Birth of the Blue Missile

:munky2::munky2::munky2::munky2::munky2:
OK captain I hear them calling :happy10:
So heres a couple of paragraphs
Andrew

The general social scene was comprised of the occupants living at the end of the fifth and the sixth floors of the dorm. We would use the fire escape at the end of the hall to commute between floors rather than walking to the center of the building and using the elevator.
I vividly remember all of us running up the stairs to the roof one night to watch the first night launch of the space shuttle. WOW man :happy10:
I do want to remind all that it was a different set of circumstances then, The Vietnam war was still raging on and weed was just an accepted part of university life. Even the president of the student council getting busted with a couple of pounds had no repercussions!
I can still remember the campus wide party that took place when Nixon cancelled the war and the draft. I was particularly grateful for this because my draft number was 15, and I was only exempted from the war by a college deferment. Other wise I would have been enjoying the ‘Tropical life’.
I was during that time I was also introduced by Joe to something called a ‘bong’, for technical specifications contact Tommy Chong in LA I’m sure he can help. That first Christmas vacation at UM, I spent at mother’s condo on the beach. I’ve already told you how undeveloped the beach was at that time. While I was walking down by the waterline I found a 5 inch thick, six foot piece and some smaller pieces of bamboo washed up on the beach. In my mind, little is ok, but bigger is better. I then during the break proceeded to make a three foot tall bong, with a two inch piece of bamboo for the bowl. I then took it back to campus for the start of the next semester. When Joe walked into the room and finally noticed it leaning in a corner his response was, with a silly grin on his face “Where did that come from, and when are we going to fire it up?
The timing of this was important because of the rivalry between the fifth and sixth floors, more about that in a minute.

It was only a few days later that Joe decided to break in the ‘BIG BONG’. There was a guy from further down the hall towards the elevators who’s name escapes me, that wanted to party with us. He had also brought his girlfriend with him and she was only going to keep him company, because being a born-again Christian she wasn’t into getting high just hanging out. We put about a foot of water in the bong and filled the bowl which held roughly an ounce. Since Joe supplied the smoke he was the first to try it. I held the match and he took a draw, then when he released the vacuum the returning water pressure blew the match out. We tried again and this time the smoke lit and Joe got a huge hit, but when he let go this time, the pressure blew partially lit weed all over the place. After a few more tries we decided the physics of the device really didn’t work even with just a little water.
After gathering all the stash up and putting it back in the bong without water, we put our questionable intellects together and decided to ‘shotgun’ (that is blowing through instead of sucking through the pipe) what was in the bowl into the room. After which we would just hang and listen to music. We put towels under the doors and after it was lit the regular way (without any water) we preceded to shotgun the entire bowl into the 12’x15’ room. After a little while we were all well adjusted. This guys girlfriend had just laid back on one of the beds listening to the music which was the usual mix of Steve Miller/Yes/ELP/Deep Purple, etc paying little attention to what we were doing. Now let me say that after we were done, you could barely see across the room, it was very difficult in spite of the fact there were lights on. A little while later she told her boyfriend that she felt sort of dizzy, and wanted to leave, so they did. When the door to the hallway was opened we got all kinds of looks from those who were standing in the hallway, because the smoke rolled out of the room like cheap theatrical fog rolling across a stage…. Time to order pizza!
Now back to the rivalry.
You see there was a team type rivalry between the floors to establish who had the better dope. There was a match between the floors every so often to establish this.
There were even team tee shirts; ours had the Zig-Zag guy and “fifth floor smoking team” on them. It wasn’t until after the Christmas break that I experienced the thrill of combat.
The rules were simple. Your opponent would smoke your dope via your method and the last one to maintain consciousness would walk away with all the stash. The entrance fee was three or four ounces of incredible stuff.
This combat was the motivation for building the BIG BONG, but because of the technical difficulties encountered we decided not to use it. It was however quite a conversation piece for the rest of the year.
We showed up at our first match with just one joint, as well as the entrance fee. The guys from the sixth floor looked at us like we were crazy. This one was my idea.
They of course wanted to go first, thinking this was a no brainer. So we handed their guy the joint, a book of matches, and a very large dry cleaning bag. Oh did I forget to mention the dry cleaning bag? He asked us what was he supposed to do with that? Our response was, get inside it and smoke the joint! Well being young and dumb he complied, so as not to blow the match. While he was sitting on the bed he proceeded to put it over him and tuck it under his crossed legs. He then lit the joint and started smoke it. It took about two minutes before he ran out of anything to breathe and he abandoned the quest forfeiting the match. Thus securing our party supplies for a while.