KWC Part 5: Crushes, Chaos, and Concussion

Crushes

There was a girl back home whom I was truly, deeply, madly in love with, as in love as any boy who had never been in love could be. We had both dated others, were never exclusive, and, looking back, were probably—really—just the absolute best of friends—but that read as love to me. I still have that glow in my heart.

That said, college was a revelation. Here was a literal surfeit of NEW girls. Women! Women I had not spent most of 12 years being acquainted with in one way or another. Women from places other than Lexington, Kentucky! From other states! Even from other countries! Just as importantly, they didn’t know me! Nerdy, shy, and embarrassed/embarrassing me. Freshmen, Sophomores, Juniors, Seniors—all of them, to my virgin eyes, possibilities. For what I had no idea, but possibilities, nonetheless.

I dated a couple of the freshman (freshwoman?) women, but my heart wasn’t in it. I did, almost, fall for one sophomore—M.N.—in an innocent, interested, fumbling way, but when she came back from Thanksgiving break married, I was broken for a while as far as romance went. Better to flirt and, occasionally, be flirted with harmlessly.

Of course, I was a cad, a wannabe lothario. As the song says, “You always hurt the one you love, the one you shouldn’t hurt at all…”

But I had a few crushes.

The first was Ali. We had a long-running game where I would put my hand on her knee and say, “Trust me?” and if she answered, “Yes.” I would scoot my hand upward a bit until she said, “No.” Ali  never said no, but I was too timid to see how far I could take the game.

K.B., D.H, L.H, M.J., R.R., S.S. Crush after innocent crush. I gave things I valued to crushes when I was manic and wished them back when I was depressed. No harm, no foul, and as far as I know, no hearts broken except my own, occasionally, for a while.

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Chaos

There was (maybe still is) a KWC Sig Ep tradition of a pledge scavenger hunt where active members would provide an insanely broad list of items for the pledges to obtain in one evening. The instructions were typically “get these things” and “don’t get caught”. The items were typically (unbeknownst to us) unobtainable, unobtainable without at least petty larceny, or fictional. As an aid, the pledges were given a Polaroid camera and exactly one 10-exposure film pack.

Here are a few examples that I remember from the list:

• Something from the Chemistry storage closet (I don’t remember what, but it doesn’t matter because we couldn’t get in the door and even we weren’t stupid enough to try to scale a sheer wall to the second-floor window to try and break in).

• The (very expensive) flood lights from the front of the Admin building. We got those, and received word the day after that charges would not be brought if we returned them forthwith. We did, and they weren’t.

• A memorial plaque from a tree in front of the Admin building. We got it, but since we had no screwdriver and were loath to waste our film, one of us broke it off its stake. The same for the sign over one of the dean’s offices. Yes, we were stupid.

• The Crittenden St. sign.

• The horse (or was it a cow?) statue in front of a local business. Too heavy. We took a picture.

• A photo of us in a cell at the local jail, and a signature from the duty officer. Yeah, right. A mostly tipsy band of college boys is going to strut into the belly of the beast and ASK to be photographed in the jail cell they so richly deserved. No. Uh Uh.

• An electric tar heater, used to apply mirror shards to the side of the Progress Printing building. As far as we knew, there was no such thing. BUT…in a moment of serendipity, we had rented a room at Motel 6 to store our items in while we were ravaging the city. The bed in that room was equipped with a coin-operated 1,000 Fingers Massage, which apparently someone (not us) had tired of, and instead of waiting out the timer, had ripped the electrical cord from the box. Cord plus tobacco stick, and PRESTO! Electric Tar Heater!

• There might also have been something about going to the whore house (ahem, Adult Theater) in the Indiana village of Reo, but I might be remembering something from someone else’s scavenger hunt. Anyway, we didn’t tempt already overstretched fate by crossing state lines.

And so, after a brief nap at the Motel 6, we hauled our—erm, haul back to campus and were met with the cheers of our amused brothers-to-be and—WTF? My Dad.

He, of course, knew nothing of the scavenger hunt. He had just stopped in to see what condition my condition was in. Seriously, though, he was about to fly to Tucson on a business trip and had time to go 90 minutes out of his way to see me before he flew out of Louisville. And this is where he began alternating between “country club” and “criminal enterprise” in his descriptions of my time at KWC.

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Concussion

So I made it through the first semester at KWC reasonably unscathed with (as I would find out) a 3.8 grade average. Yay, me.

But it wasn’t over yet. I was to go home on the Saturday after finals, but not without celebrating on Friday. I drank a bottle of Boone’s Farm Country Kwencher with Anthony and others, then decided to load my stuff into the car for my drive in the morning. I was happy, enthusiastic, pleasantly buzzed. And then, immediately after jumping from the first step to the next landing, I bounced the top of my head off the dangling finial of the landing above. Instantly sober, blood dripping down my face, I stumbled into the restroom and rinsed off. Was I queasy and unsteady from the wine? Or was it from banging my head on a chunky iron pole?

Mark C. looked at my head and announced that I was fine and should just tie some strands of hair together, and there would be no problem. Idiot. My roommate Bart, having a bit more sense, suggested he drive me to the ER. Not an idiot.

At the ER, x-rays proved I probably wouldn’t die since there was no hole in my head, but the doctor advised that I probably had a concussion and shouldn’t sleep for a while. So if you have a concussion and you go to sleep, does that mean you’re gonna go into a coma and/or die? I was confused.

Bart agreed to stay up and make sure I didn’t go into a coma and/or die, and because I was still young and able to stay awake for 24 hours or more, I drove home the next morning without incident. I can’t remember if I ever mentioned the whole concussion thing to Mom and Dad.

As it turned out, that would be the last Christmas I would see in my childhood home. As it turned out, Dad transferred to Tucson and, soon after school ended in June, Mom, my brother, and I followed him out there.

© 2026, Brian G Parker