Dateline: 1986. January. Minnesota. Serious cold. What you are looking at is a frozen Minnehaha Falls, in a sprawling park in the southwestern corner of Minneapolis. The dots in the lower left of this pic are people, look closely to get an idea of the scale. In the winter the trails & steps to get to where they are standing are blocked off. The steps, 100 or so winding down into that space are completely iced over.
And that's where I found myself, around midnight in January, during a sub-freezing night, inching myself down these steps by clinging to the railing, blindfolded. Yup, completely blindfolded, after a 30-minute drive in the backseat, beginning at the college campus in St. Paul, where the car drove in circles and did spins in a parking lot just to make doubly certain I couldn't tell where we were going.
There were 3 cars doing the same thing that night. Each car had 4 people, containing 1 'pledge' like me. In my car was with my fraternity pledge 'big brother' who I had selected a month earlier as a type of lifeline during this month-long process. In hindsight, it would seem I selected incorrectly, no? Together he & I inched down the iced over steps, me clinging to the railing, having no idea that if I were to let go I'd slide 10, 20, 30 feet into a major injury. He was giving me handy instructions, such as: "there's a 4 foot barrier coming up you need to get over."
Finally we made it to the bottom, where those wee people in the pic are, same spot. He says "wait until you hear the cars honk before taking off your blindfold." I say ok like a brainwashed plebe and he exits into the night. I don't hear any honking after 5 minutes and think screw this and take off my blindfold and am staring at that same giant wall of ice frozen waterfall in darkness & sub freezing temps at midnight. I have literally no idea where I am. I grew up way on the other side of the city and hadn't even seen this waterfall before. I was 19 at the time, the city is filled with parks, hadn't hit that one yet apparently.
In my pocket was 1 of 3 pieces of paper that when assembled, was the phone number of alumnus brother Jeff. The other 2 pieces were with my 2 pledge brothers, Tom & Martin. We 3 were to find each other in this gigantic park (it's over 1 square mile), assemble the digits, call Jeff, who would pick us up and drive us back to campus.
But that's not all we were carrying. Each of us were toting several random items, representing some random bullshit message of wisdom. Here's what I remember us carrying: a full size (empty) keg of beer, a cowbell, a foot tall glass picture frame, empty wine bottle, some other trinkets, and blanking on the rest. Earlier in the night, in a tradition going back decades, the 3 of us were berated for over an hour by the active members, 20 or so, in a pop quiz style with aggressively shouted impossible to answer questions. The 'point' of the exercise / tradition was to 'learn' the answers via these stage props which were handed to us 1 by 1 with a stern explanation of how important the life wisdom each represents. But the charade of course was just the prelude to their staged explosion of frustration leading them to bundle us up in our winter jackets, blindfold us, lead us to the cars, and split into the winter night, ending at the park.
Anyhoots. Blindfold off, I looked around, no idea where I was, no idea how to exit, but what goes down goes up. I backtracked to the barricaded icy steps and pulled myself out of there, on the hand railing, hand over hand, all the way up. Just like I had descended, only now I could fucking see.
Got to the top and heard a cowbell far off in the distance. I shouted, heard a shout back, started walking through the snow that direction. Found Tom, then Martin found us. We're all like 'fuck this shit.' This wasn't just stupid but dangerous, at least where they put me. Walked to a late night diner blocks away and called Jeff via nearby payphone. He picked us up, drove us back. Told us, the point of the evening was to understand that if you're ever in a jam, call an alumnus brother who can bail you out. That's a good item to know, but in hindsight it would seem there might be an easier to teach us, by you know, just telling us. But, back in the '80s, before fraternity pledge hazing & deaths were on CNN (there was no CNN), this sort of thing occurred.
But wait! There's more! How about 24 hours later when we did it all over again. At least the first part. As in the barrage of shouted questions, the insults, the 'fuck sake we just taught you this last nite!' yelling, over & over. And then, here we go again, wait for it: they bundle us up in our winter jackets, blindfold us, and lead us out to the cars. This was also part of the tradition, going back decades. The followup faux kidnapping. Why faux? Because they took off our blindfolds in the parking lot of Sturges bar, down University Ave in the Frogtown part of St. Paul. Sturges was a serious shitbox dive bar not in the hipster sense but a dive bar in the shitbox part of St. Paul. For some reason it was a favorite of the boys, maybe because they didn't card, didn't care, who knows. But the point of this faux kidnapping night was 'JUST KIDDING' have an enormous amount of beer with us, you're almost done with hell week (we were in the middle of 7 nights of this kind of shite).
But actually, there were two more traditions to come that night, again going back decades:
- Get us plebes ridiculously drunk.
- Once we're good & liquored up, kidnap the 'Pledge Marshal' and take them somewhere, maybe on campus, not sure.
Why am I unclear on this matter? Because they got me blackout drunk. Well, technically I got myself that way. We played cardinal pope or cardinal puff, some professional drinking game that ensured stupefaction. Which is why I missed what happened in the following hours. However, I received numerous accounts from different perspectives the following day.
First off, I woke up in the backseat of a car back at the fraternity house on campus. Nobody was around. The temp remains subfreezing, I was passed out in the backseat, and they just left me there. Thanks guys! Way to look after each other. I dragged myself inside onto the cot I was sleeping in for hell week and missed what I am about to tell you due to passing out again.
Tom is a couple years older than me, but was also a freshman. Martin is 5 years older, because he was an MP in the army, stationed in Germany. He was already in his mid 20s. Back then, Martin wasn't someone you'd want to tangle with. These two received the instructions to kidnap the Pledge Marshal. Maybe I did too but I was useless to participate in any upright activity. The fraternity house is 3 stories. The upper 2 floors are all bedrooms, 4 per floor. Martin being Martin had a long roll of rope. What he did was tie the rope around all the doorknobs, or something, that prevented all the doors from opening, presumably to carry out the kidnapping mission unhindered. And it worked. Nobody could rescue the Pledge Marshal, not even when they heard the screaming.
As you may have guessed by now, the Pledge Marshal is fully aware of this plan. Impossible not to be, simply as they would have themselves been a plebe a year or two earlier. But this particular Pledge Marshal was more than a little high strung, due to a heavy cocaine habit. And he wanted nothing to do with being kidnapped. Ergo, he barricaded himself in his room and would not come out for anything. However, Martin being Martin, broke through the barricade and handcuffed the PM. Yes, Martin carried handcuffs on him, as a college student. But the PM was ready for Martin. He had an aerosol can and a lighter and attempted to keep Martin away via sending fireballs at him. This was a mistake. Martin disarmed him of his flame weapons, threw him on the floor face down and handcuffed him. Then the screaming started.
The 15 active member heard the screaming even though they were sleeping. They of course tried to come see what the ruckus was, but they could not exit their room. Some climbed outside to the fire escape and went back in through the front door and untied the ropes so everyone could come out. Mind you, this is all occurring around 2am. On a school night. And then the house president, who never met a bad decision he didn't like, starts berating Tom & Martin for the ruckus. 'You guys fucked up! You're not supposed to do this!' and so forth. Mind you, he & others were instructing us to do exactly this, kidnap the Pledge Marshall.
When I woke in the morn, my cot mates Tom & Martin were gone. No bags, no stuff, they were gone. I quickly found out those two said fuck this we quit we're out of here. Packed up & split into the night. Tom back to his nearby dorm (where I initially met him) and Martin back to his house. I was told it was now my #1 priority to convince both to rejoin the pledge process. So I met with Tom later that day, Martin joined us, and they told me everything that happened, minute by minute, whilst I was sacked out. I couldn't believe my ears, all this shit happened. But they reluctantly agreed to rejoin.
One more night for you, the penultimate day of hell week, called 'maneuvers.' Every active member gave us a wish list of weird shit they wanted. Street signs, singing songs to their out of state parents, and other fun stuff like getting the signatures of the workers at a nearby sex massage parlor. Also, breakfast in bed for the entire house who always invited their ladyfriends to stay the night and watch us plebes serve them brekky in bed. Ergo, late night trip to the grocery store for vittles. I came up with the idea of placing green plastic army men on every plate representing parsley. Quite the knee slapper.
Oh and: the Pledge Marshall wanted a single letter from the university sign across the street, the letter being the initial of his ladyfriend. So in the middle of the night, with Tom & me watching for traffic, Martin being Martin, took an axe to the sign and pried off the letter. That turned into a campus scandal, front page of the campus newspaper. Why? It destroyed the sign, and the replacement cost the university $50,000. For real.
So: there you have just 3 nights of 7 during hell week. Jelly?
