Epic Food Fights.

I'm sure this is a surprising topic for some of you...however for my classmates from West Point this is NO SURPRISE AT ALL.  Recently one of our classmates sent an email asking for confirmation of a food fight that happened during our yearling (sophomore) year in the mess hall.  As a threshold matter, I don't know why this guy asked for "confirmation" other than he must have some sort of memory disorder -- because there is NO WAY ON EARTH anyone could forget this food fight.  (Perhaps his request for "confirmation" was rhetorical...I would love to rhetorically confirm things in my personal life..."Can you confirm that you're being a dick right now?"  Ha!)

Now let me first tell you about the mess hall -- which is not what most people picture when they think of the term.  It is a beautiful Gothic building with vaulted ceilings, stone walls, slate floors and either portraits or murals hanging from the walls.  It is called Washington Hall and there is a large statue of George Washington in front of the mail entrance.  (Gen. Washington picked the location, where West Point is today, to build a fort during the Revolutionary War -- later Pres. Jefferson signed a bill authorizing the Academy at that location.)  Anyway, it's an impressive place.  They feed 4400 cadets there simultaneously every lunch and dinner.  So....basically a prime place for an all-out epic food fight.

During Army/Navy week, the school goes a little nuts....as does the administration.  In the fall of 1984, the "powers that be" decided that they would serve something they called "goat stew" to the cadets (I guess thinking that it would be appropriate for the upcoming football game).  Well....it looked like some sort of rejected sloppy joe mix -- it had chunks of some kind of meat (I've heard that it was buffalo) and reddish, oily sauce in a metal tub.  I believe they gave us rice or something with it.  In sum, it was inedible.  I didn't even try it and was already thinking about the pizza my roommates and I would order after the meal.  I don't know where exactly it started but suddenly (I mean as fast as a flash) food was flying.  I remember seeing whole waves of the "goat stew" flying over my head.  I quickly hid under the table and watched with fascination as the fight ensued.  I mean...this was one of the funniest things I've ever seen.  In my opinion, a good spat of mashed potatoes on the side of my brother's face is funny but watching waves of rice and punch and reddish meat product fly is the stuff of legend.  [As an aside, I don't know why food fights are so hilarious but I was barely able to breathe because it was so funny.  This may be a poor reflection on my personality but I still love a good food fight...although they happen less and less often.]  This fight continued until there was nothing left to throw.  It probably didn't last more than 5 or 10 minutes.

The aftermath.  First, the smell.  You know when your mother told you that it didn't matter that the peas touched your meat because "it all ends up in the same place anyways?"  Well...I saw what that place looks like and now I INSIST that my peas don't touch my meat.  Sometimes I think about the mess hall after that food fight and I have to hug myself and go to my "happy place."  I guess a garbage dump would be a good comparison but this was somehow wetter and grosser.  Maybe because there weren't any paper products to get in the way.  Anyway, the smell was horrible and, of course, it only got worse with time.  I could barely keep myself from vomiting (although no one would have noticed if any vomit was on the floor because...well...that's what it looked like...only a few shades redder and darker).  Also, the floor was so slippery.  Slate floors and a mix of "goat," milk, rice and punch are not very good for traction (store that one in your memory banks for the future).  Also...there is nothing worse than slipping and falling onto a substance that resembles vomit -- take it from someone who knows.  I don't know where the slime-quality came into play (whether it was originally part of the "goat" stew or whether that was a property chemically created by it's mixture with everything under the sun).  This slimy mixture was EVERYWHERE!  All over the walls and the paintings too.

We went back to our barracks and basically had to be "hosed down" and, not surprisingly, wrote off our uniforms.  I don't know how quickly the word came down but we were ordered to put on our "gym A" and report back to the mess hall for cleanup.  "Gym A" was basically our exercise uniform which was a white shirt with our name printed on the left chest area over a school crest and polyester black shorts with yellow piping.  Very attractive.  Oh yeah...we had to tuck our shirts in too.  Which, only added to the awesomeness of that 70s-reject outfit.  The mess hall was disgusting (as I've mentioned) and I couldn't stay in there very long.  In other words, I didn't do any of the cleanup.  During my brief time in the mess hall, I remember seeing that crap all over the walls and the paintings.  Bad.

Well, the entire corps of cadets ended up getting charged for that food fight.  Our next pay stub said something like "mess hall clean up" or maybe just "clean up" and I think it was a charge of about $1 or so.  Pretty fair because most of us participated and the clean up couldn't have been cheap.  I'm sorry to say I didn't really participate .... I couldn't stop laughing though and felt it was worth every dime.  They put plexi-glass "shields" over the paintings afterwards too.  Good times.

I guess we hadn't gotten it totally out of our systems because at the Army/Navy game that year (yes...the exact one that we got served the "goat" stew for), we had a food fight at the stadium in Philadelphia.  It wasn't nearly as gross because the food involved (sub sandwiches) wasn't nearly as gross.  There was a brief concern that the flinging of mustard packets would escalate but that never really happened.  I don't think it got caught on national TV but...I sure wish it had.  All I had to do after that one was brush a few wrappers, stale bread and meat-substitute stuff off my uniform.  We cadets sure knew how to party back then...

I think I should explain the mustard thing.  In case you don't know this (my family does...very well).  I HATE mustard.  I hate onions too but I REALLY HATE mustard.  I don't like touching the container that holds mustard and I will never eat anything (knowingly) that contains mustard or even used to contain mustard (no...you can't just scrape it off the bread).   

Comments

[Michael J Pratt]

Girl - you give great blog. Bravo