Do you know what I miss? I miss cut class – you know, getting to see for the first time who the new JRP's were and listening to them try to piece together coherent sentences for the first time in front of the masses, and, of course, getting my cut sticker – oh, the irony. “Howdy, my name is Billy Bob RedPot from Nowhere, Texas.”
I miss arriving in the parking lot on the first day of Cut. Everyone had clean clothes, at least for a little while, and the fish had virgin stripes wrapped around their legs so tight, it almost cut off their circulation. I miss the sugar overdose from the cheap Albertson’s doughnuts. I miss the quasi-motivational speech our Yellowpot would give, and later, I would give. “Have fun, and uh, don’t kill yourself or anyone else. Safety’s first at Aggie Bonfire.”
I miss being greeted at the entrance to cut site by a JRP with a walkie-talkie and that “deer-caught-in-headlights” look. I miss the sound of countless axes chopping trees in the woods. I miss hearing that distant call of “Headache” only a second before a mighty crack . . .then crash . . . then wildcating. I miss JRP’s running the woods and being totally oblivious that we were breaking just about every “rule.” I miss lunchtime stories, apple or orange fights with the dorms, and of course, the frozen orange juice boxes. I miss drinking water with so much added “protein” in it, that if you were to drink it now, you would puke. I miss the sound of the tractors as they would drive by, taking an endless supply of wood to load site. “If you can’t find it, grind it” we always said. I never got to drive a tractor. The fact that I didn’t know how to drive a stick didn’t help, but I couldn’t have done much worse than the CT’s.
I miss notching trees after the JRP’s called Last Log, just so it would delay going to Load. I miss sweating my butt off the first few cuts and then freezing my butt off the last few cuts. When it was cold, I miss wearing thermal pants, undershirts, flannel shirts and a jacket in the morning, only to be down to jeans and a t-shirt in under 30 minutes. I miss class sets of swings. I miss being able to ‘swing both ways’. I miss the feel of a double-bit axe handle. I miss groding our Pots, and I miss being groded. I miss Water Wenches. I don’t miss the reports of injuries in the woods – so-and-so from a dorm cut his foot, or a tree fell on some fish CT’s. Luckily, the only injuries we had in my years were an old Crew Chief doing something he knew he shouldn’t, and me, doing something I knew I shouldn’t. I guess that power thing makes us feel that nothing bad will happen. Pretty embarrassing though, the YellowPot being the only injury in the woods all year.
I miss hand loading base logs onto the truck. Sure it was dangerous, but it was worth it. I miss load boogers. I know that’s gross, but if you were ever at load, you know what I mean. I even miss Walton claiming to be the most valuable part of Bonfire because they loaded. I miss the Load Pots (especially the ones from ’94 -’97). Those guys made an unbearable job bearable for the rest of us. I miss the green FFE trucks. I miss hearing “Boom it, it’ll ride” and the Hullaballoo-canek-canek of the horn as the truck departed for campus. I miss headlight load and ice cream. I miss going to eat at the Trough (Golden Corral) after cut in our grodes and attempting to eat them out of business. I don’t miss having to shower after cut. For the first few weeks, each shower meant excruciating pain because of all the blisters. Finally, though, they would become callous. I miss chainsaw parties.
I miss unload, though not as much. It wasn’t a glamorous job, but nonetheless, one that had to be done. We’d spend 2 hours (or longer) waiting on a truck to come in and 30 minutes unloading it. I miss ‘chick boxing’ and Yellow Pot boxing, but I don’t miss having my bell rung by Matt from Aston, who only later told me he had boxed before.
I miss the appearance of the Aggie Bonfire trailer and the shacks on the field. I miss watching the perimeter poles arrive. I miss watching the dorms fight for the right to chain themselves to a pole for hours on end. I miss the absolute precision that was Aggie Bonfire, because you know, everything scheduled to occur at 4:03 p.m. was always on time. I miss watching Fish Wrap and participating in Piss-Head wrap. Boy was I stupid then, but boy was it fun. I miss watching Centerpole go up and the grode-fest of slopping each other with grease (or whatever that stuff was) with mops. I miss watching the JRP’s walk around the pole, from the time centerpole arrived in two pieces to the day the fire was finished. After awhile, they would get that chafe-walk going. I miss watching the Bonfire channel on TV and trying to guess which JRP it was by the way they walked. I miss the dedication of those guys who walked the pole 24/7 rain and shine, hot and cold (mainly cold).
I miss stack the most. I miss the music, although they stopped playing the good stuff because it wasn’t PC. I miss listening to Sr. Reds reciting the B/CS phone book because stack wasn’t motivated enough. I miss sitting in a swing so long that my legs became numb. I miss double shifts – one as a Pot and another as a random, finally able to have some fun. I miss yelling “I need a log” forever and then getting 3 or 4 in a row because the Yellow running tagline wanted to shut me up. I miss bringing 1st stack logs into perimeter and slamming them on stack with Y-sticks. I miss throwing wire up to people on stack. I miss having to bribe a senior not to wire my swing to stack and pee on me with a coupon for a McDonald’s Big Mac. I miss the Cookie shack. I miss the Brown Pots playing with fire and the smell of diesel fuel as it would burn up by their shack. I miss shift changes, when the Reds would use chainsaws to top off most of the logs put up on the last shift. It never seemed like stack was getting built, but little by little, it grew. I miss Yellow Pot log, watching the nine JRP’s try to fight off all of us Yellows. The Sr. Reds always had to help. I miss Tagline and having to duck tape my pants again and again to keep my butt from catching fire. I miss the Go Home rope. I miss seeing old Reds come back to watch us build. Is it just me, or was there a height restriction for being a Red Pot? I don’t ever recall seeing one over 5’ 8”! I miss being hit on the pot with pliers and penny nails. I don’t miss breaking a set while tightening it with a penny nail. I miss Halloween stack and Stackapalooza. I miss receiving 2 day-old doughnuts while in my 3rd stack swing from some guy lifted by Tagline wearing a dress and a wig – now that’s service. I miss the football team helping us re-swamp after the collapse in ’94 – don’t know who they were, but they were some big guys. I miss watching the JRP’s do push-ups on the cross ties and receive their black overalls and senior pots. I miss watching the JRP’s and Baby Browns ‘get tight’ while they would be ‘shaken down’ by the seniors. I miss the smell of my grodes – part smoke, part sweat and part who knows what.
I miss watching it burn. I miss the Reds and the Band carrying in the torches and marching around stack. I miss “The Last Corps Trip” and the players’ speeches. I miss coming back around 3 a.m. to find only the most die-hard bonfire folks left and to walk laps around the fire with my dads, sons and the new kid. I miss our line walking up to the fire and standing there to see who could stand the heat the longest. Definitely a macho thing.
I miss the people. I miss the guys who had cool nicknames – I never had one. I miss guys like Cracker Jack, Junior, Sloth, Three-ball Paul from HHH, Spud, DYG, and Taco. There were so many more I can’t remember. Only now do I know some of their names, others I don’t. If I saw them today, I would have to call them by that name. I miss my Yellow Pot buddies and the Browns and most of the Reds. Some were really hard core and others were just goof-balls. We all were part of something greater than ourselves.
I wrote this because these were my memories. They may not have been your memories and that’s ok. I don’t even know how accurate my memories are because it seems like ages ago. There are a lot of things I left out intentionally; things that no one else needs to know unless they were there. I am definitely not professing to be some super bonfire guy. I did my part, that’s all. I loved the fire. It’s been difficult to let it go. I still can’t, but maybe someday. The point I want to make is that it is gone. No fire constructed by our administration will ever capture these memories again. It’s not the end result that I missed – it was the journey. It was cut, load and stack, not the burn. As many others have said, the only reason we burn the thing is to clear the field for next year. I always said that if there was another bonfire, I’d come back to work on it. I now know that could never happen because I have my own bonfire demons to deal with. I’m angry and I’m being selfish, but not for myself. I know that I would never again partake in the fire, but I’m saddened that the future generations of Aggies, including my children some day, won’t be able to participate in something that meant so much to me. I don’t think I built bonfire so much as it built me.
I miss arriving in the parking lot on the first day of Cut. Everyone had clean clothes, at least for a little while, and the fish had virgin stripes wrapped around their legs so tight, it almost cut off their circulation. I miss the sugar overdose from the cheap Albertson’s doughnuts. I miss the quasi-motivational speech our Yellowpot would give, and later, I would give. “Have fun, and uh, don’t kill yourself or anyone else. Safety’s first at Aggie Bonfire.”
I miss being greeted at the entrance to cut site by a JRP with a walkie-talkie and that “deer-caught-in-headlights” look. I miss the sound of countless axes chopping trees in the woods. I miss hearing that distant call of “Headache” only a second before a mighty crack . . .then crash . . . then wildcating. I miss JRP’s running the woods and being totally oblivious that we were breaking just about every “rule.” I miss lunchtime stories, apple or orange fights with the dorms, and of course, the frozen orange juice boxes. I miss drinking water with so much added “protein” in it, that if you were to drink it now, you would puke. I miss the sound of the tractors as they would drive by, taking an endless supply of wood to load site. “If you can’t find it, grind it” we always said. I never got to drive a tractor. The fact that I didn’t know how to drive a stick didn’t help, but I couldn’t have done much worse than the CT’s.
I miss notching trees after the JRP’s called Last Log, just so it would delay going to Load. I miss sweating my butt off the first few cuts and then freezing my butt off the last few cuts. When it was cold, I miss wearing thermal pants, undershirts, flannel shirts and a jacket in the morning, only to be down to jeans and a t-shirt in under 30 minutes. I miss class sets of swings. I miss being able to ‘swing both ways’. I miss the feel of a double-bit axe handle. I miss groding our Pots, and I miss being groded. I miss Water Wenches. I don’t miss the reports of injuries in the woods – so-and-so from a dorm cut his foot, or a tree fell on some fish CT’s. Luckily, the only injuries we had in my years were an old Crew Chief doing something he knew he shouldn’t, and me, doing something I knew I shouldn’t. I guess that power thing makes us feel that nothing bad will happen. Pretty embarrassing though, the YellowPot being the only injury in the woods all year.
I miss hand loading base logs onto the truck. Sure it was dangerous, but it was worth it. I miss load boogers. I know that’s gross, but if you were ever at load, you know what I mean. I even miss Walton claiming to be the most valuable part of Bonfire because they loaded. I miss the Load Pots (especially the ones from ’94 -’97). Those guys made an unbearable job bearable for the rest of us. I miss the green FFE trucks. I miss hearing “Boom it, it’ll ride” and the Hullaballoo-canek-canek of the horn as the truck departed for campus. I miss headlight load and ice cream. I miss going to eat at the Trough (Golden Corral) after cut in our grodes and attempting to eat them out of business. I don’t miss having to shower after cut. For the first few weeks, each shower meant excruciating pain because of all the blisters. Finally, though, they would become callous. I miss chainsaw parties.
I miss unload, though not as much. It wasn’t a glamorous job, but nonetheless, one that had to be done. We’d spend 2 hours (or longer) waiting on a truck to come in and 30 minutes unloading it. I miss ‘chick boxing’ and Yellow Pot boxing, but I don’t miss having my bell rung by Matt from Aston, who only later told me he had boxed before.
I miss the appearance of the Aggie Bonfire trailer and the shacks on the field. I miss watching the perimeter poles arrive. I miss watching the dorms fight for the right to chain themselves to a pole for hours on end. I miss the absolute precision that was Aggie Bonfire, because you know, everything scheduled to occur at 4:03 p.m. was always on time. I miss watching Fish Wrap and participating in Piss-Head wrap. Boy was I stupid then, but boy was it fun. I miss watching Centerpole go up and the grode-fest of slopping each other with grease (or whatever that stuff was) with mops. I miss watching the JRP’s walk around the pole, from the time centerpole arrived in two pieces to the day the fire was finished. After awhile, they would get that chafe-walk going. I miss watching the Bonfire channel on TV and trying to guess which JRP it was by the way they walked. I miss the dedication of those guys who walked the pole 24/7 rain and shine, hot and cold (mainly cold).
I miss stack the most. I miss the music, although they stopped playing the good stuff because it wasn’t PC. I miss listening to Sr. Reds reciting the B/CS phone book because stack wasn’t motivated enough. I miss sitting in a swing so long that my legs became numb. I miss double shifts – one as a Pot and another as a random, finally able to have some fun. I miss yelling “I need a log” forever and then getting 3 or 4 in a row because the Yellow running tagline wanted to shut me up. I miss bringing 1st stack logs into perimeter and slamming them on stack with Y-sticks. I miss throwing wire up to people on stack. I miss having to bribe a senior not to wire my swing to stack and pee on me with a coupon for a McDonald’s Big Mac. I miss the Cookie shack. I miss the Brown Pots playing with fire and the smell of diesel fuel as it would burn up by their shack. I miss shift changes, when the Reds would use chainsaws to top off most of the logs put up on the last shift. It never seemed like stack was getting built, but little by little, it grew. I miss Yellow Pot log, watching the nine JRP’s try to fight off all of us Yellows. The Sr. Reds always had to help. I miss Tagline and having to duck tape my pants again and again to keep my butt from catching fire. I miss the Go Home rope. I miss seeing old Reds come back to watch us build. Is it just me, or was there a height restriction for being a Red Pot? I don’t ever recall seeing one over 5’ 8”! I miss being hit on the pot with pliers and penny nails. I don’t miss breaking a set while tightening it with a penny nail. I miss Halloween stack and Stackapalooza. I miss receiving 2 day-old doughnuts while in my 3rd stack swing from some guy lifted by Tagline wearing a dress and a wig – now that’s service. I miss the football team helping us re-swamp after the collapse in ’94 – don’t know who they were, but they were some big guys. I miss watching the JRP’s do push-ups on the cross ties and receive their black overalls and senior pots. I miss watching the JRP’s and Baby Browns ‘get tight’ while they would be ‘shaken down’ by the seniors. I miss the smell of my grodes – part smoke, part sweat and part who knows what.
I miss watching it burn. I miss the Reds and the Band carrying in the torches and marching around stack. I miss “The Last Corps Trip” and the players’ speeches. I miss coming back around 3 a.m. to find only the most die-hard bonfire folks left and to walk laps around the fire with my dads, sons and the new kid. I miss our line walking up to the fire and standing there to see who could stand the heat the longest. Definitely a macho thing.
I miss the people. I miss the guys who had cool nicknames – I never had one. I miss guys like Cracker Jack, Junior, Sloth, Three-ball Paul from HHH, Spud, DYG, and Taco. There were so many more I can’t remember. Only now do I know some of their names, others I don’t. If I saw them today, I would have to call them by that name. I miss my Yellow Pot buddies and the Browns and most of the Reds. Some were really hard core and others were just goof-balls. We all were part of something greater than ourselves.
I wrote this because these were my memories. They may not have been your memories and that’s ok. I don’t even know how accurate my memories are because it seems like ages ago. There are a lot of things I left out intentionally; things that no one else needs to know unless they were there. I am definitely not professing to be some super bonfire guy. I did my part, that’s all. I loved the fire. It’s been difficult to let it go. I still can’t, but maybe someday. The point I want to make is that it is gone. No fire constructed by our administration will ever capture these memories again. It’s not the end result that I missed – it was the journey. It was cut, load and stack, not the burn. As many others have said, the only reason we burn the thing is to clear the field for next year. I always said that if there was another bonfire, I’d come back to work on it. I now know that could never happen because I have my own bonfire demons to deal with. I’m angry and I’m being selfish, but not for myself. I know that I would never again partake in the fire, but I’m saddened that the future generations of Aggies, including my children some day, won’t be able to participate in something that meant so much to me. I don’t think I built bonfire so much as it built me.
You did a good job at it though. 