Dinner w/ Cronin and a Beer Mile (a story in two parts)

A while ago it occured to me that it would be worth the chance to invite Tom Cronin, President of Whitman College to have dinner at the Monstrosity. It would be really tight for us to say we had dinner with the prez at our place and it would be good PR for him, to socialize with the lower masses and put in an appearance. So finally a date was set and garrett julian and I prepared a feast of sausage (fitting I think for our house), guacomole (we'll get back to that) and chips, caesar salad and an apple crisp. In true monstro style garrett cooked the sausages in a combination of their own fatty juices and a pool of keystone light beer. they were fucking delicious. For the guacomole garrett decided to try an "old family recipe" and in addition to avocados bought some shit like serrano peppers, cilantro and limes. It turned out tasting like the bitter swill of defeat ale. The salad and apple crisp turned out quite well. We weren't really sure exactly what time Cronin would show up but we cleaned up our downstairs to the point where it looked better than it has all semester and we set the table all proper and shit and almost all of us had collars attached to our shirts, like not even by tape or anything. Cronin arrived and tried to roll in through the one door we keep locked downstairs off that porch. Once he entered all us brave monstro boys froze up and didn't know what to do so everyone came into the kitchen and asked me if i needed help. I didn't and told them to go socialize with the awkward fella standing like 6'4" in our living room. Cronin asked for a tour of the whole house which was funny because the downstairs looked so good because we moved all the shit (not the literal shit, that has been taken care of) upstairs. Cronin emerged from being led around through dark hallways and seeing rotting food and hundreds of beer bottles to proclaim the house "rustic" and "full of character." He then asked us if the house was "good for parties" to which garrett responded, "very." Then we sat down to eat and Cronin had brought four good bottles of wine which we began to pour. Conversation consisted mainly of him asking us personal questions about our lives at whitman and us asking him questions about life and graduate school and education like he was a genie, which might be true. At one point Cronin reached for the guacamole and we all gasped and told him to avoid it and that it tasted weird. But being the populist working class hero that he is, Cronin bravely dipped chip into green mass and chewed. He said nothing about it and conversation continued until about 90 seconds later when he said, "I'm actually going to have to agree with the original sentiments regarding the guacamole" or something hella diplomatic like that which caused us all to laugh heartily, mainly at Stiles expense. Otherwise it was a really pleasant meal that made at least me and probalby others feel insignificant as all hell. For example he asked dan, the resident english major whether he had anything published and he had to reference the back page of the pio and told us to get summer jobs that had meaning for our interests when i am working at a summer camp running around naked and on drugs for the 4th summer in a row. By age 25 he had worked for the fucking president and paid his son 100 per 10 page paper he wrote over the summer and gives everyone he knows reading lists, including george bridges. Upon examination of the wine situation at the end of the meal, the bottle that cronin and garrett were sharing had one glass left in it, garrett had had one glass himself meaning that cronin put back 4-5 himself. The man clearly is no lightweight though as he peeled his car out of our driveway without backing through the kitchen as some of us were worried about. He turned the corner and sped off to his home, out of our house, out of our lives, out of this college.




Beer Mile is a sweet Whitman event, the biggest "party", one of the only chances for acceptable nudity and the scene of a ridiculous mandel/julian adventure the other night. We had a few drinks at the monstro and then headed out to Ankeny where the wild atmosphere and lack of clothing causes me to go insane. Anyways, Julian and I got real naked and real drunk real quick what with the running and all. It was dark and there were lots of pockets of spectators and that pissed me off cuz I think you shouldn't get to watch and not participate. So I implored julian to chuck (interesting verb choice) beer in people's faces, I was also showing them my penis and imploring then to give me fellatio in less eloquent vernacular. I spotted a pack of people huddled in a dark shadow under some trees by Lyman. I ran right at them yelling (quote provided by Lyman RA the next day) "worship the beer god bitches and suck my fucking dick", I then threw almost an entire can of beer in their faces and all over them. Some of the people in that group included RD's from each dorm on campus, heads of reslife Jed Schwendiman and Nancy Tavelli, and dean of students Chuck Cleveland. I had no idea who any of them were at the time but apparently my name was brought up and besides nancy who got thoroughly they all thought it was funny, especially because just after running away from them Ben Reiber came out of nowhere and layed me out all over the field in a naked sprawling mass. Life is never boring.