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Steam Showers
If you have read many of the memories
at this site you have seen that Corps members had many
ways to be punished for infractions. And many times
the punishment was just that …punishment. There
were times, however, that the punishment, whether intended
or not, had a far greater effect. Such is the case of
our night in the "steam showers".
First a little background.
Scott Smyth (Flea) and John Foote (JT)
babo-bombed
AJ Kwan and Sammy Garcia (a couple of pissheads),
several weeks earlier. During the following weeks, the
pissheads punished us at every opportunity to get us
to tell who had done the deed.
Finally, in retaliation, a couple of our
fish buddies got us to drown-out
the pissheads (see the memory "Drowning the Pissheads").
It caused quite a commotion in the dorm and managed
to awaken everyone. Our CO,
Rusty Boggess, told the pissheads they could do with
us what they wanted and he went back to his room.
So, now the stage is set: It's now about
1:00 AM, we fish are "on
the wall", the pissheads are furious, and they
decide what to do. We had no idea what lay before us.
We were instructed to go back to our holes,
put on a jock strap, combat boots, raincoat, and pisspot
and be back on the wall in two minutes. Meanwhile, several
pissheads went in the crapper
and turned on only hot water on all of the shower heads
(I remember there being six of them).
I think a little explanation of the crapper
layout would be helpful here. The restrooms were approximately
15 feet wide and maybe 10 feet deep. The left side was
devoted to the toilets and urinals and the right side
was the shower area. The shower stall was one big common
area with all of the shower heads being lined up on
the right and left sides of the shower stall.
The hot water in the dorms was exceedingly
hot since A&M used a central system for delivering
hot and cold water (for the air conditioning system)
to the dorms. The hot water was so intense that someone
flushing the toilet or urinal was required to first
announce "crapper" before flushing the device
when someone was showering. This gave the person taking
a shower time to step out of the water and avoid a scalding.
Failure to call out "crapper", and thereby
scalding an upperclassman was an especially egregious
offense and resulted in an especially brutal "crap
out".
Now, back to our story.
The pissheads sent us into the crapper,
which was now filled with steam and an air temperature
of at least 115 - 120 degrees. They then began to put
us through endless rounds of pushups, sit-ups, and any
other physical exertion they could think of. Not only
was it exhausting but also the heat was brutal because
our raincoats did not permit the heat and sweat of our
bodies to escape.
There were only two small escapes from
the heat. The first was the floor itself. The floor
was quite cool and it became quite moist from the condensation.
When we went down to the floor with for a pushup, we
took out time and rubbed our faces on the floor. I recall
that this felt like heaven, at the time.
The second escape came from the doors.
The two doors into the restrooms left about a 4-inch
opening between the bottom of the door and the floor.
Cool air flowed through the openings, which we were
quick to recognize and exploit. There was a slow but
perceptible circulation of fish bodies but these openings
so everyone got a chance at some relief from the heat.
When we got the point that all of us were
too exhausted, and no doubt in danger of heat exhaustion,
we were sent out into the hallways for a different experience.
We were then made to duck walk up and down the hallways.
If you have ever tried duck walking you know that it
is a very tiring experience. We did this for untold
minutes until, again, we were too exhausted. Then it
was on to the smoking room.
We were instructed to go to our holes
and bring back anything that could be smoked, cigarettes
or cigars. We had just finished our Christmas
dinner that night so we all had cigars passed out
by our waiters. When we returned we were all shepherded
into a fish hole and instructed to light up and keep
puffing.
The effect of 20+ thoroughly exhausted
fish smoking in an enclosed 10 foot by 10-foot area
is indescribable. We were already so exhausted that
most of us could barely stand. The smoke made it even
worse.
Then a remarkable thing happened that
today I wonder whether it was accidental or planned.
None of us had any energy to spare - it seemed almost
a matter of survival to save yourself and worry about
others later. In spite of that basic instinct, our arms
began reaching out like tentacles, wrapping around each
other to support those of us in danger of collapsing
from exhaustion.
Without getting too metaphyisical, we
were finally achieving a state where we transcended
our individual selves. We were thinking of ourselves
truly as a single entity instead of individuals. This
was the thing that had been told to us since our first
days as fish, we collectively were one. Now, we finally
understood what it meant and we behaved accordingly.
That was all well and good and something
we understood only in retrospect. We were still concerned
about what the pissheads has in store for us the rest
of the night since it was only 3:00 or 4:00 AM.
The rest of the night was devoted to cleaning
up the mess we had made. First, we mopped up all of
the water in their rooms from the drowning we had done
to them. Then, the pissheads made us exchange our dry
mattresses for their wet ones. Finally, we shined and
dried all of their shoes, which were, by regulation,
just under their bunks and in line to receive any water
coming off the beds.
We finally finished around 6:00 AM, just
in time for fist call for breakfast.
I have always wondered about the steam
showers. There was a rumor that the zips our fish year
sent the serge butts to the steam showers for some reason.
I don't have any idea how often this was done (was it
a ritual for every fish class) that we did not pass
on?) How did the pissheads know about it if not done
to them? Anybody have any answers?
Tom (TE) Schoolcraft
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Yankus's comment:
Just for the sake of completeness, there's another memory
that fits under this title. As Tom mentioned above,
turning on all the hot water in the showers quickly
turned the entire crapper into a sauna, and, as Tom
indicated, since the door didn't seal the place, a lot
of the steam found its way into the hall. All of this
created a wet mess, invited mold and mildew, caused
some of the paint to peel, made the crapper unusable
for awhile, and consumed a huge amount of energy and
water. But it sure was nice sometimes to relax in a
make-shift sauna. So, it was a white-belt privilege
to take a steam shower. There were benches just outside
the shower where you could put towels, robes, etc.,
while you showered. The usual practice for a steam shower
was to move those benches into the shower itself, to
give the users a place to sit and relax while the steam
soaked away the effects of a day working on bonfire,
a particularly hard-fought intramural game, or a full
night of consuming alcoholic beverages.
John (Yankus) Yantis
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Gonzo's Comments:
I very clearly remember Sam and I going into Shipman's
(and his roomie...Walker?) room and empting a trashcan
of water on them. I can't remember if Sam or I got old
Charlie Shipman, but I remember hearing him gasp like
it would be his last and of course Sam and I exited
rather quickly...laughing our ass off. I was the whistle
jock that week and remember blowing the whistle as a
sign for all of us to "douche out" the pissheads
at the same time. That incident was the cause of us
going to the steam showers.
Ray (Gonzo) Gonzales
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