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Fort Worth Rally

1997 Fort Worth rally review by Rob

1. Love, the emotion, that people have when they fall in love with other people. This is the type of love people usually mean when they say, "I love you."
2. Love, the non-love, when people love things that are inanimate. "I love that dress!" "I love that picture!" "I love to ski."
3. Love, the instinct, which all humans intrinsically have for all other humans.
4. And Rally Love, that amazing thing that allows us to form greater relationships in one weekend than in a whole semester in school. Incredible!

We drove the entire way nonstop once we got out of Houston rush hour traffic.

Walked into the rally and upon seeing my short short haircut (1/8th inch all over), James Meine said, "can I lick it?" I said sure.... Rally Love.

We played hackysack & skateboarded around the big flat hard concrete sanctuary, after playing with a weird plus-shape green flying foam thing until one of its arms was ripped off. I got out my Ballzack, basically a big cloth beach ball. We knocked it around for quite a while and soon developed a game we called Deadball. Essentially the same rules as Ultimate. We played that until dog tired 5:30AM and I lay down and slept about 30 minutes in the movie room, where they were watching Holy Grail. I got back up and played hackysack with the few remaining players. I did better than usual, though we were all obviously tired. We played Deadball again as the sun was coming up. At 7AM or so I slept 2 hours until breakfast at 9.

Adam Lock and I went outside and tossed the frisbee around and practiced various types of throws. After a couple other people came out, I went in to check the schedule and talked to Bernest Cain, Melissa's dad, and then went to the Sexuality Workshop. The workshop was cool; I learned that babies must be lovingly touched or they will die. Wow.

During lunch I sat with Gabe Rendon and Mike Noyse and asked them about Wu-Tang Clan, to understand what/why/whatever about the "lyrics" describing graphic ways of torturing people. I decided that it can be seen as a form of humor in that it's exaggerating stupid hurtful thing people have done. And as a game to see who can gross the other out. hmm.

After that, we got a group together and played Ultimate out in the field. It was super great fun. I hope the youth had as much fun as I. The game ended as PM workshops started.

I attended the workshop that showed the Powers of Ten video and then had discussion afterward. Great discussion afterward about "what kind of a difference can we make at this particular magnitude of life?" and "why life anyway?" or "why sentience and self awarness?" and we talked about the structure of the universe. Pretty interesting stuff. I described briefly the experiences of one man who has had 2 near death experiences, and how he believes the most important thing in the world is for each individual to be responsible for his or her own actions.

Soon after the workshop, I described to Gavin, et. al. the flatland universe big bang, and how the book Stalking the Wild Pendulum described the universe as continuously big banging and continuously big crunching. (Don't worry; it didn't make any more sense when I described it than as I'm typing it here.)

Then we cut about 4 variations of mobius strips with 1/2, 1, and 1&1/2 twists. Cool.

I talked to Aisha, who has been to 9 SWUUSIs but this was her first rally. She said she felt a bit out of place, so I asked if she would play a game if I got one started. She would, so I did.
We played the Zoo Game and it degenerated to a slow motion version of the game with people all playing really slowly, taunting the other players and making the game suck. I singled out 1 person as slowness instigator and I asked him privately to play more enthusiastically- to actually run and try to play... He did better and that helped but people were still playing apathetically...

My belief is that by playing enthusiastically, the game thrives; it becomes more enjoyable for all involved. By playing the other way, people were actually sucking energy out of the game and out of the other players (read Celestine Prophecy to see what I'm talking about).

Unfortunately, the only way I knew to explain this was to adamantly tell people "play better, play harder blah blah blah" and then (more unfortunate) for me to RUN and play to the point it was too hard for some players, and made at least one not want to play. This was not working out at all and I didn't know what to do. Fortunately, "dinner is ready!" was shouted into the room, and everyone vanished, except for me; I collapsed onto the comforting cold concrete floor to recover some energy.

In the dinner line, I asked a few people if I played too hard. I had, so next time we play, I will explain logically why we might want to play passionately instead of otherwise. (Zoo Gamers, be ready!)

During dinner we had the YAC candidates run for election and I ran for the adult position, and I got it! My term officially starts at SWUUSI this year. Yayyy!!

After dinner I talked with other adults who had congregated at one table and told them about the web page, and we brainstormed stuff to put on it.

Then we had the dance, then the YAC transfer of power/description of accomplishments meeting, then the talent show

Much to my pleasant surprise, when I jokingly started the talent show with the Fuck You Clown Joke, everyone was like, "yeah yeah!! tell it!" So I did. Tera Little apparently hadn't heard it before and said, "that's *terrible*!" when I sat down.

Then Kristian Scott, Dane Dormio, and I performed "Dead Puppies." Dane sang, Kristian fingered the chords on the guitar, and I strummed the guitar and laughed because it truly was terrible. We had great fun, though.

Then Gabe Rendon and Mike Noyse performed with Gabe doing beat box and Mike rapping and I was envious at how well Gabe can beatbox and I could practically hear the deep mega low ultra bass woofers and hear and see the scratch as they danced around the stage and performed so passionately loving and beautifully ad libbed the whole thing! How do they do it??? I would pay 50 bucks to have it on tape. (Gabe, Mike, you listenin?)

Then I fell asleep.

Then my first YAC meeting as a YAC member and we decided what positions people will have and what overall goals we have for YAC this year.

Then Silent Football until 2am or so. How nice it was to sit by Carina Dormio and play nicely instead of always play fighting as we had done in the past.

Then Tera Little and I stayed up until 4AM yackin' about life, love and everything. Julie Sexton sat with us, until I was literally falling asleep while sitting up. Time for bed.

Slept until around 7am when the funniest thing was hearing Debe Barnes holler in her sleepy voice to someone trying to wake us up, "is it clean yet?? Don't wake me up until the church is clean!" That was hilarious.

That morning, I realized that Shawn McDaniel, who went to rallies with me back in the good ol' days, had been there the whole weekend knowing it was me and just waiting for me to realize it. Wow!! We swapped emails and reminisced and it was great.

I took a long time hugging everyone, and especially all the seniors as everybody was leaving. I will miss them all.

Drove home and Cathy slept the entire way. I slept for 30 minutes after we arrived at the church until her parents got there and knocked on the truck window. Got home and slept.

Great rally.

With Love
Rob

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Fort Worth Rally by Dane Dormio

1997 Ft Worth rally review by Dane Dormio

The drive was about eight hours, relatively short for us. The usual four from Jonesboro, Arlene, Carina, Aaron, and myself, went, as well as Greg Williams, a guy from our fellowship, who went as an advisor. Four weeks seemed like a long time to wait for a rally, and I was fully ready by the time I arrived. I hopped out of the car and walked inside. I signed in and was immediately greeted enthusiastically by Rob. (Boy, it's great to finally be here. Hey, somebody's charging at me. Oh my god, it's Rob. Oh my god, he's bald! Harruuumph! Hi, Rob.) The greetings were as exciting and emotional as always. I greeted everybody and checked out the church. It was a nice place for a rally. They hadn't had one in about three years, the Duck rally, hence the name of this one, "Son of Duck." There was a white porcelain duck on a table with markers for people to decorate and memorabiliaize at their leisure. Now that I think about it, it was a minor miracle that it did not get broken.

Opening Circle happened, with a rubber duckie tossed around and duck stories shared. The idea was to share happy stories, but the majority of the stories told were about ducks or ducklings getting squashed, stepped on, eaten, incinerated, falling through sewer grates, etc. Then afterwards touch group meetings. I don't know about the others, but mine was pretty good. There were a lot of good getting-to-know-each-other questions.

The first night rolled steadily on with all the usual buzzing energy: bouncing music and Ballzacks, the Zoo game, the invention of Deadball, a floppy boomerang being chased, and general Tiggerish behavior. I decided to be a wimp and laid down to watch "Monty Python and the Holy Grail" and "The Crow". I fell asleep for a few hours before morning.

Breakfast was the usual, cereal and milk. The newly-risen sun was beautiful, drying up the dewy grass and warming the sidewalks, accompanied by pleasant birdsongs. When morning workshop time rolled around, I was in the movie room and since the workshop was going to be about sexuality, I decided to stay where I was. It was a great workshop, put on by a woman whom I later found out was Gary Randall's girlfriend. The first thing we did was hold up various pictures and decide how sexual they were. It turned out, of course, that they were all sexual, because all people are sexual. It was a very informative and enlightening workshop, and I learned a little more about what it means to be a human being. When it was over the woman who put it on gave me a special hug and told me I had a wonderful mind and heart, and she wanted me to know that. Then I picked Nick G. up and exposed his rear for free smacks, which he got a lot of, because he had been making bad jokes the whole time.

At lunch they served sandwiches. I fixed a couple, then sat down and helped put together a jigsaw puzzle.

Sometime during the day, I got around to walking back out the front door and realized something I hadn't in the dark: the cotton down that had settled all around the front door resembled duck down, which went along perfectly with the theme of the rally. As the day grew older a game of ultimate frisbee started on the big grassy field, but I did't participate because I didn't want to run around in the sun and get all hot and smelly. Instead I walked across to the playground and pulled my pants up to walk around in the puddles of water. I swung in the tire swing, climbed the swingset, and pushed Emily sessions and Karen Plemons around on the merry-go-round.

I was walking back to the church and saw Kitty and Ben sitting lazily under a tree doing nothing, so I decided to help them. The three of us sat on a sleeping bag for at least an hour, partaking of nature. In such a manner the afternoon passed, and the afternoon workshops came and went. I went back to the church eventually and hung around for a bit, then eventually wandered back to the playground before the day was over.

Some other things I did during that day were learn how to play deadball, sit and have a serious talk with Brian, sit and have a serious talk with Tia, sit and have a serious talk with Anna, and I started to mosh to "Antichrist Superstar" with a few other Manson fans, but apparently even the power company dislikes Marilyn Manson, because shortly after the CD started the power surged for a while and then went out. Somebody started a rumor that a squirrel had touched two power lines and caused the surge, and Laura Moriaty spread it, so a mob of people went outside expecting to see a fried squirrel hanging from the power lines, only to be disappointed when they found out that it was just a blown transformer. The bathrooms didn't have any windows, so candles were used for them, but the power came back on before it started to get dark.

The main attraction for the evening for several people involved a tube of blue icing that Nick G. had found earlier. He got a group of people together to PHUUF my sister and smeared the blue icing all over my face. After a little bit of "heavy persuasion" we got my sister to acquiesce, and I PHUUFed her, making sure to get the icing in good. Then anyone who wanted to lick it off of her got a chance. I'm sure this was just great for my sister, who had been PHUUFED in as many ways as are conceivable already by James and Chris. Then, when I went into the bathroom to wash my face off, I found a flaw in Nick's plan: blue icing STAINS YOUR FACE BLUE. It was alright, though, it was pretty freaky looking.

Dinner was lasagna and French bread, like at OKC, but with cookies for desert instead of brownies. During dinner we watched the runners for YAC give their "elect me" speeches. The ones who ran were Jeremy Loomis-Nooris, Austin Roth, Aaron Ivener, and Rob. After that, of course, elections. Then touch group meetings, for which we were supposed to get something done, but my group must have missed something, because we didn't do anything at all.

At eight o'clock, after the touch group meetings, I went into the movie room and laid down and watched "The Crow" again, because I had missed most of it last night due to being asleep. There was supposed to be a dance going on in the big room, and every once in a while someone would come in and say, "Come on guys, come dance!", or something like that. So eventually, I got up and went into the big room and guess what: nobody was dancing. So everybody just hung out in there and eventually the dance turned into speeches by the important people, something about YAC or the bylaws and the rally sanctioning laws, or something serious like that. I didn't pay too much attention, being busy fighting off sleep instead.

Eventually that ended and turned into a talent show, which I sat in on but did not pay a whole lot of attention to, except when I was requested to sing "Dead Puppies", partly because of tiredness, but later because Jessica Ford and I were busy trading back rubs. She did me, then I did her, and I had to top her back rub, so I did her hands, arms, and feet too, so I took a lot longer. I missed two consecutive games of silent football in such a manner, as well as a batch of groovy juice. We paused shortly, though, to dance around doing "tu lakazia, nali pasa caya" (spelled phonetically), for the worship service. I was so tired that I actually fell asleep a few times while sitting up massaging her feet. It was weird, I was aware of what I was doing with my hands, but not of anything else. A strange ASC. I eventually quit and walked around inside and out for a while, trying to stay awake for a little while longer so I could partake of a superior batch of groovy juice promised by Garrick and Charles Misner, occasionally snacking on the Oreos that were set out.

I was overcome by sleep, however, before I could ever get so much as a whiff of the superior batch. I'm not even sure if it ever happened. I was laying on the floor and sometime during my short sleep I grabbed Garrick's overcoat and pulled it on top of me to cover up with. Something vibrating and buzzing in one of the pockets woke me up with a start, and I got up shortly after that.

When I got up it was before six, but wake-up was not until seven, so there was a while to wait before I could have my fun. Linda actually started waking people up at six forty-five, because once they were up and looked at the schedule, it didn't matter if they were pissed anyway. I went around and did my share of the waking-up.

Clean up passed quickly, because I sat and snuggled with Anna the whole time (don't worry, I don't usually shirk my duties). Breakfast was doughnuts, different kinds than just glazed, which is always good. Then closing circle out in the middle of the field. Bish-bish, yogi bear, the beaver song, I don't remember what else, excellent mugbooks, and a senior circle. A last minute plan of Nick Devereaux's, the seniors all ran at Nick Grunewald and swept him up and gang PHUUFed him before he ever knew what was happening. I know it just made his rally.

Emotional goodbyes, a few teary ones, but people were alright. The advisors decided that the youth weren't getting out of the church fast enough, so Rob and Debbie shoved everyone out the door in an irresistible clump of bodies. When I finally got finished saying goodbye to all my friends, I decided to ride with Little Rock to their church and then the rest of the way home with the rest of the Jonesboroites. The first few hours in the van with Little Rock were pretty boring, but during the second half of the trip I taught them all how to play Silent Football. I was, of course, the dictator, and they were all new, except for Nick G., who had played the night before. It took about an hour and half or so to get everyone familiar with the rules, and then at least that long to play a game. It was a really good game, though, for being played in a moving van with a bunch of beginners. Nick G. lost, and for penance everyone got to comb his hair, something he hates.

And then we got to the church, I said goodbye, then I went home and lived happily ever after.

Yoki, Yoki, Boom, Boom,
Dane

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