Back in 1974 We Were Norwich University's Version of Belushi & Aykroyd...
Chris Walter. Getty Images.I tried enlisting in the Marines in the spring of 1973, my junior year in high school, but my father was dead against it. He told me to wait a year until after I graduated high school and then go to Norwich University in Northfield, Vermont, the oldest private military school in the United States, so when I graduated, I could enter the armed services as a Second Lieutenant. The Marine recruiting officer was standing in my kitchen, paperwork in hand, only needing my parent's signature to send me to Parris Island, when I finally agreed to wait and go to Norwich.
In late August of '74, my parents drove me to Norwich University, and after a brief orientation, my parents left, and rook week began.
Immediately the discipline started. We stood in long lines to get our uniforms, and while we stood, we were told to read the handbook they'd given us. It contained the rules and regulations and the long, storied history of the school. We stood and read it in the summer heat, the long lines edging slowly forward, sweat dripping from our faces. Then we got our military haircuts. It was the first haircut I'd gotten since being a toddler, where I didn't tell the barber how I wanted it cut. Every haircut looked the same, short with absolutely no style. I joked that you could comb your hair with a handkerchief. We were all long-haired dudes back then, and the pile of cut hair that had fallen to the floor was deep and had to be swept constantly.
I was put in E Company, which had its dorm rooms on the second floor of Patterson Hall. MP Company (Military Police) occupied the floor below. On the way to our living quarters, all the "Rooks" (incoming freshmen with no rank) were stopped and asked questions about the university, answers we should've read about in the handbook, and memorized while standing in line getting uniforms. Everyone panicked, and when you didn't know an answer or gave the wrong answer, you had to get down and do ten pushups, which doesn't sound like a lot, but we were stopped for questioning every 20' by very aggressive cadre (upperclassman with rank in charge of freshman). Throw in the square corners we had to make, some around strategically placed trash barrels and other obstacles in the dorm stairwells and hallways; by the time we got to our room assignments, we all began thinking about the big mistake we made coming to Northfield, Vermont…
Billy was my roommate. We were both happy to be in our room, safe from cadre, at least for a little while. I was open to being roommates and friends with him, but there was something I didn't trust in his eyes. He reminded me of my least favorite Three Stooger, "Curly Joe".
Bettmann. Getty Images.At first, we were getting along just fine, confiding in each other. I remember the first time we put on our dress uniforms, Billy's hat was too big and it fell down over his ears and eyebrows, and it looked ridiculous. I tried to keep from laughing, but I couldn't, and Billy clearly wasn't amused.
Most kids were scared shitless that first week, but for some reason, I wasn't intimidated, and neither was another rook in my company, Barry DeForest. He and I were up for having some fun almost immediately.
We all wore rectangular black badges with our last names engraved on them, and as a result, we referred to each other as Mr. and the last name. I was Mr. LeVine, and he was Mr. DeForest. In the beginning, during rook week, we didn't know anybody's first names.
The first prank we pulled together was masquerading as Captains and then questioning freshmen and making them do pushups. We scotch taped two dimes to the front of our Garrison/Wedge Caps and put two more on each side of our shoulders. From a distance, and especially to a scared rook, we looked like Captains. Mr. DeForest and I snuck out of Patterson Hall late afternoon-early evening and went looking for unsuspecting rooks…
When we saw a lone rook making his way back to his company, we stopped him, made him stand at attention, and then asked him questions. When he answered incorrectly, we had him get down and give us 10 (pushups). We were relentless, too, just like the real Captains, asking more questions and making them do more pushups. After we sent the first kid back to his company, we went looking for others. We were having a grand ole time for ourselves, and none of the rooks even suspected we were frauds. We snatched another rook, and we were putting him through the drill when suddenly, up on the second-level driveway, a real Lieutenant walked by. He looked down at us, and we gave him a convincing nod we thought would be reassuring. But he became suspicious and walked down the fifteen or so concrete stairs cut into the grass embankment to get a closer look…
He saw the dimes taped to our caps and on our shoulders and knew we were sixty-cent Captains, frauds, and after he made us remove the dimes and hand them over to him, he had the rook we had doing pushups, who was up on his feet and dusting himself off, count out four sets of ten as punishment for us. That rook was grinning from ear to ear while he barked out the count.
We knew we'd eventually get caught, but it was so much fun while it lasted. The whole prank cost us $1.20, and we considered it money well spent. It hadn't even been a week since our arrival…
The next time we were told to put on our dress uniforms, suddenly, my hat was way too big, and Billy's fit just fine. I looked inside mine, and the name tag in the plastic pocket was correct, but I knew Billy had swapped them out. I immediately got in Billy's face, and I wasn't quiet about it either. I was ready to kill him. Master Sergeant O'Donnell lived in the room next door, and he heard it and rushed right in. I told him what Billy had done, and of course, "Curly Joe" flat-out lied and denied it. O'Donnell let him keep my hat and told me where to get a new one, which infuriated me more.
I told Mr. DeForest about it, and he said he wasn't happy with his roommate either. We went to O'Donnell, and he agreed to make us roommates and put the other two guys together, not fully understanding what the two of us were capable of…
Once we were roommates, we immediately stopped calling each other "Mr." I called him Defo (Dee-Fo), his name of choice, and he called me Vinnie. Later, when we became even better friends, I just called him Deef.
Deef was an inch taller than me at 5'11", and he was ripped like a mountain lion, muscle from head to toe. He had blonde hair and narrow blue eyes and a mischievous and highly contagious smile. He looked at things realistically, unlike me, but he was open to doing things that could potentially lead to trouble. It could've been my bad influence or just that he loved to have fun. A little bit of both, I think. And I knew he'd always have my back just like I would always have his.
We had to get up at 4:15 every morning and be standing outside our rooms in the hallway by 4:30, where Master Sergeant O'Donnell formally addressed us. Deef and I were both big fans of Saturday Night Live, the John Belushi-Dan Aykroyd era, and we decided the best way to get up to ensure we weren't late and not getting in any trouble was to jump up onto our beds once our alarm sounded, dance like the Blues Brothers, and then jump around the room twice. I'd jump from my bed to the top of the two wooden desks that were pushed together in the middle of the room by the two double-hung windows while Deef ran across the room and jumped onto my bed. Then I'd jump onto his bed, and he'd jump onto the desks. After two intense laps, singing I'm a Soul Man while we did it, we were ready for the day.
Usually, we began each day with PT, which involved getting outside by 4:45 and standing at "Parade Rest," waiting for O'Donnell. The first thing he'd say was, "Company, Atten Hut!" And we'd all react quickly to his command. Then we'd start by marching toward the woods on the opposite side of the Upper Parade Ground in tight, uniform rows of two. Pretty soon, we were singing marching songs while the pace quickened. Then we'd pick it up another notch, and we'd be running at a good clip. We'd stop at a clearing and do calisthenics. Not everyone loved PT early in the morning, but I did, and so did Deef.
When we got back, we went upstairs, got into the uniform of the day, stood at our spot at the Upper Parade Ground, and waited for morning formation to begin, which included a live bugle. Then we went to breakfast.
There were times I'd wait and be the last one out to morning formation, approaching my fellow E Company Rooks from behind as they stood at "Parade Rest." I'd bark out the command "Company, Atten Hut!" sounding a lot like Master Sergeant O'Donnell, and they'd all snap to attention. Then I'd sneak around to the front and say, "Good morning, ladies!" They'd all hem and haw, Deef was the only one who knew it was me, and he laughed every time I pulled it off.
Taking a shit was the only alone time we had as rooks, and once in the stall with the door closed, you had some privacy. One day I decided to have some fun. There were only two stalls in the bathroom, I was in one, and one of my fellow rooks was in the other. After I wiped my ass, I yelled out, "Parachute War!" and took the shit-covered toilet paper and tossed it over the top of the stall, where it landed on the kid in the other stall. That kid was shocked, and I kept loading up, sending dirty parachutes over in rapid succession. "Parachute Wars" became common practice, and as gross as it sounds, it was a lot of fun. We showered afterward anyways…
One afternoon, Deef came back from the bathroom wearing his shower shoes with a white towel wrapped around his waist. He had one hand behind his back, and he said, "Vinnie, I have something for ya…" I responded, "Okay, what is it?" He pulled his hand out from behind his back, and he had a fist full of steaming shit! I went nuts, and O'Donnell heard it. He ran in to see what was happening, and I said, "Mr. DeForest has something in his hand, the one behind his back…" O'Donnell said, "Let me see what you got, DeForest." Deef opened his fist and showed him the steaming pile of shit in his palm, and all O'Donnell could say was, "Go wash your hand, Deforest, and don't do that again."
Deef was doing a great job keeping up with my antics, we were two of a kind, Norwich University's version of Belushi and Aykroyd. So, when we finally had permission to leave campus for the weekend, I invited him to come home with me and party with my friends. We didn't have a ride, so all we could do was put on our uniforms, pack a duffel, and hang our thumbs in the air, hoping to get a ride to Sharon, Massachusetts, or somewhere close so my parents could pick us up. The uniform worked well, and we usually got rides quickly.
One cold, snowy Friday night, we got in our uniforms and started hitching a ride back to Sharon. We got picked up quickly by a four-door sedan that was being driven by a guy in his late twenties who spoke broken English and two old ladies. Deef and I thought it was a strange arrangement, but when you're hitchin' a ride on a cold, snowy night in Vermont, you can't be too fussy. We squeezed into the back seat of the car with one of the old ladies.
Everything was going well. The driver seemed to be careful on the snow-covered roads, and then all of a sudden, he lost control of the car, and we went into a spin. We must've spun around three times before we came to a stop just inches from a guardrail. I looked at Deef, and both of us wanted out of the car. The driver apologized, and the old ladies pleaded with us to stay. We were on a dark road in East Bum, and there weren't a lot of other cars on the road. We thought about it. Leaving the car could mean we'd freeze to death. We agreed to stay in the car, but we told them if there was one more incident like that, we were out.
The driver was going slower and driving more carefully, and we settled in. Not long after, we went into another spin, even worse than the first one, and everyone knew we were getting out.
Deef and I decided that taking our chances with freezing to death was better than a crash 'n burn with the Golden Girls. We got out and watched that sedan disappear into the night. We hung our thumbs out whenever a car went by, but they were few and far between, and no one was stopping. All we could hope for was a State Trooper or a plow. We were starting to consider what it would be like freezing to death…
Then, a Datsun 240Z stopped. The guy driving it asked us where we were headed, and he said he could get us pretty close. We told him what had happened with the first ride, and he said, "No need to worry. I make this run in the winter all the time. You're safe with me." He ended up taking us right to my house. We offered him some money, but he wouldn't take it.
Deef and I went to the local watering hole the following night and had a great time partying with my friends. Getting back was a lot easier once the roads were clear.
After the first semester, I left Norwich for Boston University, thinking it would be a better fit. Sadly, it wasn't. Leaving Norwich was the first big mistake of my life. I thought about Deef often, about all the fun we had, but life kept moving at an even faster pace, and I lost touch with him.
I always thought that one day I'd get to sit with Deef, toss back a few cold ones, and reminisce about our time as roommates with sentences that began, "Remember when we…"
Recently, an ICU nurse at Brigham and Women's Hospital mentioned the town he was from, and it was the same town Deef was from. The nurse knew Deef and his older brother Steve, who also went to Norwich, and said he was friends with their kids. When I had some time, I decided to search for Deef, hoping we could reunite and finally get to knock those beers back…
The first thing that came up was his obituary… Due to some health issues in my family, my emotions were already raw, and reading about Deef, I was at once overcome with grief. I started to shake, and my tear ducts broke loose. I always pictured him just the way he was in 1974, forever young. He passed in 2009 at the age of 53.
Barry DeForest was a great kid, and after reading about him, a great husband, father, and friend. I'm sure he's in Heaven, but I'm pretty damn sure he's still raisin' Hell.
RIP, Deef. I love you, brother…
You mighta heard I run with a dangerous crowdWe ain't too pretty, we ain't too proudWe might be laughing a bit too loudAw, but that never hurt no one
Only the good die young…