Pond Him!

Some of my favorite items this year that I wish I'd been back in Chicago for:

71. A Gingerbread House of Ill Repute. [16 points]
45. Part a fool and his money. [30 points]
74. Enter a lecture class in street clothes. Receive loud phone call. Shout “I NEED TO GO, THE CITY NEEDS ME!” Remove street clothes to reveal superhero apparel. Run out for the good of the land. [18 points]
285. Man, this lecture class is so boring. If only a giant pitcher would burst in to distribute fruit punch! [21 p-OH YEAH-ints]
321. Stage the cafeteria scene from High School Musical in one of the UofC dining halls during a mealtime. [15 points]


Road trip was certainly a lot of fun, but I am a little sad that I didn't have a chance to just be in Chicago, without responsibilities of a captain or anything like that. Driving in the middle of South Dakota, reading the list, wondering how things were going, I couldn't help but feel disconnected.

Of course, I was going to feel disconnected anyway, that was inevitable. I hardly knew any of the first years, and they made up the bulk of the team, as they always do. But there were rites, one Wednesday, that made us all a team. We went over the rules, and then the speeches came. Mark adapted Genesis chapter 1 ("And the Judges looked at the Hunt that they had made and they saw that it was good."). Ramya imparted some maternal wisdom in the form of song. Pranks offered a puppet show. A first year, who I didn't know, got up and gave the traditional first-year rep. speech, but his was far more serious than any others I had seen. He seemed to really recognize what Scav was, which is in a way seriousness that shuns seriousness.

Then we ponded him.

See, Hitchcock, which is right on the main quads, has a tradition of throwing the people we love into what is somewhat ironically called "Botany Pond." It is a fake pond that exists within the confines of concrete, though there are real ducks and turtles who live there. But the emphasis really is on botany: there are unknowable forms of plant life lurking in the murky waters and coating the shallow bottom. Which makes it the perfect place to throw someone, like a new RA, or a new House President, or a first-year rep.

The upper-classmen started fidgeting as soon as they felt his speech winding down. I involuntarily and prematurely stood up, ready to grab this kid I didn't know, or a part of him. Finally, he was done, and a spontaneous chant of "Pond him! Pond him!" arose from the crowd. The first years quickly caught on. We removed the victims valuables, phone and wallet and such, and his shoes, and let him out into the hot evening.

There is a giddiness that always accompanies a ponding. People are jumping up and down, running to the pond and back, taking up a calf or an elbow of the pondee. we chanted and rejoiced until he was being supported by only two people who stood on the edge of the brown-green water. They started swinging him over the water, then back, and we all counted: 1...swing...2...swing...3!

Then he was in the air, never rising very high, and suddenly hidden beneath the water. There was a moment of silence, as everyone focused on the surface of the water, until he rose, almost like Halle Berry in that Bond movie, shaking his hair, disgusting drops of water falling through the air, making little splash-circles in the then-turbulent water.

Like all forms of religion, Scav relies on sacrifices, and once that sacrifice was made, we truly became a team.