Four-square: the Cornell tradition

I bet that I can guess one game that most of fellow Cornellians remember playing. And so can my friend Ms. Amelia. She wrote the following introduction for me:

"My nomination is of course Drunken Four Square, later modified to be Drunken/Sober Four Square to include friends of all levels of alcohol consumption. It started with frustration at room draw night leading to drinks and goofing around, evolving into a complicated, tradition-rich game that passersby would join. Given that the ladies (most of them fond of turning patriarchy on its head) were in the majority, we named the squares in the following ranks: Queen, Prince, Peasant, Bitch. Queen, of course, was the ultimate goal, that our male friends grudglingly accepted. The game was usually played on school nights."

After realizing the girls of 4th floor would be spread across the campus on room draw night, some found solace in various beverages before taking refuge in an old playground game. And thus was born, drunken/sober four square. For the rest of the semester we played on the back porch of Bowman. Usually a fairly small group of friends, we had fun goofing around, singing, and playing. Always aware of the 13 curved stone stairs down to the sidewalk. Go running after something a little too far, and you were in trouble. By sophomore year, we'd been kicked down to the sidewalk for making a bit too much noise. There were rooms right above the porch where some of the residents were not our biggest fans. Oh, and the security office was just below us. So we move about 30 feet away to the sidewalk just outside the student commons, prime real estate for students at night. Anyone trying to get from about half of the dorms or the commons to the library had to pass by the game. We loved inviting everybody to join, including those people we didn't know. We sometimes had as many as 14 people playing with us. As more regulars joined, the game, it got more complex. We played "be nice to the newbie" and somehow the serving triangle was installed. There always seemed to be a nalgene bottle of some sort of alcohol around. And I have to believe we were the only college kids who owned a playground ball and chalk, and used them on a weekly basis.

We had a few hiccups. Gretchen and I constantly forgot or purposely left our keys in our room. We'd usually play at 9; the dorms locked at 11pm. The theory was that we'd have to be done before 11 because we'd have no way in otherwise. Unfortunately for our RAs, we knew their numbers, and they loved us enough to let us in. Another hiccup was Amelia, Sarah, and my propensity to play in flip-flips which usually ended in us playing barefoot, and whining about our feet hurting the next day.

What are your fave memories from drunken/sober four square? I really think we need to add some more to this!! And if you have any other story ideas please let me know.

Storms, weird weather, and blackouts

I was going to write about a night I ended up playing drunken darts, but with all the crazy stormy weather we've had here this weekend it got me thinking about weird weather and power outages at school.

Not exactly in Tornado Alley, eastern Iowa is by no means immune to stormy weather. Or windy weather, or snow storms. The only thing, ironically, we weren't worried about was flooding. On the top of the hill, if we were flooded, the rest of the area was in big trouble.

And it wasn't just the storms it was what happened during and after them. It wasn't uncommon for internet service to be suspect and spotty after a storm in the region, and the power was known to flicker (but more on that later). I remember one ugly storm in particular from May of my sophomore year. I was supposed to be packing up my room, getting ready to leave. Instead, we were watching the stormtrackers and listening to the tornado sirens go off. We tromped downstairs to see if we were required to head to the creepy and quite possibly haunted stone, above ground basement. We were none too fond of it. We got down to the informal lounge and saw a gaggle of girls hanging out, wandering out onto the porch to watch the sky turn green. And then scrambling back in as the hail came. That reaction is consistently the same. Alarms go off, warnings are issued, and we go run outside to look at the sky. I'm not even sure I know where we were really supposed to go in case of a storm the last 2 years I was there. We all just ended up congregating in the hallway of the lowest level, usually still doing homework.

Senior year, Alice managed to cut her leg pretty decently moving in early. I got a call from Stacy asking me to come over and convince her to go to get stitches (mostly because my mom was a nurse, making me an "expert," partly because it would make it 4-1 majority). We convince her that a trip to the emergency room would be a good idea, so the 5 of us pile into the car and drive the 25 mins to the nearest hospital. Of course it had started to rain on the way there, and by the time we hit the emergency room it was looking awfully dark. They take Alice back and the rest of us get comfortable in the waiting room, only to have the sirens go off for a Severe Thunderstorm warning. They hustle us back to the surgery waiting room where we proceed to annoy the rest of the occupants with our giggles, mostly related to the fact that we all had left our windows wide open at school. After about 45 mins, the warning expires and we realize we need to get out of there before the next wave of warnings keep s there all night long. Thankfully Alice gets released and we book it to the car getting drenched in the process. On the way home, someone made the comment that is seemed an awful lot like a bad horror movie: four girls and one guy crammed into a little car on an empty highway surrounded by cornfields on a dark and stormy night. That got us giggling (albeit a little nervously) again.

And there were the infamous blackouts. Sometimes storm induced, sometimes not. Thankfully the 2, I was privy to were during warm weather. With such a small campus, when one building didn’t have power, none of them did. During the first blackout, each little area ending up with their own little event. The tri-dorm area brought out the bongo drums and dancing. Merner-Olin staged a game of flashlight tag. I have no idea what the freshman dorms were doing. Something entertaining and crazy I’m sure. I ended up on the swing out front watching the flashlight tag. The next time I was supposed to be doing homework, so I had camped out in the hallway reading by emergency lights. Next thing I know, Ryan comes wandering down the hall with beers in hand, commenting with the power out, we’d better drink them. I try to explain that unlike some other things, bottled beer will not go bad if it gets warm. But who am I to argue. About 5 of us end up in Alice’s room drinking with the door open to let the emergency lights provide ambiance.

What fun weather or blackout stories do you remember? Don’t even get me started on the no water issues!! Although it meant interesting food for dinner with no dishwasher ☺

Stories, story ideas, and suggestions always welcome! See the email in the sidebar.

76 Steps and Counting

The best place to advertise something on Cornell’s campus wasn’t necessarily in the Commons or chalking the Ped Mall or painting the sticks. Usually the way to get people talking about something was to post your news or message in the dorm bathrooms. Bonnie, our RA, decorated with magazine cutouts for a while, but the girls of 4th floor got bored quickly. Somehow Lauren and I decided it would be fun to put something cute together. According to our first issue, we got the idea from our dear friend Justin. Granted at that time, all we needed was a suggestion. We were ambitious freshmen then. Everything seemed fun and easy. We were willing to try anything at least once. And so 76 Steps and Counting: Death by Gossip was born. The name of newsletter was easy. There were 76 stairs between the girls of the 4th floor and the outside world. And yes, we counted them, many, many times.

With nothing more than Microsoft Word, a catchy title, and the aim to entertain, Lauren and I became editors of a weekly publication that ran for two years. That first issue had four sections: an awards section, “Oh my God, did you hear…?,” “The Story of the Week,” “Lauren’s Sappy Romantic Poetry Corner.” The latter two sections stuck. We ran weekly stories and poetry. The “Oh my God” section started out as a gossip column, but we quickly ran out of cutesy, harmless gossip that wasn’t being run as the weekly story. So we morphed it into a joke column. The award section also got a makeover. One thing we learned was giving awards is tough. We wanted to make sure everyone got one at some point. So it devolved into us picking people first and then picking the award. About the 16-week mark, we started posting quotes in that top section. I’m still finding random quotes in notebooks and Word docs from college. The rest of the 8 ½ by 11 page was filled with quotes from Lauren’s 3-inch thick famous quotes book, clip art, or funny images we found in our emails or online during the week.

We’d camp out in one of our rooms, usually Lauren’s, on a Wednesday night so we could have it done and printed by Thursday. Who knew it would take off? We put up the first one, not sure what to expect. And in doing so, we created expectations. I think that was the weirdest thing for me. We were just girls putting some silly things together to read in the bathroom, but suddenly people were looking for it, and expecting it to be there. I think that’s what kept us going. It’s hard to cop out when you’ve got 30 girls (and all the floor guests) to disappoint. Besides we both loved the excuse to hang out on a regular basis. And it really was a team effort. You certainly notice the weeks that someone was gone, or too busy to help. My absence usually brought a story of the week bemoaning my absence. Whereas Becky-only weeks were light on the quotes, and the humor, and the decorations. Sometimes it felt like I brought the content, she brought the pretty. And we didn’t skimp on the pretty, we printed it in color every week. (And yes, printing in color was more expensive.) Five copies: one for each bathroom stall and one outside each of our doors. Conveniently situated at the ends of opposite halls, the walls outside our room became a living archive of 76 Steps.

As the end of the year loomed, we realized we weren’t ready to let go of it yet, but continuing to get the product to the audience was going to grow difficult. The girls of the floor were getting dispersed to the ends of campus in lots of different dorms. We put a sign-up for future publications giving people either a print or email option.

Sophomore year's edition, titled Moving Beyond 76: Steppin' On Up, followed the same layout, but added Gretchen as a co-editor. In case you don't remember them, (or have never seen them) here are examples of 76 Steps and Moving Beyond 76. I've deleted any references to last names, in case you were worried. :)

-Becky

First post

The site looks pretty empty right now, but check back on Monday for the first story to be posted. My goal is to have one new story/memoir posted every Monday. I think this will be a fun project, but it will only be truly great if other people chime in and post stuff too. It doesn't have to be long or elaborate, just a few lines about a favorite Cornell story of yours. This way, when you get 'old' and you can't remember all the details you once did, they'll be here.

I'm always looking for ideas and suggestions. Send them to cornellmemoirs (at) gmail (dot) com!

Until Monday!

-Becky