Mail Detail

Read the Whistle Jock memory, then read this one.

Like Whistle Jock, two other "details" or duties that the fish class was responsible for were Mail Detail and Laundry Detail, and similarly, those duties were also rotated among the fish in an outfit.

Every weekday morning after chow and before classes, the fish who had Mail Detail made the rounds of the halls of his outfit, like the Whistle Jock had done earlier, but without the whistle (some of the white-belts might still be in the bag.) The fish would call out, "Heaven's Eleven, Mail Detail". Any upper classman who had a letter that needed mailing would open his door, and hand the letter to Mail Detail. Some white-belts who were bagging in might stick an outbound letter on their door, tucked between the door and the holder that was used for class schedules. After a pass through the halls, the Mail Detail fish would be free to go to class, or study in his hole. But sometime during the morning, he had to take the letters to the Post Office in the Memorial Student Center (MSC, or "the C").

Like Whistle Jock, sometimes a whimsical white-belt would direct Mail Detail to change the standard announcement. One I remember was, "Heaven's Eleven. Pony Express. Pony Express hauling balls across the prairie in 15 minutes."

When we were at A&M, part of the room and board in the Corps included laundry service. Each cadet bought a cloth laundry bag which had a draw-string tie at one end, and was assigned a laundry number. Approximately twice a week, laundry could be turned into the collection point behind Duncan Dining Hall. The laundry bag had to be accompanied by a multi-part form that indicated what items were in the bag, the cadet's name and outfit, and the cadet's laundry number. Everything that went through the laundry got marked in indelible ink with the laundry number (I've still got rags, that used to be t-shirts and sheets, that have my A&M laundry mark on them). A couple of days later, the laundry would be available for pick-up back at the drop-off point.

This situation created another opportunity for the fish to serve the outfit - Laundry Detail. Usually, Laundry Detail took at least two fish to perform. One made the rounds, like Mail Detail and Whistle Jock, again, without the whistle, and upper classmen placed their laundry bags in the hall for collection. The fish were responsible for getting all the bags to the drop-off point before the deadline (usually something like 10am). The good news is that the laundry bags weren't all that heavy, but the bad news is that they were bulky, and carrying enough of them by the drawstrings could be a real pain.

Dry cleaning, on the other hand, wasn't included in Corps room and board. A cadet had the choice of turning in his dry cleaning to the same drop-off point as laundry, and paying a per-item fee when it was ready, or of using an off-campus establishment. The on-campus dry cleaning was cheaper, but off-campus cleaners were usually faster, and had higher quality.

fish and pissheads had to pick up their own laundry when it was clean. White-belts had the choice of picking up their own clean laundry (and dry-cleaning, if they used the on-campus service), or sending their next-door fish to pick it up. In that situation, the fish were usually compensated by the granting of some temporary privilege.

John (Yankus) Yantis