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Goodbye Liver, Hello Heartburn
Submitted by: Jim Ford - 10/20/09 12:00 pm

Goodbye Liver, Hello Heartburn
Time to pull out my flip flops, dust off the ice chest, and break out the sunscreen. Every August a bunch of my old college buddies from Louisiana Tech and me get together on Lake Ouachita in Arkansas. Our mission? Drink, tell old stories, eat nothing but steak and burgers, swim, play poker, relax, and generally let our worries go for a few days. What do we all share in common? We are all alumni of the Alpha Tau Omega Fraternity, Zeta Chi Chapter. Gentlemen, prepare your livers for a weekend of debaucherous abuse!

Leavitt and Sawyer pulled the fishing boat around to get walkie talkies to scout a good cove to tie down for the afternoon. This big mamma jamma house boat sucks the gasoline like crazy and is truly like driving a 2 story house. Can't just dock it anywhere. With our Tech colors flying and the customary hit off the beer funnel for many of us, we set off to find what adventures... and gut rot, may await us.

Todd, aka, "Squimples" always entertains us and this year was no exception. He must've spent hundreds of dollars and d dozen hours building this customized, automated, almost-fully-functioning potato gun with missile launch switches and joystick firing mechanism! Hopefully next year it will actually work. But hey, it sure impressed the 17, 18, and 12 year old girls working the dock to load our gear. Throughout the weekend people do various things like fishing, hanging out on the upper deck or jacuzzi, and good ol' fashioned pig-line beer floating drink-fest.

And of course one of the main focuses of the weekend, 24 hours a day drinking, grilling, and drinking! Herndon and Verm cooking bratwursts (a staple for the weekend for all of us), my pork steaks and corn, and of course; no true self-respecting Louisianan would grill without Tony Chachere's cajun seasoning and a healthy dose of LSU colored cans of cold Bud Light beer! With all the beer, steaks, bratwursts, etc and barely ANY water or roughage.... trust me when I tell you the boat owners put this sign in the bathrooms for a reason. 10 guys with 100% gut rot over 3 days. Whew!

We have so much fun. Endlessly hazing each other. Do NOT fall asleep first. I'm sure there are pictures of all of us floating around with someone hanging a huge bratwurst or turkey sausage over our mouths while we are blissfully passed out. Someone took this one right before I got the "treatment". heh heh. Can't take the little kid out of a man huh? DK is doing his grinding-slap the head dance behind Verm, and here we all are standing on the back of the boat proudly displaying our lack of couth with the sign Todd made.

In our 6th year for the boat trip (7 including the first year at the half trailer we rented... don't even ask.. Deliverance banjo music heard), a few of us decided to head to Hot Springs to sample the local night life. Dressed in our best t-shirts, smelling of lake water, beer, and farts, we hit 3... maybe 4 bars. I ran into a girl whose family I know from Ruston. As we caught up on Ruston and mutual friends, she told us to come by where she works after a while. "Oh yeah, where do you work?", I said. --- "I dance at the strip bar outside of town".... nice. Heh heh. We did NOT go there but we ended up at some total redneck place named Boot Scooters. It literally had the cabs of 2 18-wheelers protruding from the wall and I can now truthfully say I know why Arkansas gets teased for barefoot and pregnant inbred people. That didn't stop 2 of our band of 4 brothers from hitting on every girl in the place. Verm and I eventually retreated to the back and I'll admit, I fell asleep for a bit waiting on everyone. About 5 in the morning I look up to see an unnamed co-conspirator making out with one of the biggest, hairiest, and ugliest women ever to stretch out a pair of polyester orthopedic pants. To his disappointment we called a cab to take us back to a hotel sans the girl. The BEST part of the trip was listening to him negotiate with this girl, "I want to wake up where you are". Wait... aren't those Goo Goo Doll lyrics??? And her response, "I don't think my baby Daddy would like me bringing you home, but give me your number just in case". Oh my lord. Just... hilarious.

We headed back to the boat after 2 hours of sleep and nasty McDonalds breakfast for another day of life in the sun. I could literally feel my liver hardening and the acid in my stomach boiling as I popped another top at 8a.m. I got this artsy shot of Leavitt's fishing gear and then witnessed one of the most beautiful sunsets I've ever seen.

You just can't get a better bunch of friends together for what has become the one thing we all look forward to all year round. Big thanks to our wives, girlfriends, and whatever Todd and Jackson have for cutting us loose for our annual Guy Weekend. It just doesn't get any better than this. Boys, here's to next year!

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