More rugby tales

Written by the infamous Steve "Pony Keg" Perry

First and foremost, thank you for your leadership with these fine young men. Please know we (all) will assist your effort in any way we can.

That being said, put me in for three hats, two easy sorority girls and one more college Rugby road trip! I'm in full agreement for having a fund-raising event during a home game - this should pull more monies from us, pass those pesos through a keg and land them on the other end as a scholarship fund(s).....or road trip money for these young, broke Bucks.

Gosh, as I dream back, I remember the first ever MSU Rugby road trip! It was in 1984 and...

...we "obtained" Hunter Mock's grandmother's Buick because my 1975 white Duster (with a red door) could not make it outside of Shelby County. We met in the MSU parking lot early that Saturday morning and loaded the jerseys, booze and balls in the trunk and headed towards Tupelo, MS. Back then, the journey was two-lane back-top the entire way. We had Hunter Mock behind the wheel and Dude-man (his name escapes me - just insert Spicoli) behind the weed-rolling while riding shot-gun. I, being of sound mind and pure of body, did not participate, but the fog rolled over the edges of the front seat and poured into the back nicely. Half way towards the King's place of birth the bottom fell out of the sky. It was at that point we learned grandma's wipers were worthless. Large flying Semi-trucks passed us on this hill-ridden backwoods blacktop at an alarming rate.

Our Buick boat captain, Col. H.Q. Mock, guided her the best any hung-over college kid could, but we finally moored the beast at the first banjo roadside gas station we found. We fiddle-farted around in the truck for tools for awhile, hit the wiper motor a few times, etc - why we lifted the hood - I'll never know... We found our salvation in the form of two old Rugby socks. Ripping a hole at the ends, we slid them onto a long piece of twine and we had wiper blades again. Driver and shot-gun rider raised and lowered these sock-wipers swiftly across the windshield. Having a "plan", we fired that mother (grandmother) up an rolled on.

We pulled into the pitch and the Birmingham Men's and some other team were kicking off. During the first play, we witnessed Walter Roop's brother rib-kicking this guy (while on the ground) to the point the Paramedics carried him off and Roop's Bro was banded from the game for two years. Again, this was my first Rugby game to witness - my first play to see. Soccer was starting to look pretty good...

During the team stretch, we circled-up and put George Thorogood's "Bad to the Bone" on our three-foot boom-box - just to sike the other team out. Mid-way through this pubescent crowd posturing, we begin to feel the pain. The pain from picking no less than 10 red Fire Ant hills as a location to stretch out before our first live crowd. We stripped down to our straps - justa jump'n and a slap'n those big-toothed red-ass ants - yes, we were MSU RUGBY DAMN IT and we were Bad to the Bone....

I guess we lost our first game - I'm sure someone kept the score. We, the ant farmers, moved our team to the front yard and home of the Tupelo Men's RFC founding father. He was in his late 40's, well over-weight and out-of-shape, but glad to finally be the center of attention. He had a good 50 Ruggers working two kegs, singing songs, and back-slapping in HIS front yard. Yes, he swelled even larger with pride for a little while. It was about this time someone screamed, "Zooloo", and my first Rugby party started its downward slide...

Our well-rounded Host had apparently score his first Try during the 40+ years on God's planet and it was his time to strip down naked and take the customary few laps around the party. He graciously explained he will conduct the tribal jaunt at the Rugby bar next week, but he surly could not...not in his own front yard...naked in front all his neighbors. You guess it - it took about 6 guys and as many seconds to strip the fat-man down in the middle on his yard - in front of his non-Rugger neighbors. It only took him about a half a 'tribal lap' around the party to make it safely to and in his front door. Boy, you should have heard the crowd laugh and laugh and to see the neighbors gasp and gawk. Wow...now that was funny...

I was pouring another fresh, but warm, keg-beer when I heard the first shot ring out...

He had entered his home as a sad stripped fat-man, trying to capture his youth and hopefully a little Rugby glory along the way, but he exited as John MF'n Wayne. He shot his pistol first, twice in the air, as a warning while balancing a shot-gun tucked neatly under a flap of arm-fat. I'm sure I sharted my white rugby shorts while taking the first two leaps back towards Grandma's boat when I heard Col. H.Q. Mock commanding to his riders to "get the keg, get the keg... I have an extra tap in the trunk!" A few more volleys in the air from the fat-man and the keg left my thoughts completely. But, after seeing Hunter low-running towards the prize keg, I was shamed into turning around, lowering my head and grasping the other handle in a trot towards safety.

During a time of this level of duress, few would have a clear mind to think about road-pops for the trip home, but not our boat captain. Yep, it was apparent, this was not Col. H.Q. Mock's first Rugby game, nor his first party to go bad.....As many in Mid South had, he had just left UT, Knoxville (reasons unknown) after his Freshman year and enrolled into Tiger High with the rest of us - bringing the party with him...

...remind me to tell you about Marc Holley's ascent to a table top in search of glory and a local named Gloria. We'll call this yarn "Dancing for Dollars or...The last Dance of the Mohican" ...Buy me a free keg-beer and I'll tell you all about it.

...see you boys at the next U of M Rugby Alumni fund-raiser.....

Regards,
Steve Perry

The Tomato Incident

At some point during my youth a guy named Jeff and Jay Hawkins moved to my neighborhood.
Good at heart type guys, but also never afraid to mix it up to stifle the boredom.
Before we got older and were closer to being peers it was really just Jeff, Scooter, and
I. Our parents bought us all the toys, bikes, balls, bats, etc. you could want when we were
younger, but for some reason we always had to have some kind of thrill factor in our ventures.
Throwing and catching a baseball can only last so long...........
The day I'm gonna describe to you here, is just one day. I could write a whole blog just
on the kinda of stuff we did. Usually it went like this. I would say man wouldn't it be cool
to......not really thinking these guys would go for it and many times regretting I ever
brought it up. Well we did stuff like climb those big grey power line things, crawl through
drain tunnels, play war with BB guns, you know the usual things most kids do. Hell, one
hot summer day were so bored we sat around Scooter's house and ate whole Jalapenos and would
see who could last the longest without a drink.
Anyway, one summer evening we were bored as usual and while just walking through field
under aforementioned power lines, we came upon a garden. In it there were at least 200 tomato
plants, rife with ripe tomatoes. Well we each grabbed as many as we could carry and headed
toward Stage Road. It was a four lane deal, divided by a median that sloped downward on each side.
This section of the road had woods on each side. I think maybe we were eleven or twelve at the time and our curfew was dark. It was getting close to dark so we got to the top of a small hill on the side of the road, shielded by trees on both sides and started heaving. We each had like five or six tomatoes, and the deal was to hit a moving car. Anybody knows a good quarterback leads the receiver with the pass, and lets him come to the ball on the run. This was also the way to score a hit on a car. I think we had maybe two hits out of our first night. Yep, this was fun and we would do it again.
The next night we came prepared. I got three paper sacks from my parents house and we met on the way to the garden. We took pretty much all of the ripe tomatoes and filled the empty space at the top with green ones. Note: If you planted a garden off Stage Road around 1979 or so, and came out one day to find it empty, I deeply apologize. We decided to cross the street to get a better vantage point for round two. We stomped out a place in some pretty thick brush with trees on our left and right. We were on a small hill about 10 or fifteen feet above the street. Perfect. Nobody could see us from the road or anywhere else. Then we started. I don't know how long it took us to empty the bags, but I know I finished first and I was just laying back in the brush waiting to go re-fill the bags. I don't remember how many cars we hit, but the road looked like a tomato truck had a spill. Next thing you know, up out of nowhere
jumped this guy and he said "gotcha". He was proof we hit at least one. I turn to run and tripped over some kind of vine. Next thing you know I have Jeff's foot in my back as he steps on it to jump start his flight. After that Scooter does the same thing. Now as far a speed goes, I was the biggest of the three of us and the slowest. By the time I get going the man grabbed me and my goose was cooked. He took my wallet (why the hell did I have a wallet, I was only twelve) and got my name and address so flight was no longer an option. He tried to get me to get in his car, so he could take me home or to the police station, but I was having none of that. I guess he had already called the cops. Because after we walked the mile or so down this gravel road to my neighborhood the cops were waiting in the cove that backed up the the woods.
During that walk my buddies tried to distract the guy in various ways to spring me loose, I'm guessing they knew if I went down they were guilty by association. Meanwhile, my Dad's two brothers were in town and they were, up until this point, enjoying a nice dinner (in the only used on special occasion) dining room. So here I was at my front door, dirty, tired, scared and entertaining a cop. Ding-dong. My dad comes to the door and I say you need to come out so this guy can talk to you. The dining room had a perfect view of the front door, by the way. Not very complicated from here. I went directly to my room, without passing go.
I stayed there for at least a week. I think the only thing that saved me was the fact that my Dad's brothers were there for the dinner. In fact I probably made that one of the best dinners they ever shared. I could hear them laughing out loud about every five minutes and I figured only the first outburst was over me.