Matt's Random Memories...

• Learning to play euchre from the Michigan people
• Music: Enya, Pink Floyd
• TV: LA Law with Rico Vitale, Premier of Star Trek, the Next Generation
• Remember the mandatory 'cultural units' thing we needed to earn for the Clarkson School? I went to a couple of cool movies at 'The Roxy' there, including the one with Einstein, Monroe, DiMaggio and Senator McCarthy
  • And of course, the Wall, Rocky Horror, etc.
• Videogames played on our Zenith IBM PCs: Defender of the Crown, Starflight (w/ Zachary Frost), Ultima 5 (with Joe Caswell), the Sierra Adventure series (e.g. King's Quest, Space Quest)
• Being stupified that the first physics exam had a super-easy 'identify parts of a quadratic eqution' question
• Learning euchre from the Michigan contingent! Thanks Pete, Heather, etc.
• My room mate Tim Gregory explaing that it gets so cold in Potsdam that 'your nose hairs freeze when you walk out of the house'. Confirming this, seeing armies of snow removal equipment out of my bedroom window after the first snowfall.
• Rushing over to the cafeteria to beat the ridiculously early closing. Often, as I would be napping, Tim would tenderly utter to me "Matt...15 minutes till no more food".
• Watching the movie Brazil at Parker House, which became one of my favorites, over at the girl's house (where Kim and Lisa lived) with Neil.
• Wendell Sexon laughing hysterically at the end of the Montreal play we saw (something about Russian Revolution) as the young boy character collapsed in a epileptic heap and the lights dimmed.
• Eating better than I ever had or probably have since everywhere we went in Montreal
• Playing way too much pinball with Jeremy and Steve Stadnicki (ex-schoolie, 1 year prior). The pool hall over the cafeteria had Road Kings, Mystic, etc. I went on to work in a pinball factory and design a game!
• The out of control Tim Gregory vs. Joe Arlinghaus water fight consisting of garden hoses, pots and pans, etc.
• The Tim Gregory vs. Matt Walsh Piety Contest, comparing who swore the least
• Spending gross amounts of efforts applying to Cornell, Columbia, MIT and Princeton, getting into just Columbia (and assigned Jeremy Osner as a roomate, but I didn't end up going), but in writing the essays learning the most important lesson of my college career, ActiveVoice
• Joe Arlinghaus made a hole in the wall along our stairwell. Clarkson U repair came, at Joe's expense to repair it at $25/hour or so. But the guy sat down and watched Oprah on our TV.
• The floors were so slanted in Tim's and my room that a ball at one end would roll to the over
• At the end of first semester, finals are over, going home in a couple of days, for no good reason Mike Katz came to visit us (he never had before, we weren't close) with a pitcher of screwdrivers made with 50% vodka. This became the first time I got drunk in my life. Later that night, walked downtown (still quite drunk, enjoying the crisp winter air) and got pizza at Josie's. On the way, someone presented Wendell with a bottle of rum. At home, Wendell prepared rum & coke with said bottle. Well, later I learned he was halfway lieing, it was 100% 151 rum. Obviously, I 'blew chunks' subsequently and I recall passing out in our bathroom, and then abhorring orange juice on the airplane 2 days later.
• Similarly, at the end of the year, we had a cookout, accompanied by my favorite beer, Molson Brador, which we had brought home from Montreal. This was the real full strength Brador. Well, after 3, the bbq chicken I had so proudly help prepare came out of me and onto Joe Caswell's / Wendell Sexson's floor. Caswell signed my yearbook with the tagline, "Next time, it's your mess". Priceless.
• Rich dressed in drag at the haloween party. Storer Boone and wife as grapes.
• All of Wally's cool bose speakers, synth. And Wally taking some really hard classes
• Messing with Unix for the first time
• Watching Joe Arlinghaus mess with chat, especially under a female pseudonym
• The hole in the wall that Joe created in MOCPOSH, and having the repair guy come out at Joe's expense who proceeded to watch Oprah or something
• Going up to Montreal crammed into Alyssa's beat up diesel volkswagen wondering why in the world the border patrol would ever let us in. But they did!
• Laughing hysterically at myself as I watched young Jeremy (age 14) get served beer at the John Bull Pub in Montreal.
• Rico Vitale going to the Pink Floyd concert (that I missed!)
• Molson Brador beer
• Super Duper
• Calzones, delivered, along with a pint of Ben and Jerry's!
• The 'Cave' in Anton house, where Jeremy and Tree lived. I remember wanting that room when I previewed the campus. Wonder how long ago 'The Cave' was painted in watercolor on that window on said room's door?
• Clarkson Hockey Pep Band with Rico (on Trombone)
  • Matt's brand beer ball, which somehow supplied all occupants on the bus.
  • Playing with a select group on the back of a big flat bed truck as part of a parade/rally getting really cold.
  • Learning to love hockey
  • 'Pull up your pants' chanted at the half-time goal maintenance man
  • Getting the band to play the theme from Friday the 13th, but mistakenly, because the intent was to play it in honor of Jason the star goalie, the character from Haloween. And yet we still played the tune after the mistake was realized
  • Doing my one and only hand-penned music score, for the intro to 'Gimme some lovin', though it was sorely incomplete, and proudly having the band play it. Later, hearing another band at the Vermont game play it except fully scored!

End of Year Poem

(Tree writes) "This piece was published anonymously in the last issue of our little Schoolie newspaper. To this day I do not know who wrote it, though I have some ideas. These two paragraphs summarize the year perfectly."

We are a 50 piece orchestra, gathered together from the far reaches of the nation (and the world) to play one short symphony in a cold little town in northern New york. We came together and filed into our places, restless and nervous eyes jumping anxiously over unfamiliar faces. The conductor taped his baton and we began; a tenuous melody at first, sprinkled with a few instant harmonies and cacophonies. We gingerly moved about and then settled in comfortably together, slowly gaining confidence in each other as well as ourselves. Gradually, the voice escalated. There has been festivity, hardship, joy, and sorryow in the symphony we have created; we have grown as individuals as well as a group. We are now reaching the conclusion of our symphony; only a few bars and measures yet to be played. We will conclude in May, and with a sudden flash the music will abruptly end. We will pack our bags and go our separate ways, but we will all go home a little bit different than we started out. We shared a moment in each other's lives, one small movement in the greater symphony each of us will spend our entire lives composing. Thank you, all of you, for being a part of my live, I'll never forget you.

P.S. A little jazz ensemble will be returning in the Fall of 1988 to this cold little town in Northern N.Y...

-- MattWalsh - 21 Jun 2002