Dirt Boring

At the risk of being looked up by an old friend, I spent the morning thinking of an old college buddy who never actually made it past sophomore year.

Bert Doring.

I have not heard one word about Bert since he left Gannon all those years ago, but I thought of him this morning as my beautiful wife and I shared breakfast and talked about Matt returning to school to start his junior year.

Of course, we called Bert Doring...Dirt Boring...but he was anything other than boring.

Bert's highlights:

1). I was shooting baskets behind the dorm with a group of people when I went for a pump fake and tore up ligaments in my ankle. I asked Bert to get me some help.

He called an ambulance.

As we rode to the hospital in the back of the ambulance Bert begged the guy to blare the siren (he did), and he held my hand and whispered, "You're gonna' be all right, Clifford!" at least 70 times.

2). Bert didn't have a lot of luck with the ladies, but when he finally spent a little time with one at a frat party he returned to my room in the middle of the night just to ask me about love. I remember throwing him out of the room - I believe Gag helped with that dismissal. Bert was yelling, 'What does love mean?' As he ran down the hall away from our room.

3). In the greatest of all-time pranks Bert went through the door freshman year and collected everyone's alarm clock. He then returned to his room and painstakingly set about 100 clocks all around the bed of his sleeping roommate, Andrew, who was the most straight-laced guy I ever met. He then invited a whole bunch of people into the room just before the clocks went off. I swear to God, it was the funniest thing I ever saw...Andrew had to be peeled off the ceiling.

4). Bert was also the inventor of mattress football. I still don't know how the game was played, but we all played it...until the RA took Bert's door off the hinges so he could keep an eye on the room.

As we ate breakfast...I wondered...what the hell could have possibly happened to old Bert.

I wonder if he's a Dad, sending children off to college with the instruction to study hard and work hard.

I wonder if he's found wealth and a stable mental environment.

I contemplate whether or not he figured out what love is.

Part of me wants to go on Google and look.

More of me wants to just let it be...

...Dirt Boring will always be 19...and laughing...and screwing around.

I hope Matt gets the chance to meet about a hundred guys like Bert.

Comments

Gag said…
I do remember mattress football. didn't they steal the huge welcome to Ohio sign and bring it back to their room. It was like 7feet wide by 5 feet high.

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