can we do this again? I really want a senior week!

(Quoting Kevin):

I seriously barely recall a damn thing from the entire week... other than the dodgers fighting the fans. That was funny shit. I actually think I stayed pretty low key for most of the week. Again, could be completely false and my unconscious attempt at painting a rosy picture of the entire event. I am sure I got roped into some of Amy's shit that week too.

(Quoting Spider--WARNING: Stream of consciousness commencing):

There is a great videotape somewhere that really needs to get transfered to DVD. It has a shirtless marine waving a weather wildly screaming, "YEEEAAAAHHHH!!!!" over and over for 10 minutes. This guy supposedly was such a badass that he got jumped while walking from Backer to St. Pete's by three black guys and fought them off. I remember he said he beat one up, the took another one of em down and bashed their head repeatedly on the sidewalk. The third guy saw this and ran away.

This is a huge digression from Senior Week story, but it's interesting and has celebrities, so it's worth writing about. I went to see a preview screening a month ago of David Mamet's new movie, Red Belt, which was a pretty good fight movie. He was there, and did an interview with this dude, and then had a Q and A session. I remember when James Earl Jones came to speak at Notre Dame. There was a Q and A session and told a story. A guy's in a bar just minding his business, and this asshole comes up and picks a fight with him. The asshole doesn't realize what he's in for dude is tough. The asshole who picks the fight has a friend, who comes at the tough dude next, only to hit the ground right next to his friend. A bouncer approaches, but he doesn't far any better. A second bouncer runs into the room, stops suddenly when he sees the bodies on the floor, holds up his hands and says to the tough guy, "Sir, would you consider leaving?"

The guys across the street had a 2 day keg race. The videotape has some of it. There were three kegs, and three teams. Butternuts and Rob Roy, another team of three guys I sorta remember, and a third team that consisted of four members I don't remember at all. They were evenly matched. They would drink, sleep for four hours, and then Butters (what was his name again?) woke Rob up again demanding that he drink. When it got down to end of the keg race, everybody started doing keg stands, over and over. Butters would drink for 60 seconds, and ROb Roy would hold his legs up. Then they would switch, and Butternuts would hold Rob up, but he could only drink for 40 seconds. Butternuts would bitch at him about that. Other people would periodically jump in (the donkey), but these continual keg stand rotations went on for an hour. At one point the cops rolled up, did a woop woop. So Rob ran down to them, and said something to the effect of "Hey Officer, we're just drinking here. I'm sorry, I'm really sorry. Hey guys turn that music down!" The cop was impressed at the spectacle. Marine still pumping his feather, shirtless, on the lawn that had seen a thousand thunder dome pukes. While Rob was talking to the cop, Cope, that was his name, right? Cope started screaming at him. "You pussy! Get over here and drink! PUSSY!" So Rob starts walking away from the cop with a shrug of the shoulders, saying sorry to the cops, he had to go and drink. The cop said he understood.

There's also a lot of Bo wandering around drunk, I think he almost falls down the stairs while drunkenly mumbling something mildly racist. A lot of Joey laughing annoyingly, Heh heh heh, as a constantly mangled voiceover. I'm sure I did some ridiculously stupid things that I thought were somehow funny, but don't recall, having killed that part of my brain.

I remember some of that Chicago trip. I remember how I felt so nostalgic about the present, even though I was spending it with people I didn't really know. I remember the gambling thing we had going at the game. Everyone put in a dollar. At the end of every inning, the players run off the field after getting the third out. Whoever caught the ball for the third out would throw the ball towards the pitchers mound. Sometimes the ball would land in the grass, sometimes, it would land in the dirt of the mound. If it was your turn to bet, you would say mound, or grass. If you were right you would get everyones money, wrong and you paid them. It was really arbitrary, and it could get really expensive for college kids. We had twenty people there.

The minor league game was the Silverhawks. Dollar Day. Dollar dogs, dollar beers. What a fucking golden age of beer drinking we lived in. $1 Rum and Cokes at Heartland, no ice, no tip. Classy.

Too many circles of people at bars, swaying to a bad song. With people who's names I couldn't remember at the time, much less eight years later. Piano Man, Oh what a Night!

I remember distinctly running around Heartland with four rum and cokes in my hands, and dancing with Cerise to Alice Deejay, and she was mouthing the words, "Do you think you're better off alone?" And meaning it, a little too...dramatically?

How the hell did you guys forget Club? I don't know if we got any of those slushy drinks...we definitely did some carbombs. I remember playing lots of pool. I was worried that Bo and I would lose our last game of pool. I needn't have worried. We did Senior Bar too, wings and rum and cokes? Or did we? After Joey's... incident. Oh wait, I remember them playing "Around the World," by Daft Punk, and thinking what a long song it was.

The only thing I remember about the Senior Formal was trying to find a way to sneak in booze, and feeling like I had been drunk for a year.

There were multiple family events in the days leading up to graduation, but they all just seemed like ways to kill time before the big sendoff. There was a tent, I believe at Covaleski, and I think my family was there, and I was getting drunk, and everybody kept on running into me and hugging to say goodbye. I think Joey's family was there too, and my parents briefly met them. My old man still refers to them as "the huggy people."

Didn't we play cups in the parking lot? I don't remember much about graduation. I remember seeing Cerise's friend Andrea, who was completely wasted at the ceremony. Walking around in the drab hallways was surreal, everyone with their robes on, standing around, marveling at the moment, wondering why it was taking so long.

That's about all I remember. Was there a pigtostal in there, or was that earlier?

/END STREAM OF CONSCIOUSNESS