Leave It To Beaver

Leave It To Beaver

Drexel University was known for its “Study Hard, Party Harder” motto.  One of the premium party places was right on campus.  Even though its locale was perfect for its own students, it also attracted other college patrons.  As Drexel expanded, the land became more valuable for academics.  Despite the students’ protest, the building would be torn down.  It was a sad day when Drexel closed the campus bar…the legendary Cavanaugh’s would be no more.

 They took the bar!

The whole f’ing bar!

Christ. This is ridiculous.

What are we going to do?

Road trip.

In Philadelphia there were a cadre of college campuses for a road trip.  With no recent kiln explosions occurring, we would have to choose our best available options.  What better destination for a testosterone tank load of teens than Beaver College.

Now for those of you who may be more highbrow than I, Beaver has long been used to refer to the area between a female’s femurs.  It is an older term, maybe not as applicable today due to the preponderance of plucking and waxing.  However, it is still a very viable keyword on the Internet.  When prospective students attempted to obtain information on Beaver College…lets’ just say that was the last thing they found.  Eventually it became so bad that the college’s site would be blocked for its name.  It reminds me of when we had our house built.  Christina was new to the Internet and needed to retrieve information on sink fixtures.  She simply typed in “Blackman Plumbing” in Google and hit enter.  Christina grew up a little that day.  Anyway, the name Beaver College became such an issue that in 2001 then-president Bette Landman noted, "Beaver College too often elicits ridicule in the form of derogatory remarks pertaining to the vulgar reference to the female anatomy”.  Soon after, the college was renamed.  This decision resulted in Beaver College being included as a question in Trivial Pursuit: What Pennsylvania institution changed its name to Arcadia University in 2001, after web filters began blocking its old moniker?  I think I got a piece for that one.

It was the fall of my junior year.  Ten of us piled into two cars, and of course one of them was mine.  I only had a vague idea of Beaver College’s location, but that was enough to make me the lead car.  Not surprisingly we got lost, but I knew we had to be close.  We stopped at a Howard Johnson’s to grab some grub and relieve our suds.  We took over a few booths and “Flo” the waitress came to take our order.  Figuring she probably was IN the first graduating class at Beaver we inquired as to its location.  She responded, “Is this some sort of joke?” I instantly thought she was offended by the slang meaning of the name and I assured her we were sincere.  She sarcastically turned and pointed, “Just look out the window”.  Well, I said I thought we were close.

Filled with food and emptied of beer, our cars rolled onto campus.  Our own Drexel was located directly in the city so we were placed among the rectangle blocks.  Beaver, however, had trees and winding roads to navigate.  Upon arrival, our MO was to acquire a little memento of our journey.  We stumbled across a beautifully built building.  Adorned on her side was a majestic purple banner proclaiming “Art Gallery”.  We had to have it.  The freshman filed out.  They quickly removed the brand new banner in such a manner it seemed they had done this a thousand times before.  Perhaps they had.  I popped the trunk and they filled it with our bounty.  Now it was time to find the, ummm, Beaver in Beaver College.

As we headed up the road we were cast in the shadow of a castle like structure.  Looks like a party…and we were about to crash it.  One of our group knew someone who knew someone at Beaver, so we would use this as our in.  As we approached the entrance we noticed it was a “Black and White” party.  Not the tie and tails type, the one where you have to wear only those two colors.  Didn’t matter, not like any of us were wearing anything black or white anyway.  We entered to a fancy affair.  We immediately stuck out like a soar thumb for many reasons…but the best one being that we were ten off campus guys who arrived on a mostly female campus.  Jackpot!

We decided to divide and conquer.  The guys at this gathering seemed like extras from Revenge of the Nerds.  Competition would be light.  A few of the freshman found some severely soused skirts.  Flirting led to flashing.  And if you know ANYTHING about guys, they would give up their Mothers to eyeball some boobs.  And one of them did.  In a moment of bravado one of them bragged about the banner.  Her flesh was quickly covered and the dames dispersed.  It was then one of them informed us of our folly, “This party is to celebrate the new banner for the art gallery.”  Ooops!  We attended a party for the same banner that we had stolen! If I was in your shoes, I'd be…Leaving, what a good idea.  We had to get word to all it was time to go, and fast.  I told the foolish freshmen to slip out the back.  Two of the other freshmen and myself would round up the rest.  Everyone was to exit wherever they could, we would rally back at the cars. 

The remaining three of us would go out the front.  We did not think the topless tart had known we were with the others.  Oh, were we wrong.  As soon as we exited, there she was with security.  “Those guys were with them!”, pointing directly at us.  It seemed at that very moment the music inside stopped.  I looked back to see the entire building bursting at the seams with black and white clad students.  The crowd turned mob.  I looked to my two companions.  Now you may recall I always seem to be the smaller guy in these groups, and this was no different.  My wingmen were a baseball player drafted by the Toronto Blue Jays to play third base and a former high school quarterback from the football hotbed of Western PA.  They both looked at me with that “We can take ‘em” look.  Great… I didn’t care for these odds.  I felt I had to make a move before things got ugly.  I approached the security guard and asked him what he was going to do.  He informed me there were too many students for him to handle.  He could, or would not prevent them from doing whatever they wanted.  He said we were on our own.  Stepping up adjacent to the guard, now seemingly more sober than during her previous prostituting, was the boob girl.  She shouted at me, “Give us our banner back!”  I said if I were able to produce it, would all be forgiven.  She agreed.  I retreated back to my two friends.  They were disappointed I diffused the duel.  One of them turned to me, “You know, we could have taken those artsy fartsy wimps…unless we got tired of beating the crap out of so many of them!”  I was right, they were indeed ready to have a go at it.  At that point I knew I had made the correct call.

I returned the banner and we returned home.  In all this commotion two of our crew actually managed to successfully complete our Beaver mission.  Go figure.  This near brawl didn’t deter us from future trophy hunting at other campuses.  The gang would later grab a beautiful blue and gold wood dorm sign “Widener Court”.  It was about the size of a dorm room bed.

I know, it hung on the wall above mine until I graduated.