Entries this day: OKC_Rally OKC_Rally_by_Dane_Dormio

OKC Rally

OKC RALLY 11-13 APRIL 1997

What a drive! I thought it was like 10 hours, so psychologically I made it longer than it actually was- only 7. Wende, co-advisor with me at Emerson UU in Houston and I drove, while quietly talking or sleeping in the back were Cathy Saur and Ben Atkinson.

Got there about 1:30 in the AM and had apparently just missed opening circle. Lots of hugs all around, while a soap bubble gun blew big soap bubbles, music bounced between Beastie Boys, Nine Inch Nails, and Po Tang (what is it???).... I got to play Pente with Karla Gilmore, which was super fun, considering I had only met her over email, and we had already played a few games over email. We both won a couple of games.

Several youth and I played circle tag, where you stand in a vaguely tight circle and touch someone, "tag you're it" and basically just tag the next person if you get tagged. You're not allowed to move your feet. The fun thing is when people think you're having a really cool discussion, and they walk up and immediately get tagged.

Also the first night we played about 4 rounds of Sardines! Many of the doors were locked (more than last year) so there were fewer places to hide. First Mike Moren hid downstairs by the utility room sink. We sardines waited for a while "We'll give them until 5:30PM tomorrow before we get up!" but then found out that the remaining players had quit to watch a movie.
Then Nick Carter was caught while trying to hide in a cabinet in the upstairs kitchen.
Then Bryan Beck and Ashley Robinson hid by simply sitting in a back corner of the main kitchen. I found them first, and talked to Bryan about setting up a homepage for SWD YRUU to replace Jamie Willis-Rose' page which has great information, but is slightly out of date. Bryan seemed pretty keen on the idea, so we decided to do it.
Once we were found, I hid by squishing myself into a lower shelf in the downstairs junk room, which was really cleaned out compared to last year.

I don't remember much else from the first night.

I slept about 45 minutes then got up and had breakfast (2 bowls of Captain Crunch).

I went to the tie dye workshop, where I tie dyed my extra Houston Rally t-shirt, a pair of Julie Sexton's socks, and Charlotte Benbeneck-Price's bleached blonde hair.

Played Pente with several people through lunch, big giant Subway Sandwiches. Yummmmy.

The collage workshop was cool- we ripped out cool pictures from magazines and glued 'em down. I found big lipstick red lips that look quite reminiscent of the Rocky Horror lips, and converted the words "GOING BROKE" and the title of "People" magazine into "OK GO Pee"

Then I slept for about 3 hours.

Dinner and contra dancing kicked off the evening. I really enjoyed the dancing, much to my surprise. And it was *tiring*!!

After that, several people played another round of circle tag, which turned into a game of crab tag, where we were all doing crab walk scuttling around the room tagging people. Frank Roeslor evolved into a screeching howler monkey galloping around on all fours. Crab tag is pretty hard on the arms, so we played Elbow Tag, or Link, as I remembered it being called on YRUU-L. I had never played before, so I just made up the rules from how I figured they should be. It was great fun. Somewhere in there we played the Zoo Game (taught to us by Stacey Hendren at Dallas Rally in February (it's a variation of the game called Fruit, except it doesn't use a pillow). I was Kangaroo, Keith Lawlor was giraffe, Nick Carter was Heat Seeking Worm (or something), Kitty Rankin was cat, Ben Muller was wolf, Tiffany Schneider was pig, Meagan Holt was chicken, Frank(?) was zebra, Caroline Barr was her sister.. I don't remember any others.

During the talent show, Karla Gilmore and I performed an ad lib version of "Fifty Things to do Besides Watch TV" That was fun.

Nick Carter and I sang to the tune of "a few of my favorite things" "These are what made OKC Rally dear," which is written on page 5 of Volume 1 of The Big White Rally Book.

Mike Noyes performed a rap on the fly, with Curtis MacCormick on drum, and 3 backup rappers (I only remember for sure Samantha Nagel saying "Ice Ice Baby")

Steve Feinstein played guitar and sang Dead Puppies.....Dead Puppies.... and performed 2 songs (by Simon and Garfunkel??) with Bryan Beck. Really nice.

Cathy Saur read a story she had written which really wrenched some emotion out of me. You had to be there.

Samantha Nagel did a dancing lip synch to Michael Jackson's "Billie Jean" with Ethan Fowler and Elliot Tracy as backup dancers. They were funny.

Lots more performances, but I don't remember them all for sure.

After the talent show was worship, consisting mainly of ceremonial foot washing, hosted by Austin Roth.

After that, Rocky Horror Picture Show was in the basement, while some youth danced in the main hall, while I played Silent Football with several people upstairs in the worship room. Silent Football was great. We played from 3am until Nick Carter, as the dictator was beginning to fall asleep at "oh shit 5:30"

We slept.

Then, an hour later than planned, Debe came running through the rooms with her whistle, "WAKE UP!! WAKE UP!!! We only have 1 hour to be cleaned up!!!!" We woke up. We cleaned up. We did it. I think we should try to clean up in just 45 minutes next rally.

Closing circle was brief. Yogi Bear, The Beaver Song, Good Friends, and 2 seniors in the center said goodbye for Karla and Heidi, who had to leave at 5am. Mugbooks, donuts, and see ya in Fort Worth!!

With Love
Rob

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OKC Rally by Dane Dormio

When we stopped at a gas station, Nick bought a cap gun and a bunch of caps. It took us about seven hours to get there, and we were only about forty-five minutes to an hour from the church when we stopped. We had lost the map our hosts had so kindly drawn for us, so my mom called Debbie Barnes at the church to get directions. We got there without any problems, except that Nick's el cheapo cap gun had broken before we were half way there, but he could still shoot it, a situation which my sister would remedy shortly upon our arrival by tearing it apart into several separate components.

We arrived just after Fayetville, and it was them and the OKC people that we saw first. I affectionately said hi to Mellissa Cain, Suzanne Kelly, Tiffany Schneider, Erin Bailey, Kitty Rankin, Austin Roth, and Sean Murray, then did the same to the youth from Fayetville and their advisor, Tera Little, showing off my bottle of bubbles that I had saved from SWUUSI. (This bottle happened to be well known) I was really surprised to see Gavin Robins from Fayetville, whom I had not seen since SWUUSI '95. He had cut off his midback-long hair and I was pissed. I went inside and registered, because it was cold, and the way touch groups were being marked was with nail polish. After getting my middle finger painted purple, I ran around exchanging hugs and kisses and licks with all my friends. I found Charlotte Benbeneck-Price and did the same with her, and after getting our picture taken together we headbanged to "Portrait of an American Family" by Marilyn Manson with a few other fans until that activity was ceased by a combination of dizziness, fatigue, headache, requests to turn the music off, and the arrival of new people.

I wore my White Zombie shirt with the devil on the front and "I went to Hell and all I got was this crummy tee-shirt" on the back that I got in trouble for at school. It got plenty of laughs. Keith and Tia Lawlor arrived from Austin shortly and after them Bryan Beck and Curtis Mcormack from San Antonio, but Curtis went to sleep as soon as he came in, and I didn't see him until Saturday morning. Anna Magwood, Megan Holt, and Nick Carter were among the last people to arrive and when they came in I met Anna's dad, Jim. He is 6'5 and about 300 pounds. I talked to him later and found out that he is a cool guy. He was not at all critical or biased, the way a lot of adults I meet are. A great UU. He is from Canada, and he and his family moved to Houston two (I think) years ago. He has a degree in paleontology and went to someplace in the arctic to do studies as a post-graduate.

James Meine was the last person I remember arriving, a half hour later than he should have because of car trouble not to far from the church. He bit my neck and said that he was going to collapse, which is very out-of-character for him, especially on Friday night.

Opening circle was not the best ever, not very organized or official. It broke up quickly. I was disappointed that Dallas didn't show up, but there was still a pretty good turnout; about fifty or sixty youths and I think a total of 68, including advisors.

The general partying continued all night. In the church's high school room, which was supposed to be a 24-hour music-party-hangout room, but which later turned into a thickly cushioned sleep-workshop-movie room, several movies were played, including "Army of Darkness", which has to be the STUPIDEST movie I have ever seen. I spoofed it along with everyone else in the room, Anna's feet resting in my lap and enjoying a massage. I fell asleep during the last half of that movie, and please forgive me, but I actually got a few hours of sleep Friday night. I never have slept on Friday night before, but there wasn't anything better to do, so I thought I might as well.

After breakfast, the morning workshops started. I went to tie-dyeing and tie-dyed some of my underwear. This may sound weird, but now when I'm in the locker room in P.E. I can go, "Hey guys, look at my tie-dyed underwear." Tia and Charlotte used the dye on their hair. There was also a halo-making workshop and there was supposed to be a full contact monopoly game played with four big long styrofoam "noodles", but this didn't happen because everybody just wanted to run around smacking each other with the noodles. When I was finished tie-dyeing, I had a noodle fight with Mike Moren, and although I hate to brag, I must say that I kicked his ass, although fair blows were exchanged both ways. By the time we truced the halo-making workshop was finished and Anna gave me a halo she had made to wear as a victory crown.

Lunch was subs, because of the theme, "The Rocky Horror Subway Show". I rolled around and snuggled and visited until later that evening, when I went into the high school room and laid down with Anna and lazily spoofed some Bruce Lee movie, "The China Connection", I think. It was dubbed, and I don't really know what it was about, except a couple of kung fu schools getting really pissed at each other and really fake-looking fighting with Bruce Lee against everybody, kicking multiple asses at once, and it was also the STUPIDEST movie I had ever watched.

When it was getting to be dinner time, around five or six, Melissa, who was my touch group leader, came to tear me away to do dinner prep. We were the only two people in the touch group to actually go into the kitchen and work, but we had plenty of volunteer help, so it was alright. We made garlic bread, various microwave lasagnas, and brownies for desert, so I got to lick the bowl with Heidi Bickner and my sister. Dinner was scheduled for six, but it was not finally ready until 7:10, which seemed like it was bad because the contra dancers were coming at 7:30, but it was really ok, some people ate while some people danced.

I thought contra dancing (don't ask me why they call it that) would be something exotic, but it was actually just square dancing, which I guess is somewhat exotic, or at least unusual, to me because I have not square danced since the time our school made us do it in the fourth or fifth grade. Rob Nugen's girlfriend Wende, a young woman whom I thought I would never see again after she was a visitor at Houston but whom I was pleasantly surprised to see at OKC and find out she was an advisor so I would get to see her many more times, asked me to dance with her, and I did even though I didn't have any desire to except for maybe a small inkling, but I did because she asked me to and if I asked somebody to dance it would really spoil my fun if they said no, and I wanted to do something nice for Wende, because I wasn't against dancing either, I just needed a little motivation, and damnit, I had a lot of fun square dancing, and I don't care if you or anybody else likes it or not, something I didn't have to worry about among my YRUU friends, and I think that was why I really enjoyed it, that I would enjoy almost anything I do with them. (Man, that was a long sentence) The contra dancers had a band and a bunch of dancers to guide, and one of the woman dancers, who reminded me of a transvestite, Danielle, in my fellowship, had this loose dress that would fly up way too far whenever she would twirl and you could see her butt and everything.

They stayed until after eleven, but I only danced for a comparatively short period of time and after I quit I sat on the floor with Anna and Jim and Wendy and watched. While Anna was listening to a discman and couldn't hear us, the cover of the Romeo and Juliet soundtrack made Jim think of the time when Anna had been going on about how great Leonardo Dicaprio was and her grandfather had asked why, he was such a dork, and Anna had gone off on him, so Jim told me about it. Then the same picture reminded me of my Incredible Hulk impersonation, so I showed it to them.

I saw Bill Loden and Bethany Manning, a rally virgin from Fayetville, together, and they seemed like they had known each other for a long time. This didn't seem very likely at all, so I asked Bill, and he said no, he had just "gotten a feeling" that he should know her, which would sound weird coming from anyone else but Bill, because Bill is a very wise and spiritually developed person, like his mom. By the way, this rally was the one-year anniversary of the day Bill quit smoking.

After the contra dancers left, Rob started a physical game, crab tag, and it mutated into several variations of tag, until I suggested we play Link, a tag game involving pairs of people linking and unlinking. At a point when James and I were linked, we took a break to get some of Bill and Cathy Saur's birthday cake. Their birthdays were both on the same day, I think Saturday. I accidentally dropped my cake and got icing on Joanna's sleeping bag, but it was alright because I licked most of it off. About this time, (Kitty) Kat came back, because she had left for work at five, and she had lost her voice.

The talent show was the next event, and it was good even though it was in the sanctuary, which was cold. It got to me after a while, so Anna and I got under my jacket to warm up. Although it was an exceptionally great talent show with a lot of original acts, like poems and songs by Rob and Samantha doing a perfect moonwalk in a dance, sleep was constantly nagging at me until I was brought back instantly from the edge of consciousness by Steve asking if anyone knew the words to "Dead Puppies", a fairly exclusive bit of knowledge which I possess and am proud of. I always jump at the chance to sing "Dead Puppies", especially since there is little competition because the song seems all but forgotten, a situation which I will take time to remedy. So Brian and I sang "Dead Puppies" with Steve playing and singing backup. Steve also played his classic, "Rocky Racoon", and a few others before "Dead Puppies" which I was not awake for.

I went to worship at eleven, right after the talent show, which was put on by Austin, who is a good worship coordinator. It was a foot-washing, thought-sharing worship. Nick Carter and I washed each other's feet. When we had all shared our thoughts and meditations on washing feet, we sang a pagan chant: "We are a circle, within a circle, with no beginning, and never ending" and had a big long group hug. We were so emotional, you would have thought we were about to say goodbye if you didn't know any better. It just goes to show the power of a good foot washing.

"The Rocky Horror Picture Show" was supposed to play downstairs at midnight, but it turned out to be two. Melissa and Suzanne and Tiffany dressed up for it in various outfits which showed their legs, and I guess they were embarassed about their legs, especially Tiffany, because I saw them in the hall a few times, and every time they would duck behind a corner, and when I went to ask them what they were doing, they would run giggling and screaming into the girl's bathroom. I was going to watch the movie, but I knew I wouldn't be able to stay awake for it, and since there were no comfortable places to go to sleep downstairs, I skipped it and wandered around, occasionally running into a small group of people who were still awake.

I floated around on bits and peices of drowsy conversation with the stragglers, and put all the left over brownie crumbs in a bowl and poured milk over them to eat them. They didn't make me as sick as I thought they would. Finally, about an hour and a half before wake up, which was at the usual time of six a.m., I decided to go to the high school room and find a mattress to lay down on and go to sleep. And then, twenty minutes later, I got around to staggering out there through the cold for an hour's sleep before cleaning up.

But my hour of sleep was not to be. No, it mutated into two hours and forty-seven minutes of sleep. I woke up and looked around to find everyone else still asleep. It didn't think I had woken up early, so I looked at my watch and it said 7:47. We were almost two hours late! I quickly went back into the main building to find out from somebody what was going, a failed effort because there was nobody awake to find out from, ok though because it was pretty self-explanatory at this point. Nobody had woken up! No problem, it was but a matter of minutes until Debbie was running around with a whistle and screaming and kicking people. I went back out to the high school room to wake people up and tell them we were late, then went back inside to wake people and clean up in there. A while later, before Debbie had gotten there, I went to the high school room again and found that hardly anybody had gotten up. So I warned them, "Get up quick or Debbie will come out here blowing a whistle and screaming and kicking people!", but no sooner had I uttered the words than I heard a now-familiar shrill sound and imperative yet cheery voice, and a few seconds later my prophecy came true when Debbie burst through the door. I evacuated immediately and went to the main building again to clean up. I donated the fondly remembered bubbles from SWUUSI to the church, because someone had lost the lid, and the huge jug was just about empty anyway. Since we were late, everyone busted their asses and we got finished with time to spare.

At closing circle we did "Dead Puppies" and "Bish-Bish" and got mugbooks, which were not nearly as good as Little Rock's I thought, but were not the worst I've seen. Bryan gave out his new copies of the "Yackity-Yac", with the rally review of Little Rock and dates of rallies and SWUUSI until San Antonio next year. Breakfast was assorted doughnuts, which are always better than plain glazed doughnuts, and there were plenty left over when most of the people left. I think we were the last to leave. I thought I would never get done saying goodbye. I enjoy every rally more than the last one, which never seems possible at the time, but I can tell I am still growing and changing, and I can't wait for Ft. Worth in May.

Love and Everything,
Dane

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