Dorm Tales: Smokey

One day I went downtown to borrow the "Smokey the Bear" costumes from the to the US Forest Service, somehow managed to fit the big crate into my trunk, and bring it back to SJSD. The nuns, while giggily helps me put it on before I went downstairs to make an unannounced visits to the classrooms, spreading the messages, "Don't Play With Matches," while hanging out comics. Apparently, one Deaf child wasn't paying attention, he set a dumpster on fire at the Thomas Moore High School. I need a break a few times to go out and cool off, it's so damn hot inside and drank gallons of water to prevent dehydration. If you been to Gallaudet, you probably met "Smokey" at the national zoo. Smokey is a symbol of our great and beautiful national parks, reminding us all that only we can prevent forest fires. If you wondering how I got my nickname, "Smokey;" here's my story, our KDES/MSSD Troop went down to the Deaf Scout Camporee in North Carolina, the tobacco state where I bought several cartons of cigarettes that our Scoutmaster thrown into the campfire, trying to discourage me from ever smoking them, actually they were for my sister as I don't smoke. We had a couple of fathers with us, they couldn't put up with my snoring, keeping them awaken all night. It's then I became known as Smokey. That summer, at the Goshen Scout Camp, in Virginia, that father who gave me the nickname ordered me to move out of my tent so that he can sleep alone. That night it rains, soaking him wet, so I got even, giving him a nickname, "Sad Sack." Our Scoutmaster became know as the "White Tornado" after that laundry commercial because you'll never see him without a clean undershirt that's brighter than the lighthouse. I was feeling real low after watching the last American helicopter lifting off from the rooftop of the US Embassy in Saigon but Sad Sack tries to cheer me up when he sung, "Hitler's Youth'' anthem he learn as a young boy growing up in Germany, he knows my feelings because he been through it all watching the Soviets blown up the swastika atop the Reichstag   during the downfall of the Third Reich. On the way back from the camporee, the water pump in our KDES vehicle bursted on Interstate 95, the first curse that haunted me since.  A MSSD father became known as "Cowboy Pete" as he always wears a bola tie. He lets his son sit on his laps,  drive to a cabin in the woods of Pennsylvania, losing a mirror along the way. I had to remind Cowboy Pete that the van is not a horse, it belongs to Gallaudet and we just can't blame it on the trees that scratches it. In a similar manner, we lost a window on the SJSD van on the way back from the Indiana Deaf Scout Camporee. We continues the tradition at SJSD with a new set of characters, Tom as "Big Foot" and Bob as the "Ironman," their stories will be told in an upcoming episode of the "Dorm Tales" series right here on Deaf Anthology.

The White Tornado is now working with the Kentucky Commission on the Deaf. Sad Sack made a surprise visit with us at the 1981 National Scout Jamboree. SJSD Damien, Randy, and Jeff along with WSD Paul attended. The whereabouts of Cowboy Pete is unknown, probably lassoing bulls at some rodeos
This blog is dedicated to the late Ronnie Sistere (1961-1988), MSSD Eagle Scout who died of AIDS, great kid, missed his laughter, he brighten my day when he did a ceiling to floor mural of me as a giant rat in uniform.