Author Archives: Natalie Strom

Painting trashcans

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Dentist
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/29/13
Primary Language: English

Every year at the informant’s high school, the senior class was allowed to paint all of the trash cans in school their class colors and logo. They would collect all of the trash cans on the football field and one day after school go wild painting them. This was school sanctioned and their class representatives on the faculty would participate as well. It was a way for the senior class to feel like they really owned their campus for their last year.

The year the informant’s class painted the trash cans they also filmed the television show Room 222 on campus. The informant and all of his peers in the senior class were very excited to see their colored trash cans on TV.

Order of the Arrow

Nationality: American
Age: 58
Occupation: Dentist
Residence: Los Angeles
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

The official Order of the Arrow website describes the organization as “Scouting’s Honor Society,” although it does say that it only received this designation in 1998. That would explain why my father’s experience with the Order of the Arrow in the Boy Scouts was quite different in the 60’s.

He described the Order of the Arrow as being an initiation ritual performed at the scouts’ summer camp on Catalina Island. Every summer the boys would be collected in a big U around the camp’s main fire. Men dressed in Native American costumes would perform a crude drumming then pull a small number of boys from the crowd (supposedly these boys were chosen ahead of time as superior scouts). The terrified boys would be draped in branches, forced to bow to the fire, and then sent to collect their sleeping bags from their cabins because they would sleep outside for the rest of the “Ordeal” (this is the official language from the OA website). For the next day the boys would not be allowed to speak, would be fed small amounts, and would be required to perform what the website calls “camp improvement projects.” My father said that it was tasks like cleaning out the latrines. After their Ordeal the scouts would again be presented to the campers around the fire the next night and allowed to go to dinner first.

 

For the official National Order of the Arrow description of the “Ordeal” and qualifications for Order of The Arrowmen, see http://www.oa-bsa.org/

“One thing you can’t say about her, she’s not lazy.”

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Student
Residence: Seattle
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

My grandfather was at home on hospice for nearly a year before he passed away. As most of my family lives in the city, we were all often at my grandparents’ home making sure we made the most of our last time with him. One day my cousin was over while my grandfather was being wheeled around the house in his wheelchair on a “walk.” While in the kitchen he expressed a desire for peanuts which was spectacular because he had not been eating. He was immediately presented with a bowl of peanuts which the entire room watched him eat. My cousin saw him drop a peanut on the ground and went to grab it, sparking this comment from my grandfather.

“That’s one thing you can’t say about her, she’s not lazy.”

Everything was very tense of course around this time but my family was always trying to see the humor in every situation. My cousin has the reputation in my family of being a big procrastinator and being kind of lazy, even she freely admits so. It seemed like my grandfather was being serious, and of course he was in a pretty poor state so he might very well have been, but the entire family thought it was very funny. We continue to bring the story up and my cousin often uses it as evidence in jest that she’s not as lazy as we say she is.

Sleepover Contracts

Nationality: American
Age: 24
Occupation: Student
Residence: Seattle
Performance Date: 4/27/13
Primary Language: English

When Shula was younger, she and her sister would spend most of the summer at their grandparent’s house in Los Angeles where their younger cousin also lived. The two girls always wanted to spend the night at their cousin’s house instead of at their grandparents’ because they had many rules and they wanted to stay up all night watching TV at their cousin’s house. However, with each night that they would stay at their cousin’s, get no sleep, make lots of noise and lots of mess, it became more difficult to get permission for these sleepovers. Undeterred, the three girls created “Sleepover Contracts” with promises for how good they would be, etc. to be signed by each girl. These were then presented to the grandparents and parents as proof that they deserved to have sleepovers. Usually these contracts were looked at as being “too cute” and were accepted. The girls also used power point presentations and pro v. con lists in their eternal quest for sleepovers.

“Getting Fiberglassed”

Nationality: American
Age: 21
Occupation: Student
Residence: Berkeley, CA
Performance Date: 4/20/13
Primary Language: English

My high school friend returned home from college the first semester with what she considered to be the most ridiculous story about her new sorority (she wasn’t totally sold on it yet).

One of her sorority friends had recently gone to the roof of one of the fraternity houses to hook up with one of the members. The next morning she woke up and her back was in extreme pain, she couldn’t tell why she felt like there were sharp things stuck all over her back. She told one of her other sorority friends about what had happened and the girl laughed. She explained that it was almost a rite of passage for girls in the sorority to “get fiberglassed” by laying down on the roof of that fraternity house. All of the girls pitched in using strips of duct tape to remove the fiberglass from the girl’s back.