The Code

I went to a small Christian college. When I say small, I mean tiny. There were two dorms, one for the guys and one for the girls. As a guy, it was great because it was like every guy on campus lived in the same frat house. But it wasn’t too wild. It was a very conservative Christian school. We had dorm hours. 10:30 weeknights. Midnight weekends. That was kind of a bummer, but it helped build great community.  I can connect with any of those guys all these years later, and it’s like no time has passed. It was a great season of life.

One of the downsides of that small college was the small number of women to date. Most of them were there to find a husband. That isn’t misogynistic. That’s a fact. There were very few of them that were attractive. They had their choice of dates. Again, I know that this is going to sound mean, but it’s true. Most of the girls were, were, um, how do I say this? They were…well, let’s just say the couches in the girl’s dorm lounge were always broken. Lots of “great personalities.” Tons in fact.

One night, after the doors were locked, it was the typical scene. Some guys were studying. Others were hanging out, watching TV. Guys were goofing off, in various stages of undress, just being guys. Then the pay phone rang (Yes, the pay phone. It was that long ago.). One of the girls from the girl’s dorm called in a panic. There were guys snooping around outside, trying to peek in the windows.

I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a testosterone explosion, but it’s something to behold. Within 30 seconds, every guy in the place knew what was happening, grabbed baseball bats, hammers, rocks, ANYTHING and bolted out the door. We scoured the campus. We were ready to bring the pain to those pervs. Our eyes flashed red. Steam poured from our ears. It. Was. On.  After about ten minutes of heart pounding, it became clear. Nobody was there.

Quietly, in our various stages of undress, our cadre of masculinity walked back to the dorm. The silence was deafening. We were both relieved and upset that there was nobody to smack around. In the end, our women were safe. That had all of us thinking along the same line. “What was that all about?” The quandary left us silent.

Out of the silence, spoke the sage of the ages, Mark “Cuss” Watkins. Cuss was exactly what that name would lead you to picture. Large guy, cowboy boots, cowboy hat with a confederate flag bandana tied around it, gym shorts, cut off Texas Tech t shirt, and a bright red beard that would make the Duck Commander jealous. Cuss spoke and he spoke for all of us.

“Okay, they’re cows. But they’re our cows.”

Every last one of us fell to the parking lot in laughter. That sums it up. These aren’t perfect people, but they are our people and I will defend them to my last breath. That’s the unwritten Dad Code. It’s the unwritten Friend Code. And it seems to me to be a great code for living life.

 

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