One Version of How We Met
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posted 2007 August 4, cbd
written 2006 November 8, cbd

Viannah had stumbled across the Noze Brotherhood on Wikipedia and had asked if I knew anything about them.

For those who don't know, the Noze is an underground organization that helps Baylor University take itself a little less seriously from time to time.

For those uninitiated about the Noze, don't expect anything to be sacred.  Think "Simpsons."

This was my reply to Viannah:

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This brings to mind a couple of stories that might ought to be told about our involvement with the NoZe.  (Satch!)

Yes, I did see the fountain turned pink.  Yes, I'd heard the stories about painting the sorority bridge pink and blue, and then after several iterations burning it down.  Yes, I did go to unRush and was with the crowd standing in ankle deep water threatening to go through the mile-long tunnel down to the river.  I didn't go.  I didn't want to get any wetter.  Also, I didn't submit any essays at 11:17 past milk at some box somewhere on campus.  Of course, if I had, I couldn't tell anybody, not even you ... :-)

And yes, even though I missed the Nasal K-nose-al event, one of my roommates, John Colson, did see it and told the story so well that in my memory I can nearly believe that I was there.

One of the stories has to do with meeting your mother for the first time.  The preamble of the story was the NoZe float in the homecoming parade in fall 1974.  I was standing on the south side of the street, across from Penland, while the parade proceeded west toward the freeway.  The NoZe float was a big pink box and hands were sticking out of the bottom holding paint brushes, alternately painting the center stripe in the street pink and blue.

We were all laughing at this when the fancy old car containing the remnants of the 1924 championship football team came up next.  Due to some consternation down the route with the NoZe float, the car stopped and there, sitting in it, was Jack Cisco.  Mr. Cisco had been my algebra and journalism teacher back at good 'ol HHS (Hubbard High School).  He had the room in the south corner of the basement.  It was his class that I got detention from when I published that inflammatory editorial about school board policy.  (I "got away" with this because dad had the only mimeograph machine in town.  His personal machine, the church never had anything like that.)  It was also in his class that, regardless of the subject being taught, shut down for the pre-holidays month of December to celebrate Pearl Harbor Day (December 7) in the same way that people in our generation might take much of the week of September 11th as a remembrance.

So there was Jack Cisco parked out in the middle of the street in the middle of the parade and I took the opportunity to run out and shake his hand.  I was out of high school, after all, and I might never see him again.  And indeed, I never did see him again, so I'm glad I ran out in the middle of the parade to do that.  We exchanged pleasantries, the current Baylor Bears were in the process of winning the conference for the first time in 50 years ... since 1924, and then when the parade started moving again, David Dunaway, my pretty-much-hippie roommate (nick-named "Stinker") was motioning from the steps of Penland for me to come on across the street and meet his homecoming date, some other freshman who lived on the same hall in Collins as Pam Bjork and who had a job in the Penland cafeteria.

So I ran in front of the next car and crossed the street and was introduced to your mother.  We exchanged pleasantries for twenty or thirty seconds then she had to go back in and get back to work.

... This should sound familiar...

Or maybe the NoZe float was after that and the pink and blue stripe was the first thing we watched together, then she went in.  (She says it was.)  I don't remember the order anymore but I remember all those events were there together.

Then fast forward about two years to the Sunday in September 1976 when I declared my love to Viann.  In a letter in the style of Dickens of course.  I'm sure I'd be embarrassed by it now.  So, what had happened was that we had gone to Hubbard for something, I no longer remember what, and I had this letter written, and when I dropped her off I gave it to her.  Then, being practical and all, I went back to Kokernot (junior by now) and went about getting ready for bed.  Viann read the note and came back to get me, and I got out of the shower and put clothes back on and went down and we walked out to a park bench on the mall and ... talked.

It was true that we were close to our first kiss sitting there on that bench ... talking, but it hadn't happened yet and was unlikely to until I walked her back to the dorm sometimes later, me not being pushy after all.

... or was it a bench swing?  Well, one of the park seats out close to Judge Baylor.  So anyway, we were sitting there talking and suddenly we were interrupted by a band of five or six NoZe on the way back (or to, who knows) some hyjink (singular of hijinx!).  As this rowdy bunch passed by, the leader says, "Kiss your date!"  And then kind of like the band of "nee" the others started saying, "Yeah, kiss your date!  Kiss your date!"

Now, under ordinary circumstances this would have been a fine opportunity.  Had we been going steady for some time, it would have been fine of course, and we would have kissed and everybody would have laughed and then we'd have gone on about our ... business.  Or, conversely, if we'd been more casual acquaintances, it would have been OK too.  This would have been an invitation to "take advantage" of the situation and we might have had a little kiss and everybody would have laughed and went on about their ... business.  Pam Bjork, for example, always wanted to be walked home from the library at night by one of "us" so that if one of these patrols caught her, she would be kissing, "somebody I know" at least, as she put it.

But the situation here was a little different and we were both truly surprised and shocked, and must have reacted in a way that appeared pretty shy to these pirates.  To his credit, the leader picked right up on this, miraculously and mercifully and instantly says, "Just kidding, never mind."  "Yeah, never mind, just kidding," another of them said.  And they went on towards Memorial / Allen / Dawson to pillage somewhere else while Viann and I adjusted to the awkward moment and eventually kept on ... talking.

Half an hour later, we did get up and go back to the steps of Dawson where I was going to turn her in for the evening and she stood on a higher step and we had our first kiss, without heckling.

And the rest, as you know, is history.  All BV, of course.... :-)  [Before Viannah]

The wikipedia piece is good.  I didn't realize that the NoZe originated in Brooks Hall, where I lived in the attic as a freshman and sophomore, but I'm not surprised.

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Then later I remembered a few other things.

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And, how could I forget this.  I was actually in Chapel the day that John Dean, the Nixon administration insider who was a big player in the Watergate outing, was speaking, when the NoZe crashed in and inducted him into the Bro. 'hood right there on stage (Bro. Dean of Dirty Tricks.)

John Colson (again, hmmmm, maybe he was a NoZe...) told us the story about how something similar had happened to Bro. Billy Graham-Cracker Noze.  He was going to speak in town and somehow his chauffeurs were ... NoZez.