Picturing spring break

By Chris Tolles

Spring break is not a normal time, not something that becomes pedestrian or deliberate. It is spring break. Just saying, "spring break," gets my blood flowing.

I believe it was the legendary writer Shakebeer who said, "This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this spring break."

When we're old, memories of college, as psychology predicts, will become almost entirely faded into specific incidents. That's spring break: the most outrageous and even downright daring lust for life, or something like that. Memories are made of spring break.

Wednesday's Daily Campus ran a superb article titled, "Swimwear fashions cater to all sizes." I just love SMU. The only print portion I perused was the "Top ten things to bring on spring break." The writer of this list left out one item of immeasurable importance, however.

I've only one piece of advice leading up to 2002's revelries: Take a camera.

I did that last year; I bought myself a pocket-sized little Kodiak disposable. But, I sure wouldn't want to throw away the pictures I took.

Spring break equals legendary pictures, plain as that. Driving south on whatever freeway leads to South Padre Island (my fellow missionaries and I were lost), we happened upon a fancy new truck. Trucks are just normal here in Texas, right?

Wrong.

This was a truck for the ages. Obviously induced by intelligence of the highest caliber, this truck owner decided to add a mural to the gate of his truck. I have seen many different artistic expressions painted on automobiles, sunsets by far being the most prevalent. Sunsets are one of nature's beauties, yes, but so, arguably, was the one I happened to capture in my photo.

It depicted a courageous lion "mounting" another lion. Lion style. This is not something I see everyday.

During the first night of my epic voyage to visit someone's south father isle, I met a drunken lad from Iowa. He was utterly convinced that he, beyond all notions of logical thought, could run through a volleyball net. That's a good photo. Taken directly after the massive disaster that was his attempt to destroy the net, the picture quite nicely displays the true emotion of one mammoth close line. Maybe I should call Time magazine.

One constant of any decent spring break is the kid who passes out. You know the one: gets a little too excited, pours himself one too many cocktails and winds up snoozing on the couch in the middle of a crowd of 50. Disclaimer: I did not take part in any of the attacks to be mentioned, I only snapped the picture.

As it happened, someone saw our snoring friend, then found a magic marker, a tube of sun screen and a full ashtray. After the traditional doodles were applied, lotion was added to highlight the art's effect. Then things got a little gross, as you may have expected, but nevertheless it is one photo that will make me laugh until the day I die.

Being the fly-by-the-seat-of-our-pants types while on spring break, we reserved no hotel room that first night, which turned out to be a blessing. Walking down to the beach for a quick pre-dawn snooze, we met another group with a similar intent. We got to talking, and I wound up wagering with one guy that he couldn't run to a friend some distance away and back in less than ten minutes. The daredevil took my bet.

The picture I have to encapsulate that memory is of the wild and crazy youth collapsed on his side, drenched in sweat, red-faced as an Irishman on St. Patrick's Day, arm raised like a Super Bowl champion holding the spoils of his run. Five bucks. Spring break. The next picture is of his back while he regurgitated the night's swallows. Spring break.

So while it is clear that we will find ourselves in situations of utter chaos, just remember, the words "spring break" are worth a thousand pictures.