One of the most basic lessons me and my best friend taught the kids at Oneonta during our first semester was an essential skill called "partying", or as we say avec saveur, "laissez les bon temps rouler"*. Having a really good time seems like an easy scene from some trite sitcom t.v. show until you actively try to partake in it. Then, you have to overcome your essential weakness as a near-constant consumer of hardily fermented beverages mixing poorly in one's small, starving teenage stomach.
We've all succumbed to it at one time or another—in some of the worst hangovers on the planet—that can take you down for the count and out of the game over a crucial party weekend, leaving you sidelined on a cheap cot next to a plastic bucket, while epic-ness awaited your presence. Then, you have to hear about someone's infamous hookup with that cool kid you really fucking liked (oh, the timing! SO cruel), watching the kick-ass band you've always dreamed of seeing play, live and in person. It hurt(s) badly, at a time when it's part of the life lessons you're there to learn. Oneonta State throws some of the best parties the world's ever seen. You just have to see it to know what a good time really is.
We had: 70s parties in full period dress, Halloween costume parties serving drinks in pumpkin punch bowls—laced with something else than straight-up booze—and funky brownies on the side with two friends circulating the joint dressed as Jesus, hurricane parties with outdoor bands that stopped in tribute to each passing gust of wind that had us hoisting our plastic cups in unison, mad "mosh pits" with proudly sported party injuries, heaven-and-hell levels that played on the dorms layout of alternating "girl" and "boy" floors in freshmen year to the sophomore suites of girls and boys living on the same floor that got us ready for real life that's the mixed living experience of any combo off-campus during junior and senior years, "round the world" parties with each dorm room serving up a different cocktail, with or without the bong hits that suddenly put you over the top and in a swirling overheated room full of strangers and you're too fucked up to know there the bathroom is, which suddenly flips the party very quickly from a good time to one of the worst times ever.
It mirrored the often violently tumultuous homes we came from, in some of the roughest neighborhoods this world has to offer. Then, when your party game flipped on you, your head would hurt so bad that your teeth ached, too, as the room spun out of control in stomach-turning episodes we called "the bed spins" back in the day. This wan't no fantasy from some "tidy whitey" shopping catalog or a canned commercially-driven episode off the t.v. with an artificial laugh track, yo. We openly called each other out for being "lightweights". Your outfit had to be tight at night when it counted and your game on point, with your conversation skills being key. That's how you "bag" the best lady in the room, fellas. Learn it, bro-friends. Then, represent your home town by proudly sportin' it around. Get to it, son!
* https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/laissez_les_bons_temps_rouler
