The Mud Fight

When I went to Kent State from 1964-68, one of the roughest patches was the big mud fight.  It was spring and a couple of kids must have thought it would be great fun to turn on the spigots behind several dorms in the central part of campus.

They turned it on all right.  That day the grassy area was turned into an enormous mud pit, and pity the unwary student who happened by that day, because the mud fighters would drag them in to join the party.  I walked by there on my way to classes that day, but the main drag was out of sight of the revelers and believe me, I was no mud fighter.

Later that evening was when the reality of the repercussions were felt.  The kids had nearly DRAINED the huge water tower.  Most people, and at that time me included, had no idea what the water tower did.  It wasn't just a storage facility for water; it created water pressure for the whole system.  Since the campus was expanded down the hill to my dorm and others beyond, water pressure was how the faucets worked and the toilets flushed.  So that afternoon, it didn't take long to realize that we didn't have running water in Beall Hall.

The cafeteria people did a great job of warming up dinner and serving it on disposable plates.  We didn't know what they were going to use for cleaning up pots and pans.  There were going to be no showers that night, but the worst of course, was not having a flushing toilet. 

Years later when Katrina hit and the evacuees made their way to the New Orleans Super Dome, my thoughts immediately returned to KSU and the evening of the mud fight.  I won't go into graphic detail, but people became sort of like animals in our part of campus.  My roommate's parents came with water in plastic jugs.  And all night long while we slept, the water tower was being refilled.  By morning, thankfully, the crisis had passed and the water pressure was restored. 

And the cleanup began, especially with the ground floor bathroom normally used by visitors.  Within a couple of days, the mud fight was a distant memory, save for some spectacular pictures that the yearbook staff captured for posterity. 

The capricious stunt had really backfired though, since those of us with the longer walk to class and the farthest from the tower were pretty peeved.  It wasn't all that funny for us.

And so it was another lesson learned for me at a fairly young age of how behavior changes so radically with just the simplest thing, and how quickly it goes downhill.  Recently, the ordeal of the passengers on the Carnival Cruise Lines "Triumph," brought the memory of KSU back to me again and I knew what would happen. 

We are so blessed to have running water.  It might be something that we hardly ever consider, but it is a gift.  And there are SO MANY of them in our lives that we could not possibly list or count them.
So when we turn on the tap today to wash a few dishes or brush our teeth, let's take a few moments to thank God.

Enjoying the spring so far?  I hope so.  It has been beautiful.

Correction -- Father's story from yesterday was NOT about him, as I had thought, but about a priest friend of his.  So I apologize for that error.  But the rest of the story stands true.