Blue Collar Muse

My Alma Mater had a couple of interesting rites surrounding the event of getting engaged while in college. The ladies had it great. The guys … well, not so much.

When a gal got her engagement ring, she gave it to her dorm mother to keep for the day. That night, after curfew and with the dorm doors locked, the dorm mother walked the halls ringing a handbell announcing a Ring Ceremony. All the girls gathered in the lobby with the lights off. The engagement ring was tied to a lighted candle and passed from girl to girl to be admired. Once everyone had seen the ring, it went around again until it reached the girl it belonged to. She blew out the candle and put on the ring while her friends laughed, cried and did other female sorts of things appropriate to the situation.

Guys being guys, their congratulations were expressed with a bit more testosterone. The groom to be got no pleasant ceremony. He got a party - a Lake Party, to be specific. The town sported a not particularly large or attractive body of water. Any unfortunate getting engaged waited in suspense for his his friends to show up late one night, abduct him, take him to the lake and throw him in. It mattered not if he was studying, sleeping or romancing his intended. It was time for your Lake Party.

One young man thought to escape by transferring to another school. We simply drove there to fulfill our responsibilities. Stocky and strong and in the prime of life, he put up QUITE a fight, getting and giving his share of bruises and bumps, but we were a determined bunch. We trussed him up and tossed him in the back of a pickup for an hour long ride to a watery rendezvous. Today we’d surely be prosecuted for kidnapping but back in the day it was all great fun.

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