Some other memories:

- The night I got my pot
- The night I passed my pot
- The day I was told we would have a perimiter pole
-The early morning conversation I had with my yellowpot son (after he became a JRP) on LOAD site - when i look over his shoulder and see the guys from Walton walking from the parkinglot to load with the parkinglot pot chasing and yelling at them he had not sent anyone into the woods yet - my grandson turning to look at him and tell him "To F off, we are not going into the woods, we are going to LOAD!"
-Yellowpot log - from burying redpot log at site to putting ours up on stack.
-Last log at the last load by headlight
- and of course - CRAZY GEORGE from OCA

once again.. ttt!

Care to hear a few Bonfire memories from an old woman? I saw my first Bonfire when I was five years old, perched on my daddy's shoulders. I was terrified and excited at the same time. We lived in College View, C-5-D. The following year, as a first grader at A&M Consolidated Elementary School, we watched the building process from the cafeteria windows. Over the Thanskgiving holidays, we rode bikes up to the fallen stack, still smoldering, and roasted marshmallows. As a senior in high school, my girlfriend and I baked cookies and muffins and took them to the guards at the saw horses around the stacking area. In 1967, as a freshman female at A&M, I wasn't allowed to work on the Bonfire. However, they needed volunteers to man the snack trailers that were parked alongside the stack. I sold hundreds of cups of coffee, dozens of doughnuts, and cases of Swisher Sweets. I was a bit shocked at the helmets and how they were "decorated". I tried not to look at them but at the same time, didn't want to miss a thing! I can still feel the crispness of the cold air and the flash of heat that all but melted my Maybelline encrusted eyelashes as the Bonfire was lit. Standing there and watching it burn, wrapped in the strong arms of my Aggie sweetie will always be one of the most memorable (and comforting) experiences of my life. Do I miss it? You betcha!

3 Man running ram crew.... thats all i have to say... thank you that guy. its why no one should ever listen to you.

I think I yelled alot that night at the three man ram crew. Thanks Kendale!

What is popular is not always right
What is right is not always popular

Bonfire 1980. Tuesday night, since the game was in Austin. Very cold. After Bonfire Yell, friends and I headed over to the Chicken. Went back over to the Bonfire after midnight, with a sweet young thing named Karen. It started snowing. Kissing at Bonfire, with the embers still burning bright and snowflakes falling all around- that was one of my favorite memories from Aggieland.

Bump

Crazy George voice:

one, two halfway up
three, four ON THE TRUCK!

turbo stack fish year... what a long/great night

Pisshead wrap my sophomore year was a great night, the fight we got in with Sqd. 13 notwithstanding.

That fateful night BooBoo and I were saved by Sneaky Pete at northgate. Was supposed to go to stack and instead got stupid drunk showed up and they told my dumba#$ to go home. It pisses me off when people try to blame alcohol as a factor and I know for a fact that if you showed up stupid they would send you home


WaltonLoads

Bump to possibly liven up the board

I will never forget the adrenaline I felt when the Red Pots gave the command to throw the torches.

Bonfire 98: " Im proud to go to a school where the men love women and the women love men".

Former Aggie TE Dan Campbell

I think I've forgotten more about Bonfire than most students today know.

I was once told, by someone in Aggie Administration, whose opinion i trusted very much... he was class of '90. That if we wanted to see bonfire burn on campus again we simply need to do this.


...roll up to Simpson Drill the night we want to burn, block off the whole of the area with our vehicles and pile up a huge wood/ trash fire, in the tradition of the original bonfires...

If enough old ag's, and donors are in that group the university isn't going to go to war with their financial backers....

...I agree with him.

Swan, interesting...

I had the same idea in '02, but nobody serious enough to go through with it...

Not sure how you guys feel about this (I have not felt good about it in the past) but the Red Pots are going around to Aggie Networking groups all over the state to raise money for student bonfire. I have in the past been against the student bonfire, but upon meeting them I realized that it is back in full force, just off campus. There are alot of details that I won't go into about the new stack design and safety measures, but they have been put in place and you can see them here. http://www.studentbonfire.com/

Apparently they had over 7,000 Aggies in attendance last year, a 45 foot wedding cake design and all of the old traditions have been restored. Red Pots, Brown Pots, Yellow Pots, Crew Chiefs, Butt Pots everything just as it was, only safe. I think this year I will go, maybe even cut.

How do you guys feel about it?

student bonfire! whoop!

quote:

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Red Pots, Brown Pots, Yellow Pots, Crew Chiefs, Butt Pots everything just as it was, only safe. I think this year I will go, maybe even cut.

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The best part about all that to me was that they (2 or 3 generations before me) went around to their lines from '99 & earlier and asked permission to restart - and after they got approval from Aggie Bonfire did Student Bonfire really get going.

Corbin, you rawk for this post. You took me [and everyone else here] back a ways.

Hard to believe it will be #10 this year, and can still see Chris out at Stack the way he was the last time I saw him in '98, when I was in town and delivered tacos to Stack post-Chicken, and he was hanging out watching it come together the way he would be in '99 for the final time.

I'm late to the dance on this site, but obviously started rooting around in the Bonfire forums... I'm still a junkie and miss Ol' Army. I miss Bonfire weather each year. The temperature is the same, but the smell in the air ain't.

And Tom... I saw you in here, too, my friend... I miss all you guys and the days of yore in the Hog woods and Bonfire Logic.

Love you guys,
Jenne "John Deere" Hamlin Barbour '96

I really enjoyed taking my son to bonfire. He and I both dressed in overalls and wearing aggie hats. I would put him on my shoulders so he could see better. And just hearing him whooping it up; I will never forget it!

Also, my wife would go collect ashes a few days after it fell. We would fill clear plastic ornaments with the ashes and give them as Christmas gifts. Everybody loved them.

________________________________________________________

"Are you going to do something or just stand there and bleed."

my best bonfire memories are new and with my son '12.












[This message has been edited by Desert Ag (edited 7/13/2009 5:41p).]

Bump in honor of Corbin and a bunch of other old Hogs making it out to the woods this weekend to forge new memories.

I'm not sure that I've posted on this thread, and I'm not sure this is the right place to say it but many of my memories are fading after just 10 years. This really bothers me, but threads like this here, and forums like TA, allow me to remember the details. After reading parts of this and other threads on the Bonfire section I always have tears in my eyes.

on-campus or off campus, as long as bonfire is built by aggies, it is aggie bonfire. I'm part of hart hellraisers crew and my shoulders hurt like hell from the double cut we had this past weekend, but i wouldn't give up what we have for anything. Bonfire, in my opinion, is second most important tradition beside silver taps/muster. It's important and it builds the aggie spirit. It's been said before and damn if it ain't true. "aggies don't build bonfire, bonfire builds aggies"

The difference in the size of the logs from the 1969 bonfire and the ones later are striking. In the older bonfires from the sixties, there were very few logs that could be hand carried by a set of guys on their backs in a row.

Most of the logs were cut and hauled about a half mile or so on, well cross sticks. You would have four on each side in the first row and either three each or four depending on the size of the log. A typical haul crew would go from between 20 and 35 depending on the size of the log. None of them were under 5,000 pounds, and in '65 we hauled in one log that was 9,000 pounds all by itself. We had five across on the first stick and four of four with both a lead, and trailing with two side guides and a caller. 47 people and it about wiped us out.

When you loaded logs of that size (you could not get you arms around more than half of the trunk) you would walk the log up beside the truck and set it down. The load crew would then move in, hoist the log up on the sticks and start a very careful sideways shuffle until the ends of the stick overlapped the truck bed by at least five feet. That meant that at least one row of lifters had to disengage and walk out under the log to the other end of the f-stick. Then very carefully they would elevate the sticks in unison, with y-sticts and manpower while the inside lift crew dropped down below the stick holding them with their hands on the bottom of the f-stick.

The the log would roll down onto the bed of the truck. Not as fateguing as walking a half mile with the log, but much more dangerous. Units would stick with what they did because of the experience factor.

The cables that they put around the bonfire after every row was about as thick as your thumb. top and bottom of each stack.

Four stacks of 22 foot long logs gets you to 88 feet, and another group of smaller twenty footers puts you to 108' feet.

It helped to have a minimum of 10,000 at cut & haul. Three cut units to one load unit.

I'm hoping to take my son this year. We'll be in CS on Mnoday for a college tour and I hope to visit the stack. This is a tough day in Aggie history.

ttt

I always like hearing other people's stories.

Ten years gone...my how things have changed. And stayed the same. I have the greatest respect for the current Ags keeping the fire burning. Keep making us proud and BTHOB!

I've been on TexAgs since my freshman year (I'm a senior now), and am just now seeing this thread.

I've read through this entire thread, and I am speechless. It's amazing how much things change, yet still stay the same.

Gig 'Em Aggies, and BTHOB
Dylan Smith '12
Crew Chief '10

This thread is awesome.

quote:

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-Dan's How to Guides including How to: punch a monkey OR start a riot and get your name in the paper

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Holy crap those stories were greatness.

Can't forget "Texan clears the road of a Cow in India"

Love this thread. My wife was cleaning out the closet at our house and found a strange pair of overalls and asked me what they were. Still have the grodes. It has been 14 years since they last saw a cut site and maybe it was just the memories, but I swear I could smell dust and dead live oak trees. It really brought back the memories.

Beer and Women, Our Desire.
Party with the best, Moses Empire.

Definite bump