loved bonfire

My first bonfire was in '85. We closed the Chicken and were able to make it to bonfire just before it fell.

I got married the day of bonfire and so we spent part of our wedding night at bonfire.

I do wish it would come back, even if not in all of it's former glory.

30 keg block parties and dancing on the roof.../bringitback

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but also sad that they dont know about mt. aggie ether.

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I got an A in my sking class on Mt. Aggie last year

Bonfire was simply awesome. When it was moved to the polo field, I loved walking by it as it was "under construction" from the Zachary parking lot to class.

Bonfire filled November with excitement and energy.

One of my favorite memories of Bonfire was the year that it rained, and Bonfire twisted and partially fell. At this point I was in graduate school, and had a rather cynical friend from Virginia Military Institute. He would constantly mock A&M - until I took him out to rebuild. We lifted logs and carried them to stack, working several hours on stack. My friend became a life-long Aggie. I referred to it as his "conversion experience."

And I agree that I wish they would bring it back, even if it is not as "glorious." I'd take a stack of sticks if it would bring back that part of the Aggie Spirit that seems to have taken a hiatis.

I saw it from 1960 as a kid-----thru 70 as a graduating senior, and every year after that........no way to describe...every conversation from September on had something to do about BONFIRE. BEING THERE WAS AN OUT OF LIFE EXPERIENCE. Now, I think we took it for granted.........like a lot of things in life we do now. Remember when they put the video cam up and yoou could watch the progress in "fast speed"? That was the beginning of modern technology and showed the center pole grow in to a monstor stack in minutes......ahhhh for the days!

I was a fish in the FTAB when the fire alarms went off in the dorms during the wee hours of November 18th. I had helped with cut and remembered well all the excitement as the stack was getting pretty damn close to finished, but nothing could prepare any of us for what happened.
The next few days on campus were like a horrible dream, and it was a ghost town everywhere. I remember walking around and the only sound that could be heard were the news choppers hovering overhead. It really tore into a lot of us when we had the vigil ceremony at Reed and someone started singing Amazing Grace, shortly followed by most of Reed. I don't think there was a dry set of eyes in the whole place.

I really miss the way the air smells like cut wood. It was everywhere.

I saw my first Bonfire in 1953 or 1954. I don't remember that much except I'd never seen that many people working on a project at the same time. My senior year Bonfire was called off because of John Kennedy's death and the whole campus was really different that year. When my kids were young we would drive up to see the lighting and some years we were a little late but could see the flames from "Red Ass Hill" about halfway between Navasota and CS. Bonfire was the anchor for the student body. So many memories from when I was in school there and that I think tied us all together. I'm just sitting here with those memories rushing through my head and wishing it was still available to all you folks who haven't experienced it. What great days those were. BTHOTU!




Lock and Load

Andy hit the nail on the head. Even though there were maybe on 1,000 people who were out there, everyone saw ther progress. Either from Bush when it was at Duncan or Texas and University thereafter, everybody saw it growing and knew that the big day was approaching. People on campus were different. Fall felt different. It wasn't almost Thanksgiving. It was almost Bonfire week. And if you bled on it and sweated on it, you felt like you had a part in something that all those people were looking forward to. I worked in Bryan all this month. Everyday I drove by and looked at the polo fields and thought something is not right here.

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buckets of urine that people were saving to play with at cut site.

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Say what???

Please explain.


FWIW, I think you guys ought to be able to have your bonfire again. Sounds like it was alot of fun and a good spirit builder.

I never got to see it burn as a fish. It fell my freshman year. We had the whole night planned out, it was going to be awesome and a lot of fun with my closest Aggie friends. I'll never forget driving past the stack hunched over. Even at the 5 year anniversary as a graduate student I felt pretty bad about the whole thing.

In 1987 it was very muddy. We were walking past a truck with guys standing on the roof. One of the guys had one too many and fell off onto my buddy. Into the mud they went. Those were the days.

Bonfire was a unifying event. It brought together ct's as well as non-regs in a common unity of Aggies one and all. We were all united in one common effort.

I remember the many pouches or redman chewing tobacco I went threw during bonfire construction as well as blisters and sore muscles cutting , loading and stacking.

I remember nights at small camp fires in rings around the stack guarding it against sip intruders.

I remember eating pizza and trying to stay warm in the cammo. van.

I remember dorm logs, dorm and outfit competition working on bonfire. I rememebr the only break during my senior year was elephant walk.

I remember the non stop rain that occurred once the center pole went up.

I remember yell pracice as the stack burned and sitting and watching it burn into the wee hours of the moening with my fiancee.

I remember building the tallest stack evr my fish year in1969.

All great memories. I just wish the current Aggie students could have the same memories.

BRING BONFIRE BACK TO CAMPUS!

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buckets of urine that people were saving to play with at cut site.
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Say what???

Please explain.

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Still no response? Is the original poster making up crap? Is this one of those "from the outside you can't understand it (playing with urine)" things?

First cut was always a hoot, but Load was the most fun. I'll never forget all the chants as we "f***ed logs":

1. "1, 2....F*** tu!"
2. "3, 4....Bevo's a w***e!"
3. "5, 6....non-regs....."

"1, 2...on the truck!!! "

The best part about Bonfire wasn't the night it burned, it was the fun and collaberative times it took putting the thing together that made it great. BURNING it was the end process for the tu game (for tu), BUILDING it was for US. I feel like today's students are robbed of the cohesiveness of the Aggie Spirit. It didn't matter if you were Corps, non-reg, Northside or Southside, building Bonfire was the glue that kept all Aggies together.

God Bless the 12.

My fish year was the first year it was not built...my dad is class of '69 and always had some awesome stories about it, so did all my upperclassmen in the Corps.

I wish I could have seen it...

Teamwork
Camraderie
David Alan Coe
Nights at the Chicken
Perimeter Pole
Double Cut
Sbisa Yell (North side)
Grodes
Letter heads
Center Pole
Dorm Log
PRO BONFIRE!

Bonfire created an indescribable atmosphere for the fall semester that only intensified as the semester progressed, especially once that tractor trailer w/ the big ATM on the side showed up on the drill field. After the 97 and 98 bonfires, I'd stay in town for the holiday. It would be dead on campus, so I'd back my pickup up to the stack and roast turkey drumsticks that my poultry science neighbor brought me from their labs. I'd boil coffee and string up drumsticks from the wire that held the stack together. Through out the night into the wee hours of the morning, folks would show up and drink beer and listen to Robert Earl Keen. Then Asians would come along and feed my fat blue heeler smores until she couldn't walk anymore. Good times.

The hardest and most rewarding experience of my life.

I think it will be back. Once the lawsuits are settled, there will still be resistance from the faculty, the community, and the administration. However, the off campus fire will continue to grow in popularity and stature as long as they maintain the leadership hierarchy. That fire will get big enough in terms of preparation and student involvement that the University will eventually feel obligated to being it back into the fold so it can officially supervise and ensure safety.

The university cannot afford another accident, either on campus or off it. It would be a PR mess either way.

The way it is currently built with only one stack but cut to look like multiples can ensure that the worst injuries barring unforeseen, extraordinary accidents will be cuts, bruises, blisters, and the very rare broken bone.

One of the best threads on TxAgs in a long time. Thanks Ags. It is sad though. All the talk about whats up with New Army. Its simple - No Bonfire. Coachs will come and go and the FTAFB team will have its ups and downs, but none of that mattered when it came to build the hell out of and burning Bonfire. It is a truely indescribable event. The mud, the crowd so tightly packed that you didn't think you could move, until it was lit and the heat moved everyone back. You made all sorts of new friends. Yell Practice with the Bonfire behind you and the Last Corps Trip (do the every recite this anymore? Does New Army even know the poem?).

I'd have to say my best Bonfire memory was taking my then girlfriend, now wife, out to the site weeks and several inches of rain after it burned, digging around in the wet ashes and finding hot coals, roasting marshmellows and drinking beer.

My kids will be off to A&M soon. They've heard all the stories, I hope they can experience it first hand.

BRING IT BACK!

Even if you didn't participate in building Bonfire, you were always interested in the progress. I would always jog by and stop and check out the building of stack. And I used to work over at the old Scholtzsky's on Texas (across from Fajita Ritas) and we'd drink a few beers and walk over.

It was a wonderful unifying event for the entire campus.

Before Stack was lit... the tu frat house/dorm (aka outhouse) was driven around campus in the bed of a pick-up truck (or on a flat bed behind a truck)... the truck was loaded up with Red pots yelling at the top of their lungs / truck horn beeping to any and all that were in their way... awesome.

I saw that play out at least three times from the friendly confines of Law Hall's Ramp 9, Room G. I quickly dropped what I was doing and ran to see the hullabaloo. People, including me, would follow the truck en masse.

I feel bad that the Aggie faithful no longer gets to experience.

TAMU... btHo t.u.!

Trajan88
TAMU '88
Law Hall (may it R.I.P.) Ramp 9 Mule
fup!

[This message has been edited by Trajan88 (edited 11/14/2007 9:18p).]

BRING IT BACK!
Post pics

Urine Comment History- Some people claim that they were peed on by fellow participants located higher on the stack. This may have occurred- I can't verify or deny it- my guess would be that the liquid probably wasn't pee (but you never know).

I attended A&M from 1997-2001. I loved it when there was a low lying fog during stack. The fog combined with the lights ontop of the perimeter poles shining on stack combined to create a priceless image.

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Cut was dirty, tiring, fun, hard, awesome.
Unload was dirty, tiring, fun, hard, awesome.
But, there's nothing like sitting in a 4th stack swing from midnight to 6AM.

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truer words have never been spoken.

don't forget the "Stack Naked" t-shirts... ah... shocking... you should have seen the ladies that walked up to Stack bringing cookies during the final days of construction... ladies would look up at Stack and see bare a$$ and just shrug and giggle away (those on Stack would be in the hanging chairs with their overalls down to their knees).

Kubiak, Thanks for explaining the urine thing. I have to believe that is a myth.

Now, then, in the course of trying to find an answer myself, I came across something called the "J**z Jar" in connection with the bonfire.

Can anyone tell me whether that is true or bunk?

Reading through many of these posts brought back my own memories. Bonfire was behind Duncan when I worked it (early 80s). The Corps outfits had "Bonfire Buddies" -- coeds from the Commons who sent us care packages as we worked on it. Made friends with some pretty coeds that way.
I remember you'd go to a local Army surplus store to get your pot (helmet, not wacky weed) fish year, then you tape your class on the back of it. Still got my pot somewhere.
I also remember going through a few packs of Red Man during cut, hauling logs out of the woods and loading onto flatbeds. Fish hauled, pissheads used machetes to clear the brush; sergebutts got to chop. Then we'd all unload the trucks at the Bonfire site.
The massive crowd parting when the Aggie Band entered the field. The lighting of the stack. Midnight Yell.

Bonfire was camaraderie, Aggie spirit, party...awesome experience.

The real experience was in the long hours spent building Bonfire. I loved cut most of all- the early mornings, parking lot fights, struggling alongside the rest of your dorm to lift and move massive tree trunks ("1, 2, half way up; 3, 4 all the way up!", apple baseball and crappy sandwiches for the 100th time at lunch, laid back after lunch, coffee cans, yelling for brownpots to get some felled tree unstuck that some stupid fish managed to drop into another tree, grode sandwich, Leggett longnecks, stealing the neighboring dorm's axes, spending Mondays at Sears getting them to replace all the broken "lifetime guarantee" handles (and then getting mad when they replaced all the wood handles with fiberglass that tore up your hands even more), the pain (and immense satisfaction) of those blisters when you tried to shower at the end of a long cut day, and finally at the end of it all, the quiet, smug sense of satisfaction of a job well done when it burned, having been one of the fortunate few who helped build something that so many more had the priviledge to enjoy. Great memories all, which I wouldn't trade for anything.

I was just talking to my brother earlier this evening about how much I missed putting on my grodes and pot and walking out to stack after evening chow. Just something about the chill in the air, the music blaring from the perimeter poles, the taste of Levi Garrett........God, I miss it. And the funny thing is, I was never one of those guys that worked on Bonfire every chance I got. I'd go a few times a week, but nothing speical......if I'd only known then how much I'd miss it and that I'd never get to build/burn another one......

Bonfire is one of those things that the old cliche' ,"from the outside looking in you can't understand it" fits to an absolute "T".

Bring back this classic logoand this classic rival!!

We loaded trucks.

Davis Gary always brought out enough people to manually load trucks, the only non-reg dorm with that honor. We would chew tobacco, jump in grode holes, never wash our bonfire clothes, work our asses off, and make lifelong friends.

Loading trucks was hard manually labor. We would start early with Thin Lizzy in the morning, brown pots, red pots, and yellow pots banging on doors at some gawd awful hour, and have a blast with our buddies all day long.

We still talk about those huge black bonfire boogers we would pull out of our nose at the end of the work day. We would get cleaned up, drink too much at the Chicken, and repeat the same on Sunday.

Working Stack was awesome. I loved sitting in a swing calling for logs, wiring them up, singing, spitting, cussing. I do remember wearing a jacket even when it was warm, it was the best protection from your buddy above you pissing down on you. That was the only drawback of the swing, not alot of horizontal movement, and no place to hide.

I always remember push week, where I loved to see the sun rise in the morning from 40 feet in the air.

I remember when we lit bonfire under the St. Jackie years, it always seemed to me that he drank as much as we did the day it burned.


Bring it back!

Fortysomthing Ag,

Remember the mud well. Came back by bonfire about 2 or 3 AM. Hopped out and locked my hubs in (if anyone knows what that is anymore) on my Jeep and took off right off Jersey (George Bush now) and let it fly. Drove right up to what was left of burn. Plenty of beer and good folks for me and my buds to share it with. Nobody cared about the jeep right up in perimeter. Wished I had pictures. Even saw a muddy sleeping bag over a couple "humping it" right next to the coals. Now THEY have a real story.

I wish we had this so bad. No matter what anyone says, I never even got to see the on campus bonfire, but even I know it's not the same thing. Bring it back!