Flashback to 1973. I was a sophomore at Central Washington State College (Now Central Washington University) in Ellensburg. The night air was clean and crisp. A crowd gathered along the winding walkways between the cluster of dormitories.
The group of dorms included Beck, Hitchcock, Sparks, Quigley and Davies Halls. I lived on the first floor of Davies Hall; it was a co-ed dorm.
I was on the phone with my mother when a chant started softly among those huddled outside and quickly grew to a heart-pounding pitch. I opened my window and let the excitement of the experience wash over me.
“What’s going on there?” demanded my mother from the other side of the Cascade Mountains. “Janet Marie, what’s all that noise? Are you involved in some kind of wild party or something?”
“No, Mother,” I assured her. “But I really gotta go. I’ll explain tomorrow.”
“Janet Marie! Don’t you go getting arrested! Your father would never let me hear the end of it if you got arrested because I let you go to that school!”
“I won’t get arrested, Mom, I promise. But I don’t want to miss the fun, so I really gotta go now!” I quickly said good-bye and hung up.
The dorm window was low enough and wide enough to step through. I dropped to the ground outside and joined the chant: “Streak-er! Streak-er! Streak-er!”
We were soon rewarded, as a group of young men ran the gauntlet of the dorms, clad in nothing more than tennis shoes and ski masks. We shrieked and cheered, whistled and catcalled as the procession of bare butts flashed by.
Tomorrow’s a full moon… The mind works in mysterious ways…