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mnc@pobox.com
The
Three H's
Gary was experienced in hacking the New York City subways, and when they heard rumors of steam tunnels on Main Street campus, Clambo and Gary investigated. Along with Dave, they mapped the tunnels, coming up in sub-basements to peer about looking like large, lost rodents.
There was a lot of construction on campus that year, and many a happy night was passed climbing scaffolding, scaling walls, and basically doing B&E’s (breaking and entering, for the uninformed). Clambo and company never stole anything except the occasional rare souvenir, this being the second H, Horking. Designing explosive devices, making black powder in a dorm room, and water-ballooning passing cars were clearly the best ways to cause Kiwi, the third H.
Hacking
As a freshclam, one of the courses Clambo had was an odd little one-credit course called "Freshman Orientation." An architect visited the class as a guest lecturer to speak on the history of the university (and how it became overly-large). The lecture was basically boring and confusing, because many of the buildings on campus have been renamed four or five times. Building names have been recycled, depending on who is in favor (which alumnus has given money recently). Then he started talking about the steam tunnels.
"Has anyone ever been in the steam tunnels?" he asked.
Knowing that tunnel-hacking is illegal, Clambo was a bit reluctant to answer. Clambo knew it would be difficult to conquer the world from inside a jail cell. Most of the great world conquerors have known this simple fact. Napoleon knew it was caputs when he was imprisoned on the island of St. Helena, although it is often said that he became a fantastic "Checkers" player during those last six years of his life.
Never known for being prudent, Clambo halfheartedly raised his hand.
"Isn’t it great down there?" said the architect excitedly. "You just have to watch out for the bar line. That has 220 volts running through it. Touch that, and they’ll carry you out in a body bag. Oh, and be careful not to go into the nuclear reactor. Go through the wrong door and you’ll be in the middle of a Van de Graaff accelerator. Other than that, it’s pretty safe."
Clambo traded stories with the head-case of an architect after class ended. Public Safety (the Brown Clowns) never did come to slap the cuffs on our Napoleon-to-be.
Horking
For obvious legal reasons, the clamlord has insisted that I not mention any of his horking activities. Instead I will relate a tale of monumental horking on the part of a resident of Pritchard Hall, Lance. It was with Lance that Clambo executed his first criminal trespass into neighboring Squire Hall (the Student Union being turned into Dental School). But since that second week of school, Lance and Clambo had a falling out. Lance spent most of his time conducting experiments to determine the effects of Hash Oil on the human body.
During the final week of Clambo's freshman year though, Lance reappeared in Clambo's life. Steve Sementelli came down from the fouth floor to visit Clambo one evening, and said, "Lance stole a bottle of ether from one of the medical buildings, he's opened it up. I came down here to get away from it. But you've got to go check it out."
Clambo, Marco, and a rock guitarist from Oneonta, New York decided that this did indeed bear investigation. Along with Steve they ventured up the central staircase of L-shaped Pritchard Hall. Upon arriving at the fourth floor they were treated to a bizzare spectacle. Lance and several of his druggy friends had opened the bottle in Lance's room. They attempted to keep the ether in by covering the crack under the door with towels, but to no avail. The smell of ether was strong, had someone lit a match, Clambo would not have been suprised if the building exploded. Several people were wandering the hall aimlessly. One fellow stumbled past Clambo saying, "Do you think we should call Public Safety?" to no one in particular. The group walked past Lance's door and down the stairway at the far end of the hall.
After only a minute or two of exposure to the ether, Clambo's group was lightheaded. They retired to the guitarists room and suffered a fit of the giggles. Clambo kept repeating the phrase "Come back here you bunny rabbit!" This only contributed to the general state of sillyness which lasted for the next 10 minutes.
Later Clambo learned that Public Safety did arrive. They discovered that Lance and his cronies had fled, but normally street smart Lance had left the door unlocked, and the bottle of ether in the center of the room. The following year, Clambo bumped into Lance on campus. The shocked and dismayed Clambo simply said, "What are you doing here? I thought you were kicked out of school."
Kiwi
Another event that occured during the final week of Clambo's freshman year was the finest example of Kiwi. Clambo had spent the year attempting to scare his roomate Alex away. You see, Alex was from Long Island, the land Clambo had fled. Alex personified everything which was offensive about the sandbar called Long Island. So Clambo made black powder (practicing for the Jibblet), and explosive devices in an attempt to scare the alcoholic rugby player away.
This plan failed however, and left Clambo with two pounds of unused black powder at the end of the spring semester. One night the rock guitar player down the hall mentioned to Clambo, Gary, Gary's older brother (visiting from Brooklyn) and Steve that he possesed several small bottles of flashpowder left over from his rock band days in Oneonta. But to use these for a crime would be a waste of effort, they needed a larger crime, something more epic. Clambo mentioned the homemade explosive, and a crime was born.
The group cut a plastic two liter coke bottle down to its black plastic base, and inserted a electric fuse (of the model rocket variety) through the side. The black powder and theatrical flash powder were mixed, along with some magnesium scrapings, and dumped into the former soft drink container. Fifty feet of speaker wire and a large lantern battery would be used to initiate the firestorm. Now where to put it...
The University of Buffalo has two campuses five miles apart, and students travel between them by buses owned by the Bluebird bus company. Someone in Clambo's demented gang (perhaps it was Clambo), said "Let's put it in front of a Bluebird!" It was decided that Clambo would be the battery man, and that the rest of the gang would board the 11:30pm bus. As the bus came around the one-way loop road that served the bus stop, Clambo would ignite the flashpot about 50 feet in front of the bus. The bus would be traveling at about 10mph, so little actual danger to the passengers was anticipated. The driver however would wet his or her pants.
Clambo donned his Clamsoldier garb and headed to the bus stop with his gang. He found a shallow ditch near the road to lie in, and had the rock star put the flashpot in the road. As Clambo laid in the darkness, a hapless student passed directly by the ditch, he walked by oblivious to Clambo's presence. Clambo stirred and sat up after he passed, and the young man stood shocked, as if he'd seen a ghost. After noticing the Clamsoldier garb, he wisely departed the scene.
There was a problem though, the speaker wire had not been stripped on Clambo's end. He could not attach it to the battery. He called back the rock star to have him get the gang off the bus. Clambo pointed out the problem to Gary, and an angry Gary stated "You could have stripped it with your teeth!" But it was too late, the bus had passed. The next bus was the last one of the night, and was not scheduled for another hour. They returned to the dorm to kill time. The waiting bored Clambo though, and he decided to go ahead by himself and scope the area out for an escape route. This time he would be prepared
The Monarch of clams left the flashpot behind at the dorm and scouted out the area. While snooping about, a campus police officer (Brown Clown) in a K-9 patrol station wagon stopped Clambo to question him (must have been the fatigues). Clambo found the the questioning unnerving because the extremely large German Sheppard in the back of the car was slobbering at him with a "let me out, I want to eat him" look. Clambo gave the Public (Pubic?) Safety officer a lame story about how he was looking for a short cut, and the officer let him go. Clambo returned to the dorm and related this event to the gang. The leader of bivalves would not be the battery man, he had been unsettled by his recent experience.
It was clear though that such a device could not be wasted. Another area would have to be chosen. The group (minus the prudent rock bank member) headed off Campus to complete their heinous deed. They journeyed behind Tops supermarket, a place famous for its bulk food section. Two of Clambo's friends, (Jon and Evan) were responsible for the new "No Tasting" sign after being caught trying to make a meal out of the bulk food section.
So it was in a dark neighborhood behind Tops that the gang of four set about their dastardly deed. After simply placing the flashpot in the center of a quiet residential street, they soon discovered that it would not go off. Perhaps there was a break in the speaker wire, someone reasoned. The 50 feet of speaker wire was actually a ten foot length with a 40 foot length spliced on the end. So 40 feet of speaker wire was removed, making the article much more dangerous to ignite.
The idea now was to find a house with in which the inhabitants were still awake and set the device in their front lawn. A suitable home was soon spotted, several lights were on, and an occupant could be seen silhouetted in an upper window. Clambo wisely refused to be the trigger man in this increasingly hazardous prank. Gary and Steve stepped forward and volunteered, leaving Clambo and Gary's brother as spectators.
The two madmen darted across the street and set the flashpot in the yard. They turned their back on it, Steve holding the battery, and Gary the wire. Gary hunched under Steve's 6'4", 250lb bulk, and touched the wire leads to the terminals of the battery. Suddenly there was this FOOSH noise, and the entire front yard was filled with a 30 foot tall mushroom cloud of smoke, interspersed with sparklings of blue-white magnesium. Gary and Steve were unharmed, but their backsides suddenly were 20 degrees warmer.
Across the road, Clambo and Gary's brother rolled in laughter, and attempted to run. Gary and Steve followed, but were also quickly caught by the giggles. The gang fled the scene as quickly as their boughts of laughter would allow.
In addition to the three H's, many other odd things happened to Clambo that year. One time, Gary and Clambo were watching "Late Night" (having dubbed themselves the "Late Night Crue") when two men in their mid-twenties, wearing trenchcoats, came into the dorm. They carried luggage and deposited it in the hallway.
A student using the public phone asked, "Do you guys want to use the phone?"
One of the suspicious characters responded, "Uh, yea."
After the student finished the call, they continued to pace nervously in the hallway. So the student said, "Didn’t you guys want to use the phone?"
Nervously, they responded, "Uh, no."
Gary and Clambo watched this scene from the TV lounge with befuddled looks on their faces. After ten minutes, the dubious pair entered the lounge and questioned them authoritatively, "Is this Pritchard Hall?"
Clambo was confused, but answered, "Yes."
Continuing the questioning, they said, "And Campus Security is 636-2222?"
"Unh hunh," muttered Clambo and Gary in unison.
And with that, they started to wander out. Looking for answers, Clambo asked, "Hey, are you guys the FBI or something?" They didn’t answer, walked out of the TV lounge, and left the building with their luggage. To this day, Clambo is convinced that anyone who doesn’t deny they’re FBI, is.