*Sigh*

Well, the Vols lost this past weekend. They were just out gunned. It looked like they might make a game of it, but in the end, Cal just waxed our asses. I hate losing the first game of the season. Now I'm heading to Knoxville next weekend to see Tennessee play Southern Miss, a team that always plays above it's head. I've been dreaming about college a bit lately. I lived at the fraternity house for about 2 1/2 years. This past spring, the University decided to tear down the old house which was on the edge of campus.

The house was old and drafty, no air conditioning in the summer, but I had some great times there and have a lot of memories of the place. I expect it to be gone when I get there this weekend. The picture above is typical, there were always a bunch of guys hanging out on the front stoop. This was before a softball game. Here is a picture of a Christmas party we had in '89.The tradition was that one of the guys dressed up as Santa and you would sit on his lap while you opened your gift (we drew names). Since most of us were poor, the majority of gifts consisted of a bottle of the worst tasting alcohol you could find. When you unwrapped it, you immediately drank as much of it as you could. That's me on Santa's lap and I think that was the year I got something called "Corn Crib" which was either a whiskey that had been aged less than a month or some type of paint remover. It was pretty nasty.

Now the guys have moved to what was always called "The New Row." It was actually an area that the school had built for the older fraternities. Another fraternity got kicked off of campus and we have apparently moved into their old digs. The place looks pretty soulless and I don't remember ever going in there, but it should have heat and air and make rush easier for the guys. Beta Theta Pi was my fraternity and it now occupies the old Delta house. I'm sure it's nice enough, but their was something to be said about living in a place where your heat came from an oil fired boiler and if you didn't have the tank topped off regularly, you would invariably find yourself without heat on the coldest night of the year. Of course this would become an excuse to party and create a memory. Anyway, so now I go back to my Alma mater this weekend and I will cruise by the old place and relive a few good times.