I haven’t suddenly developed the ability to talk about current events. Instead, it is a stranger continued flashback to RPI. As the image indicates, all E-Dorm flashbacks are stranger.
I
went to a technical school in the Nineties, which meant while we did have a
single “how to be a conscientious objector” meeting held in the Union when the
Gulf War started, the majority of demonstrations on campus were focused on
“Support the Troops” rather than protests.
The
demonstration I was accidentally involved in, much like most of my life, had nothing to do
with reality.
It
was spearheaded by George and Bill, the two “loud” guys I mentioned previously,
in what started as an introductory paragraph before I got all soggy with
nostalgia and exploded yet again.
Grand Marshal Week was approaching and the campus was covered with student election posters and flyers. (Note- This is the schedule from a different year...I can't save everything.)
“GM Week” as it was (and still is) known, was when all student government
elections were held. The Grand Marshal
was the highest office, with the second being the “President of the
Union.” (Yes…The P.U. Engineering comedy at its finest.) The week evolved into a series of
celebrations, Quad parties, Battles of the Bands, concerts and shows in the
Union. We were told in days past
students would enter class with a beer in each hand that week and pass one to
the professor.
Like
almost everything else we encountered in the late Eighties and early Nineties, the
previous generation over did it in the mind altering substance arena and
ruined it for us. GM Week, fraternity rushing, and much of campus life was
officially dry. Having a freshman found after
a pledging event in a ditch with a missing shoe and a high blood alcohol content
our first week of college may have intensified this a tad.
Everyone else at RPI was getting riled up about school spirit, and celebrating and decorating for their favorite “Resume padding power hungry” student government hopeful. (I believe Scott started using that phrase regularly, including once on the air when visiting the radio show. Amazingly the show continued, good thing it was the last one.) Per usual, the E-Dorm's school spirit was somewhere below the laundry machines in the basement. Our Dorm Spirit, also per usual, was unparalleled.
One
evening- based on statistics alone: fueled by stupid movies, old TV shows,
pizza, wings and cheap beer- the idea came up to have the E-Dorm’s own write in
candidate for Grand Marshal. The perfect
choice was naturally the head of the household of one of the greatest of those
old television shows, who did have his own political campaign: Gomez Addams!
I
don’t remember the details of how it started. I also don’t recall how it
transferred from one of a trillion dumb ideas that happened in those gatherings
-normally fizzling away on their own in a haze of alcohol, insane class loads,
and short attention spans- into snowballing towards actual activity. Unlike most of the few ideas that reached that stage, such as using the giant stuffed Panda to practice professional wrestling moves years before the WWF/WWE conflict and memes, this one affected people outside the dorm.
George
and Bill grabbed the concept, a huge white bedsheet, some art supplies, and
galloped off with it.
Note:
As I had to explain to a large swath of geeks on campus every time I wore it
(and boy did we have swaths of geeks) it was a bullet hole, not a blood drop,
therefore not a Watchmen shirt.
George
and Bill decided that was a perfect logo for our candidate. Therefore, before I knew it, the image on my
shirt was soon adorning the giant bedsheet as it was spread across two prongs
of the “E” facing directly into the main campus, and clearly visible from the
football field.
Above the face, in huge block letters, it said “Gomez Addams for GM!”
By
the next day, in what set the record in the hundred year history of the school (and I doubt has been surpassed since then) the Judicial Board enacted their fastest injunction
in the ever of everness, ordering us to take it down.
I
should point out two minor (using the term loosely) elements I have skipped.
1) GM
Week also coincided with the rapidly approaching Parents’ Weekend.
2) It was a clear demonstration that engineers' technical knowledge very rarely lines up
with practical understanding of reality or humanity. Along with exhorting
people to cast a vote for a fictional, macabre TV personality, under the injured
smiley they had written, “VOTE FASCIST PARTY!”
The
J-Board meeting was a little later in the week, where they would decide if the
injunction would be permanent. Sadly,
the meeting still took place before Parent’s Weekend.
Students
were allowed to attend J-Board meetings to enter their comments into the record
before voting. Most of the population of
the E-Dorms descended into the Sage Building containing the classroom where
they met.
Aside-
It is entirely possible that it was not the Sage Building, but one of the other
old style architecture buildings in that section of campus. I chose one at
random to allow the narrative to continue without a pointless aside.
Oh,
darn.
The
J-Board made all of us in the dorm group sit on the stairs outside the classroom where
they met, and come in one at a time to make our statements.
The
most likely reason for this is they had all seen Animal House and we did very much look like a group that would
break into humming “The Battle Hymn of the Republic” with little provocation.
Clearly,
there was no way they were going to let the sign go back up.
Clearly,
there was no way all of our individual, “It’s a joke.” “Its satire,” “It’s a
well-known fictional character” statements were going to sway them.
Clearly,
there was no way they were going to admit the most obvious reasons they wanted
the sign down before the parents got there. The clarity of this point came from
three reasons:
1) They
did not mention the word “Fascist” once.
2) They
did not mention the bullet wounded smiley face once.
3) The
official reason they did mention repeatedly was they believed the name “Gomez”
would be seen as racist to Hispanic students, which was a clear and unarguable violation
of RPI policy.
I
bet if we were all in there together and sang the “Addams Family Theme” ...
It still wouldn’t have helped…
But it would have been fun.
Aborted Punch
Line: This story would have a much more
awesome ending if only computers back then were a little bit smarter, or
engineers at any time knew how to spell a little bit better.
Yes, we just missed scoring a moral (or
perhaps immoral) victory.
When the
election results came in, while neither achieved it on their own, the total
number of write in votes for Gomez Addams (2 "d"'s) and Gomez Adams (1 "d") plus a few other spellings were higher than some of the official
Grand Marshal candidates on the ballot.
Because of the software used for voting at the time, this was never reported in
those official results.
3 comments:
Some notes
I was drawn into this in two ways. First, mine was one of the four rooms in which the banner was tied off. Before they asked me, I had no idea what was happening. When George and Bill were asked to remove it, someone (and I forget who) came and found me and said that they (likely Bill) was cursing and yelling at someone on the phone and it would be best if I were the spokesman otherwise he and george will get themselves expelled over this.
This was perhaps a little bit of the "good" anti-semitism. We need a lawyer! we don't have a lawyer. What a about a jew? we have one! AND he's a business major, that's practically the same as law.
The first people I spoke to on the phone were from campus housing. They said take it down and I replied that banners hang from dorms all the time; this is not their purview to remove for content and they'd have to have the J-board get involved. So they did and J-board called.
Then at the hearing I got to speak some. My recall is they said it was offensive... to Italians because of the fascism reference. I said they were the only people associating Italians with fascism. There was no overt reference to Italy on the banner.
We still came in behind other fictional characters, bart simpson and one other.
Thanx for adding in. I forgot it was hanging from you window, but as soon as you mentioned it I remembered everyone worrying about Bill gettin himself expelled.
Wait a minute. When I got called in to make my statement is when I heard the Hispanic thing. Could the J Board have been telling each of us different reasons? I’m shocked! Shocked I say!
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