A Perfectly Cromulent Blog

We've got spirit. Yes. We do.

I've been too lazy/hung over/enfeebled of late to change the radio from the Hair Nation channel, which is dredging up all sorts of long dormant adolescent memories. Because of this, and since I'm fairly certain the statute of limitations has expired for high school tomfoolery, I decided to pull one of my infrequent exhumations of something I wrote years ago somewhere else and present it here as original content. Pretty clever, eh?

So crack open a Bartles & Jaymes, crank up some Giuffria, and let me regale you with...

Speak Softly and Carry a Big Spirit Stick
by Pete "Unindicted Co-Conspirator" Vonder Haar

The mighty A&M Consolidated High School marching band, of which yours truly was a member (weighty brass), had the distinct pleasure of working the concession stands at Texas A&M football games. In this way, we managed to raise money for our trips to Belize, Easter Island, Bali, and Fiji (actually Dallas, Galveston, Corpus Christi, and Disneyland, but whatever). In those days, Consolidated (or "Consol," as the locals called it) didn't have a football stadium of its own, so our team was forced to suffer its weekly humiliations in Kyle Field, home of the aforementioned Fightin' Texas Aggies.

One fine Saturday morning in November, our band crew arrived to find that several items belonging to the Pep Squad had been left from the previous night's epic barn burner with the Navasota Rattlers. The night before was Homecoming, you see, and our intrepid Pep Squadron were apparently so anxious to get on with the requisite groping and binge-drinking that they had left behind that most Holy of Holies, the A&M Consolidated Spirit Stick.

The Spirit Stick - a three foot length of capped PVC pipe with maroon and white stripes and no connection to Native American or Babylonian mythology that I'm aware of - was given out at each Friday's pep rally to that individual who most demonstrated their "school spirit" for the week. I'm uncertain how effective this was in distracting area teens from the fact that other towns offered more than three movie theaters and one convenience store that sold beer to minors, but getting the Stick was apparently a big deal.

As you can imagine, I won many times.

Given the Stick's importance to the school and, indeed, to to the community as a whole, our duty was clear as we stood blearily upon the bleachers that crisp autumn morning: we stole the fucker. Four of us (I was not the ringleader, but I won't name the others in the interest of not getting my ass kicked) kept it in hiding throughout the game, then adjourned to construct the ransom note in traditional Never Mind the Bollocks/cutout magazine letter style.

Sunday night, we left the note, a replica of the Stick made from a toilet paper tube, and a Polaroid of the Stick sitting on a stack of bark chips with a lit Zippo next to it on the Student Council president's car. The note demanded, among other things, that the Principal step down, that the note be read over the morning intercom announcements, and 'no cops' be involved. Otherwise, it continued, the Stick would go up like a Protestant during the reign of Mary Tudor.[1]

Coincidentally, I regularly got a ride to school with the Student Council president. I was gratified to find that she thought the whole scenario hilarious, though she had no clue as to my involvement (I was never one of the more overt offenders, after all, and was usually more than content to goad other people into acts of public stupidity). In fact, she questioned me all the way to school to see who *I* thought could have pulled such a stunt.

Unfortunately, the rest of the student body were not so tickled.

Let's just say none of the demands were met. Interrogations were meted out among the Pep Squad, the band, the cheerleaders, the football team...hell, the members of the Homecoming Court were given the third degree as well, which seemed unfair to me since they were probably already agonizing over having to take those home pregnancy tests.

Not wishing for our reputations as fearsome kidnappers to be sullied, we four spent the following Thursday evening drinking Budweiser, shattering the Stick into dozens of shards (each keeping one as a memento, naturally), and placing the remains in a gift-wrapped box on the gym floor for the cheerleaders to find the next morning before the weekly pep rally. Which they did.

There was much outrage, of the kind which only high school cheerleaders and faculty are capable. PVC pipe is cheap, however, and a replacement was fashioned soon enough (this one eventually locked to the Pep Squad leader's wrist like the President's nuclear football). We were found out, thanks to (I assume) someone boasting to impress one of the Flag Corps, but little came of it. By then, Prom was right around the corner, and the usual suspects were too busy trying to make the local convention center resemble an enchanted Hawaiian paradise.

But I can always hold my head up high and say I did my part to tarnish the already grimy reputation of band geeks everywhere.

[1] You can learn more about the Lewes 17 at your local library.