Entries this day: OKC_Rally_by_Bryn_Cain

OKC Rally by Bryn Cain

1998 Oklahoma City Rally (in) review by Bryn "Bean" Cain

Its beAn two weeks, but I'll start from Friday night and see where it gets me.

First thing I remember was Eryn Pope, Austin Roth, Nora and I were all sitting outside in the courtyard around 8-8:30 just layin on each others tummies talkin, Nora is from Germany (as you all know) so we were askinh er all sorts of silly questions about Germany, and Austin was talkin about tummies, and it was just jolly fun.

Eventually after about 15 minutes of that, Susanne came outside to tell us Stillwater was here! YEAH!! I ran inside to see my '97 SWUUSI friends Clark and Noah. I was so happy to see them, and quickly showed them around and put on some music, and everyone danced for about 30 minutes, it was glorious fun, and I loved re-kindling my friendships w/ Clark and Noah.

They were really thirsty, so we made our way to the kitchen to make coffee, oh goodness, this was a task. After about 5 minutes of looking for the coffee, we found it behing the coffee maker. (right where Noah said it would be) None of us knew how to use the machine, so we just kind of guessed. We found a filter, and put it, somewhere, and put the coffee grounds somewhere else, and poured some water somewhere else, and well, eventually, we got water everywhere and ruined a packet of coffee, oops.

I left for a few minutes to see what else was happening around the church, I was afraid they'd kill me if I stayed in there any longer, and when I got back Clark had the machine up and running, and he used it the whole weekend, that boy loves coffee, and loves to spill it on others.

After making the coffee, they played around with the big wooden ladel for a while, then tryed to spray each other with the water shooter, but eventually, and after I had to kick 'em out of the kitchen, we got bored being inside and went outside to chill.

Noah is quite the climber, so he had no trouble making it to the top of the tree in the courtyard faster than lightning. We were all gasping and gazing.a Only problem was, we couldn't get him to come down!!!

Finally he made his wy down the tree, and just sat with us till more people arrived. The next people to arrive were the Mckeons and well, half of Fort Worth. They went in and took their pictures, and we all sat down to Susanne's wonderful guitar playing. We sang Cat Stevens, and the Beatles mostly, with a little extra stuff thrown in on the sides. Noah was playing my drum, and Misty (the dog from Stillwater) was just runnin around being cute, I love to sing, and Susanne is great, so that exceptionally nice.

After a while, and all at one time it seems, a whole big group of faces got here from San An and Fort Worth. One of them my SWUUSI '96 friend Nathan Sexton from Fort Worth. They all come in, and lots of hugs were given, introductions were made, and after spinning around the floor for a very long time, and showing Lauren Dodski from San An where she'd be sleeping, we went back to Daniel Hall for more dancing, a little Hokey Pokey, and more people, and more introductions, it was crazy, and so much fun.

All of this went on for several hours, and eventually when it seemed like everyone who was coming was here, we sat down for opening circle. Mairead and Jeanne did an OK job explaing rules and stuff, but when Frank tried to say the co-theme (You got screwed by one smooth vacuum while Debe did OKC on a big ball of twine in front of Sgt. Bills army surplus + tools, then Adam got bit by a dog.) He messed up, and Melissa had to cover for him. After the opening speeches, and everyone going around and saying their names with an adjective starting with the same letter as their name (you know the game) we all seperated into TOUCH GROUPS.

I was in the red touch group, Sean Murray, touch group leader. My touch group consisted of Me, Noah Weatherford, Mojo Norman, Sean Murray, Christina Lusk, Tommy Faitak, and Arlene Dormio. (I think thats all)

We had some interesting conversations, but nothing to keep us too entertained, so we decided to go do some walking.

I went outside looking for anyone I knew, and ended up sitting on the benches to talk. Clark, Noah, Nathan, Lisa (from Stillwater), and some other people whose names don't spring to mind talked for a while, and pretty much just bonded.

Sometime later I went inside to hang out with Rob, Jen Colbert, Katie, Kat, and Nathan. We talked about lots of stuff, mostly how its my first rally, and music, and just lots of wild stuff, it was great Rob spent forever trying to get Kaite's last name right, sad to say, he was unsuccesful, but it was fun to watch him try so hard.

After many minutes of talking, we decided to do some more walking and ended up outside on the steps w/ Clark and Noah. We stayed there for I guess about 3 hours, just talking and chttin it up, but we got cold, so I went and got my sleeping bag, as did everyone else, and as we snuggled up to sleep, we realized (sadly), that there wasn't room for 5. So Nathan and I went and slept beside the benches. Nathan on my feet keeping them warm (thanks again Nathan).

I woke up about an hour later to the sound of Adam Lock and others telling sexual and racist jokes. It was a great way to wake up. Clark, Noah, Kat, and Katie, weren't asleep, so I went and talked to them, but eventually, they passed out so I walked inside with Aaron Ivener, and he and I split a blueberry bagel for breakfast. I went back outside, but no-ones conversation was entertaining me, so I woke up Nathan, and he and I explored the church hidden under his magic sleeping bag.

On the second floor, we picked up Dennis Kalman, and dragged him down to breakfast. (what can we say, the boy looked hungry.) Then we walked around the outside of the church, just checkin out the beautiful spring trees, and flowers we were just bein silly.

After that, we went and sat on the outside stairs, and talked for a couple hours w/ everyone else. Nathan is quite the massuse, so he gave about 6 backrubs to just everyone. It was great. Once the sun was completely up, We got tired, so we went back to sleep.

I woke up about an hour later, but Nathan was still asleep, so I went inside to talk to everyone. Austin, John, and some others were playing drums inside, and there was a huge circle of guitarists outside, along with all the smokers.

Everyone still seemed to be on the steps, so there I went. Not sure what happended next, but eventually, Nathan, Clark, Andy Artus, Austin Artus, Gavin, and I all started playing football, with a tiny little thing that was eventually popped *but not by us* Gavin and Clark tryed multiple times to catch the ball while skateboarding..... it didn't work too well, but man did they look hilarious.

Soon Clark, Nathan and I all got in a little catch circle to play around with Austin. He refused to throw me the ball making me feel horrible, but its ok.

After a while of that, a frisbee appeared and we ran to make its aquaintance. Nathan and I played a while, until Misty insisted on playing. Nathan tryed throwing the frisbee to Misty, but after she caught it she wouldn't give it back to him. They wrestled around with the frisbee for a while, until eventually Nathan threw the frisbee and we ran inside to hide.

A few of us then went into the "loungin" room to watch anime. I don't really like anime, but someone was giving me a back massage so I was happy. But then, Nick felt like ruining my day, and turned my over, and PHUUFed me!!!!!!! AHH!!!! It was crazy!! I didn't know what to say! I was giggling like crazy, because I'm so ticklish, it was a lot better than I thought it would be, but oh my goodness, it was crazy! The about 15 minutes later FRANK PHUUFed me too!!!!! This was getting rediculous, so we left and went back to Daniel Hall. Nathan Ryan took some time to show me the YAC rally books, and explain some of the cool stuff in it to me. He also showed me the new book, and gave me the honor of signing it.

We came back outside, and I started hacky sackin' with a few random people, but I suck, so I stopped after a bit. It was really, really hot outside, everyone was burnin' like bacon, so we took our sleeping bags and went and laid out on the grass. After that, I went and talked to Jeremy Loomis-Noris, Chris Anderson, and some other people about crazy stuff, a few of the people sitting with us were painting their nails, but I couldn't keep my eyes of Chris's cool body painting, maybe it was just cause hes so cute. hee hee

I went inside because, I think, it was time for dinner, YUM! I hadn't eaten much lunch so I was smilin. I came outside with my food and sat down next to Keith on the bench across from Jeremy. After getting into a long debate with Jeremy about why I think Lettuce tastes like strawberries, (which it does) and how I was horrible at eating spaghetti, I felt very silly, so we went inside to contra dance.

I only danced the warm-up dance, but I used to contra all the time so I did ok. Noah was behind me though, and he kept tripping me and at one point made me fall down bringing a line of people with me, it was crazy, embarassing, and great fun! After that we went outside and snuggled under sleeping bags for what seemed like forever. They started playing music outside, the first song I remember was Prodigy, along w/ Vanilla Ice, and MC Hammer. Jen Colbert and I had dancing urges, and couldn't stop, so we danced forever, making complete fools of ourselves, even though Scotty Hakel repeatedly told us to stop. It was great. Everyone was dancing, and having a blast. I started hiding under my magic sleeping bag, but everyone kept finding me, so I said "oh well" and stopped hiding. After contra, Kitty Rankin had gotten a cool little disco thing goin down stairs so we all moved down there to dance. Everyone got bored quickly, with somewhat luke-happy music, and after about 5 minutes, we all moved back upstairs. So we sat again, and talked again, and after a couple hours of this, someone came out and told us it was almost time for worship.

We went in the childrens chapel to a candle lit room. Nathan Ryan put us in two circles, and we all went around telling everyone what we wished they would say to us. It was extremely great and everyone said the coolest stuff. I felt so wonderful. Then we stood on one side of the room, and half of us crossed our hands over our chest, and the other half, came and did some kind of gesture to everyone that was important to them. Then the other half of the room repeated. It was so wonderful. This was just my first rally, but everyone was just so great, I got and gave about a hundred hugs, and a few of us were pretty close to tears *me included* It was so great, and what a wonderful worship it was! We all stayed around for a while, smiling and giving hugs, but eventually once again we went dowstairs to sit and chat again.

It was pretty early since the worship started ahead of schedule (a first), but since they had to wait for the last candle to burn out, when it did, we started the talent show. Misty came up and snuggled my leg which made me feel all happy because she hadn't been nice to me all weekend! But the talent show was exceptional.

Sean burped Blackbird which was about the funniest thing I had ever seen or heard, ask him to do it sometime, it had me rolling. Then Shira and Adam Lock did a striptease to CAKE's "shut the fuck up" and flexed their ensorpently-strong muscles for us. I have to say, I'm pretty sure Shira has Adam beat, but it was still hilarious. Then Kris Scott, Aaron Ivener, and Danny K. sung a few songs and entertained the masses. We were all asked to turn around and look behind us, and before I knew what was happening, two girls were backstroking across the wooden floor of Daniel Hall, oh my god, it was hilarious!!! Swimming on dry land, a great idea!!!!!

After the talent show was over, a few different people sat down in front of the sanctuary to play a rousing game of silent football. It was my first game and I had a little trouble getting the hang of it. But I wasn't the only one. Kris Scott passed the sacred football to Danny K, and all of a sudden, Danny jumped out of the universe, and was gone. Then, the evil anti-Danny appeared (though I think it might have been jeremy) and since Mr. Dictator couldn't get Danny back, and anti-danny was sent away, we continued the game without them everything was getting very confusing, but oh man, was it hilarious.

I was not the only one totally lost. As I said, I didn't quite catch on that fast, and the terms had fun slipping my memory. I kept on forgetting what a "fwap" was called, and called it a "fish" something or other, and got mulitple penace points for not knowing what the hell I was talking about.

Then Austin, kris, and Keith got in a huge battle over gestures and things outside the universe (FRANK) and penace points were given left and right, and by that time, I had started to think that everyone else was as lost as me. They are all seriously psychotic. They went back and forth accusing each other of this and that forever, and even forgot to charge me with using the most hanous [bad spelling] pronoun "he". (YEAH) At this point, I had 4 and a half penace points, and everyone else was close behind. But all of a sudden, some source from within the universe started making the gravitational pull around my head jerk up and down, taking my head with it. My head started bobbin', and before I knew it, I had a penace point (thanks Kris) and I had lost the game!!!!! I was tired though, so I didn't mind much. My punishment was to sing "one little two little three little indians", which I didn't know the ending to, at closing circle (oops, I forgot.)

After clearing out, I was tired, so I went in the loungin room, and went to sleep. Someone woke me up about 30 minutes later, as it was 7:00, and time to wake up and clean. I cleaned fast, and went to lay down in the loungin room with Katie and Keith. We just chilled for about an hour talking and snoozin'.

Then it was time for closing circle. I was getting sad at the thought of departure of all my new-found friends, but as always, I had to say goodbye. After singing the coconut song, the banana song, and some others, the seniors formed their circle, and we sang the closing song. It was so sad, and man, was I holdin back tears. The mugbooks were passed out, and I hugged EVERYONE at least 3 or 4 times. MOJO and I did our special handshake, and Jeremy and I almost fell down giving each other bear hugs. It was absolutley the happiest and saddest I had been in a long time, especially all at the same time. I turned around hug after hug, and soon, everyone had gone, and there was noone to hug, so I went and curled up on one of the couches in the high school room, closed my eyes, and went to sleep.