fish Matches

The philosophy of the Corps of Cadets at A&M was that you provided service for a year, then received service for the next three. fish were supposed to be constantly prepared to be of service to an upper classman. Although it was the late 1960's, some upper classmen still smoked. That meant that they occasionally needed a light. Hence, the requirement that all fish carried matches at all times.

Not just any matches, though, but the wooden ones that came in a small box. And, since the fish are being trained to be fiercely loyal to their outfit, it made perfect sense for the number of matches in the box to have some connection to the outfit number. In our case, we had to carry exactly eleven matches, with "Heaven's Eleven" written in blue ink on each of the four sides of the wooden shaft of each match. That way, should an upper classman need a light, and one of our fish be the one to provide him a match, there would be no doubt of what outfit had trained such a squared-away fish.

There was one other opportunity for a fish match to be used - midnight yell practice. One of the traditions of midnight yell practice is that at some point, the lights in Kyle Field are extinguished. That is the signal for any Aggie who has brought a date, to plant a multi-minute kiss on her (since yell practice is supposed to be a rehearsal for the game, and since Aggies in the stands "score" by kissing their dates whenever the team scores, it's only natural that there would be a need to practice that maneuver at midnight yell practice.) At that point, it is a fish privilege to shed some light on the scene by igniting one or more of his fish matches - which, of course, he always has with him.

The bad news is that, since a fish needed to carry a full complement of matches at all times, whenever one got used, the fish had to manufacture another one ASAP.

John (Yankus) Yantis