The fish spurs thread got me thinking.

We were quite into bonfire during my time. We used to have to carry 'fish matches' and this box of matches had to all be the same number of matches with a 3X5 card showing our 'class goals' with a pen attached...I forget why.

I absoultely hated this dumb ass task. I'm think we nixed it down the road, but looking back it made for some interesting times when we'd screw it up and someone would burn them. It forced us to get together every so often and just make them...reminds me of fish spurs. The only part I really remember about them was physically collecting our bottle caps from bottlecap alley and someone hooking us up with a crusher that synched our caps together for construction. Mine blew once but stayed in tact because they were reinforced with electrical tape.

A lot of the stupid things we did as fish worked to bring us closer together as a class.

2011 Aggies = 2002 Aggies

1. High profile individual resigns/is fired who was well known for protecting the head coach (CHECK)

2. Return 18+ starters. (CHECK)

3. Lose a 17 point 2nd half lead at home. (CHECK)

4. Lose an 18 point 2nd half lead. (CHECK)

5. Lose to a mediocre Missouri team at home in Overtime (CHECK)

6. Lose badly on the road after trailing by single digits in the second half, fall apart in the 3rd quarter and score 2 garbage TDs late to make the score look better (CHECK)

7. Score a major upset to try to save the coach's job. (NOPE, NOT HAPPENING)

8. Go 6-6 in a season that you should have gone 10-2 (TBD)

Some of the stuff we did as fish, or heads, is just flat out stupid and has no purpose other than to boof us or entertain the upperclassmen. But a lot of it really does serve a purpose, we just aren't told what it is. And in some cases the upperclassmen probably don't know what the purpose is either, they just do it for tradition sake.

Fish spurs were okay when everyone was in the Corps. Once civilian students were the majority, some things should have been abandoned, or at least examined in the light of how stupid they make cadets look to non-regs.

Messing with someone on the Quad, chow, rooms, etc. that's fine. Making a fish hate his life for no training benefit, especially in front of others....not so much.

As I remember it about "fish matches"....

Back in the day (early-to-mid '70s) the fish carried matches simply for the convenience of the whitebelts... it may have been zips only... who needed a match to be able to light up a smoke. Cigarette smoking was a lot more prevalent then, and most buildings on campus allowed smoking. You had to carry your class number of fish matches, and remember to replace any that had been used with fresh ones.

Lord help you if a zip wanted to light up, asked you for your matches, and you didn't have them.

Some of the stuff we did in 1982...

1) We hauled off the CO (to the Alamo) b/f Bonfire and grab his gear to exchange for privileges. This got you on the "list". One of the things we had to do was to carry our "fish buddy" with us everywhere. This was a live goldfish in a mason jar. I recall SQ 11 hauled their CO off to an island in Lake Conroe. The CO, Chris Sornsen (sp?) beat them back to the Quad. He was a Ranger (last time I saw him, he was a full COL in SF). Oh, the misery for those SQ11 fish. They had not gotten his stuff and had no leverage.

2) Papering a room – collect Battalions for weeks. Gain access to a Pisshead’s room. Flip the furniture and begin to fill room with crumpled pages from the Bat until full to the ceiling. Well worth the crap-out!

3) Mud football in the field where the Corps Center now stands. Always fun after a good rain in the spring.

4) Outfit runs (with boots) to the girls dorms. Always hoped for a date, but it never panned out…

5) Forking Head’s shoes under the table at Duncan. If we were screwing up, we ate under the table. Too tempting not to take a fork to the Head’s shoes.

Decorating the dorm at Christmas. Usually involved "acquiring" a cypress tree from somewhere. I remember some dumba$$ fish cutting one down out of the Presidents front yard. Thankfully not my outfit.

The gift list were always good. It gave the fish a way to use their imagination to get back at their upperclassmen.

Well, let's see.....
* fish matches, as mentioned before
* taking upperclassmen to the quad, as well as a myriad of late night activities against upperclassmen
* Unique to our outfit, when someone asked us what time is it, we had to reply, "it's dickie dunkin' time, siiiiir....when the weather's hot and sticky, that's no time to dunk your dickie. When the frost is on the pumpkin, that's the time for dickie dunkin', siiiir".
* Some may argue that peeing in the sink is stupid, but then, some may say it's pure genius.....

this doesn't go under things I had to do, but under stupid things done my fish year. I can remember it was dead week, 1st semester. I was next door in my buddies room, actually trying to talk a guy out of quitting at the break. Other guy in the room didn't think lighter fluid would burn in water. So I dared him to try it. So he filled his sink up and then emptied a lighter fluid bottle and then boom set it on fire. I'm busting out laughing and the guy doesn't know what to do, next thing we know a pisshead kicks in the door yelling out wtf is on fire. Then he hits the sink plunger. Said if the fire alarm goes off we're spending the night on the golf course.

Almost as good as a fellow female FTAB fish telling the biggest badass zip bugle rank dude that her reed was dead. And kept repeating over and over. Holy *****that wasn't pleasant for us.




[This message has been edited by BQ_90 (edited 11/7/2011 7:02p).]

Boozer...I remember hearing that ditty. Also, how about when asking an air crapper upperclassmen for permission to the leave the mess hall and he said to 'take off'...we replyed that we were in the army and that we back off, jack off, and bust azz outta here. When some woud say alright jack off, we never heard it because we were running out of there too fast...with 'senior priviledges'.

Who remembers water fights in the spring against the non-regs in dorms 10 and 12...or bottle rocket wars against other dorms during finals? Shooting a bottle rocket through a curtain rod can be relatively accurate.

Aggie Inf. got me to thinking about hauling off upperclassmen. We took of 1st Sgt to Louisiana and dropped him off deep in the bayou, butt-naked with only a mattress cover and a dime. Two cars worth of fish out for fun and bonding ran out of gas once and stumbled back to the quad as units were falling out for morning formation the next day. Our 1st Sgt met us at the top of the third stoop in full uniform hoping we woud come back. Seems there was a junior in our outfit that had a plane out at Easterwood.

Then there was shaving barber poles on upperclassmen legs, heel & sole the scrotum for problem upperclassmen, babo bombs...

Running hot corner and dumping up all the food on the table so we could send back the platter for more food before the mess hall ran out of a particular item.

Last but not least...how bout trying to find that 'white rat' on Fish Day when the fish became 'heads and the 'heads became fish for a day?

and bonfire...a whole other set of things we probably should never have thought about doing

I'm not going there!

quote:

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the biggest badass zip bugle rank dude

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Let me guess, J Hyatt? maybe G Morgan?