Capn's Log #1
The Beginning of the Jolly Rogers

Our story begins on the campus of Carnegie Mellon University in the Fall of 1990. A young writing major had just been charged with the unenviable task of being the Resident Assistant on an all male floor in one of the Hill Dorms (Excuse me while I take a brief moment to express my dislike of the phrase "residence hall." It's a dorm, damnit, and if the Housing Office doesn't like it, they can repossess my education.)

The dorm in question, one Scobell Hall, sat at the top of a brief rise overlooking the green and silver eyesore known as Donner Hall. Let me describe Scobell to those of you who've never had the pleasure of taking in it's beauty. It's a four story, brick bomb shelter built in the days when dormitories were not to be a place of living but merely a place of sleeping. The rooms are dingy, tiny and solid. Many a heavy object has been thrown against a wall in Scobell to no avail. It's rumored that the Army Corps of Engineers built the structure in the Forties to house inductees. I can believe it. It would take several bombs to scratch it's exterior.

Each floor consisted of both single and double rooms and one communal bathroom just off the central staircase. A fire escape lay at either end of the building and a cramped laundry room lurked in the basement. Only male students were allowed to live in Scobell. Perhaps the mere manliness of the building itself precluded those more testosterone challenged students but I rather think the gang showers alone were enough to frighten away the fairer sex.

I may as well confess because it's easier to write this in first person than to go on with all the pretentious third person crap. I was the new Resident Assistant in Scobell in the Fall of 1990. I was not yet known as Capn, but that comes later.

For a unifying theme, I had picked the naval practices of the sixteenth century and had decorated accordingly. I made each resident a message board with nautical pictures and assigned them each a naval rank as becoming their years and experience. The Freshmen were Ensigns, the Sophomores were Lieutenants, the Juniors were Lieutenant Commanders and the Seniors were Commanders. (Now you know why they call Dave Payne, Commander Dave) I, as you may have guessed, was the Captain. I even went as far as to place a cardboard ship's wheel in on the landing, looking out the window where anyone could steer our "ship."

The majority of residents were Juniors who had lived in Scobell before. Oh, they were not to be ignored. Apparently, one of their favorite pastimes was harassing their last RA, Marc Pottier. I'm actually surprised Marc associates with them to this day if half of the harassment they've told me is true. So they started on me as soon as they could and it wasn't until they saw the Pirate Flag hanging in my room that they started to accept me as one of their own.

Remember, I had chosen a nautical theme but they were more willing to associate with a piratical theme. Well, I was OK with that. I think it was Nick that informed me that the previous year's intramural teams had been pirates and thus we became "The Jolly Rogers."

To make it official, I organized a picnic in the park which I called the Buccaneer Bar-B-Que and we marched, Pirate Flag waving proudly before us, to Schenley Park where we commandeered a shelter and proceeded to play smear the queer our way. It's amazing how dirt, grime and charred cow flesh can be a unifying force for college students.

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