WAX PARTY!!!

One of the things that the Corps, and especially squadron 16, prides itself in is professionalism. As a part of that, we cannot "know" our upperclassmens' names or address them except with a 'sir' on each end of the statement. It's a part of the normal training process for fish. Only at the end of fish year do upperclassmen start "dropping" or using first names, with fish. Apparently, we have reached that point in the year.

The event had been semi-revealed to us at the beginning of the week. At outfit meeting on Sunday evening, they told us that we would not be going anywhere Thursday night, even though there were no classes or Corps events on Friday. The last time that happened, we got our Corps Brass. Additionally, they canceled a pizza/movie party we were going to have that evening with Captain Mack, one of the Air Force officers and our military advisor.

After dinner on Thursday night (free flow!) we were led upstairs into our fourth floor hallway. The first indication that I had that something was different about the hallway was the sophomores telling us not to run when we went inside. When we reached the top, we found our normally good-looking hallway covered in mud. When most people say covered, they mean just a large amount of mud, or mostly covered, or mud everywhere. In our hallway, there was literally a half-inch of mud on the floor. There was also a good portion of mud on the walls, and even some on the ceiling. Our task: to make the hall spotless. Fast forward from 7:00 to 9:45. Once the hall was clean, we were told to change into Corps sweats and polish the hall with our bodies (polish was provided by sophomores with half-gallon jugs). There's just no way to describe how that went without pictures. I might put some up later, provided I can get my hands on the pictures.

After polishing the hall (and being the buffers for the seniors doing buffer races) we went out behind the dorm and dropped with our seniors. If it sounds anticlimactic, it wasn't. It's one of those Corps things that really is hard to explain to anyone not in the Corps, but running around in sprinklers, soaked with floor polish from head to foot (that stuff stings badly when you get it wet) yelling your hometown, major, and name at people is a big deal. It's senior drop.

So, now that we're on a first-name basis with our seniors, we can treat them like friends and upperclassmen, as opposed to just upperclassmen. The difference? No 'sir', no greeting in the hallway, no Corps games with the seniors (and only the seniors for now). We treat everyone else the same as before.


Travis Kennedy and John Busch (Corps candidates) won Junior Yell Leader. Hard work apparently can make history. Go figure.