Fraternity Prank - Dave's Midwestern Ohio Memories

Series of Guest Blogs by an out-of-state Fish Report reader originally from this area about fond memories of growing up in Midwestern Ohio during the 1950’s & 60’s

Fraternity Prank

One of my college fraternity brothers named Doug unfortunately passed away recently in Dayton and after the funeral services, the brothers who attended were asked by the family to share some stories in his memory. The following passage written by Doug in 1998 about his fraternity pledge days in 1968 was read aloud:

“Fraternity Pledging Days"

"Any description of our pledge activities must include the nefarious rumors which circulated around the disappearance of a rather large wire spool from the construction area at GMI. All attempts to somehow associate the disappearance with our Pledge Class must go as unsupported coincidence. The fact that two distinct rolling marks led from the construction area to our fraternity driveway and then meandered across the street and through the golf course right into the Flint River are purely circumstantial and DNA testing clearly would have exonerated any complicity in the event (because the chemicals in the river would have killed any such evidence). However, there is a concern that there are lasting physiological effects on the troop of resourceful individuals who waded the soupy waters of the old Flint River to retrieve the aforementioned spool and return it to its rightful perch.”

Doug was characteristically clairvoyant, given that he wrote this 16 years ahead of when the Flint water quality crisis erupted.

The School song was also sung in three part harmony:

High above the old Flint River, factory whistles blow, toot, toot
Stands an ivy covered outhouse General Motors Institute (now Kettering University)
She's our mother, how we love her, raise her name on high, hi de hi de hi
To hell with Ford and Chrysler products, God bless GMI

Given the words highlighted in the song, rolling that huge spool downhill to the frat house and river was easy - getting it out of the river and rolling it uphill back to the college was a severe challenge - or so I would surmise since I too disavow any knowledge of the fabricated event.

If this occasion had happened, it surely would have turned out better than this video of a large spool being rolled downhill.

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