The current pledge class was much more creative when it came to rebellion and retaliation than mine had been during the previous academic year. Perhaps it was an indication that times were changing. Dinks and Freshman hazing had been eliminated; now pledges thought it would be fun to do to the Actives what had been done to them.
The Rebellion of the Pledges took place on the Wednesday before everyone was scheduled to leave for the Thanksgiving Long-Weekend. About 5:30 a.m., I heard someone run up the stairs to the attic dormitory. The pounding woke me in time for me to see the flash and hear the explosion of a starter gun behind our closed door. The culprit dashed down the steps. Several brothers and I jumped up to investigate but did not get very far.
The pledges had removed the handle to the door, and we couldn’t open it. The hinges with their removable pins were on the other side. One of the Actives climbed though the dorm window onto an outside porch and re-entered through a side door into the common room on the second floor. He quickly removed the hinges. We had escaped the dorm, but we couldn’t get down the second story corridor, for it was now blocked by our lockers which the pledges had manhandled into new positions. We soon discovered that the doors to the three, shared bedrooms on the second floor had been tied together; the brothers sleeping there had been imprisoned as much as we had been in the attic.
We soon discovered that the electricity and water had been turned off. The toilet seats were coated with green goop of an unknown composition. When we managed to descend to the first floor, we learned that they had inverted the front door, leaving a foot-high empty space at the bottom. Needless to say, no pledge showed up for any details for the rest of the day. Most of us would be leaving for our hometowns after the last class of the day. However, someone did fix the front door so it could be bolted over the holiday.
My journal entry for Thursday, November 24 reads: “Everyone went home last night, but I feel that my home is right here in Kent – that’s where I stayed for Thanksgiving. I didn’t give thanks, although here this year I have much to be thankful for. But to whom do you give thanks? In my present state of philosophical flux I can’t give thanks to God. Not really. In conformity, I had a Thanksgiving Dinner at the Robin Hood. I studied for the rest of the day.”
So, yes, there were many forms of “rebellion.” The pledges exhibited theirs in physical, and, ultimately, amusing ways. My own rebellion was more internalized; it lasted throughout my academic time at both Kent State and, later, Cornell.
On the following Wednesday, the Actives provided the pledge-class with its own banquet, which was not quite as enjoyable as any they had experienced the previous Thursday with their families. We almost did not have the event. Mrs. Brewer, our Housemother, had been scheduled to be on an extended Thanksgiving weekend, but we learned, shortly before the pledges were to gather in the basement for their dining displeasure, that she had not felt well and had remained in her first-floor room since Monday. A vote was taken of the individual members living in the House about whether the ordeal for the pledges should be held. Since the majority agreed to continue it, albeit as quietly as possible, the pledges were assembled and weathered their repast well. However, the event was loud enough that Mrs. Brewer voiced her displeasure at the next opportunity she had.
The following weeks passed without any more rebellions. Two weeks later I took the train from Kent into Niles for the Christmas holidays. This year there was no rebellion on the home-front. Perhaps, it was because my parents ignored the holiday, itself. The usual home decorations were omitted. Maybe it had been the smell of pine needles that had provoked my father in previous years. There was no exchange of presents. The usual boring dinner was held “up-the-hill” on Christmas eve. The next night, I did attend a party with my cousins where we played cards most of the evening. The following days passed quickly, and I once more began a new year at Kent – one without any more major rebellions.