The Wild Colonial Boys of Summer House

 

During the summer before my final year at the University of Toronto, I had a gig managing the fraternity house. It was an elected position – you chose a “running mate” and the two of you sought the necessary endorsement from the other members to be nominated as joint candidates for Summer House Managers.

If elected, you and your partner had the task of renting whatever rooms were vacant between Firecracker Day and Labour Day, paying the utility bills, and looking after any necessary maintenance. We used to have a full-time maid named Maria back then and you had to handle the payroll which meant taking the statutory deductions from her pay and remitting them monthly to the government.

My running mate was Brother Conrad and we ran against the slate of Brothers Mark and Pierre. During a round of questioning by the members, each team was asked what kind of system they would use to keep the books. In third year Industrial Engineering, accounting was one of the required courses. I struggled with it at first and actually flunked the mid-term. Just in the nick of time, it came to me in a propitious revelation and I aced the final exam, winding up with a decent grade. I explained that we would use the double-entry accounting system approved and adopted by the fraternity's head office.

Brother Mark introduced the members to his “(patented) two-shoebox technique.” You have two shoeboxes; the money comes in to one shoebox and goes out through the other shoebox. As long as there’s more in the first shoebox than the second, you’re doing alright. The guys were not impressed. Conrad and I won handily.

Conrad had better people skills than me and he took on the job of renting the rooms. He had a knack for finding compatible guys who paid the rent on time. The renters understood that it was just for the summer and they would have to vacate when classes resumed in September. One guy named Roscoe got along particularly well with the members. He could chug beer with the best of them.

The Colonial Tavern was one of our favourite haunts during that summer. Sandwiched between the stately columns of two venerable bank buildings, the allure was cheap draft beer and good music. One night in late August, Roscoe was having a few beers with some of the members. I distinctly remember Brothers Brian and Marc being among them.

At one point, Roscoe declared “I wanna go POUNDING!” That meant to finish our beers and head out from the fraternity house to the Colonial. The entourage consisted of Roscoe, Marc, Brian and myself. The Colonial was your typical beer joint with round tables that got sticky circles on top from round after round of 6-ounce glasses of draft. We had quite a jovial time until Roscoe let the beer get the better of his good sense. His seat was against a wall and when he finished a glass, he would slam it onto the floor behind him, smashing it to pieces. The action was accompanied by a bizarre laugh that sounded like a cross between Woody Woodpecker and Superstone from The Flintsones.

“Hoo hoo hoo ha ha.” Smash!

“Hoo hoo hoo ha ha.” Smash!

Before long there was a heap of broken glass building up. The rest of us were mortified but we kept quiet. Roscoe was not being at all subtle and eventually the manager came over to our table. He took one look at the rubble, looked us over and said, “I think you boys had better drink up and leave.”

The next think I knew there was a bouncer standing behind each one of us with arms folded ominously. I didn’t even take the time to empty my glass. I got up and headed straight for the exit. The others followed with Roscoe bringing up the rear.

“What’s the matter with you wimps?” he slurred. “We could have taken them. I know karate.” Roscoe proceeded to demonstrate his martial arts skill with a kick to the air after which he spun around clumsily and fell flat on his butt to the ground.

Seeing that Roscoe was having trouble getting back on his feet, the rest of us helped him up, then escorted him onto a subway train and back to the fraternity house. With just a gentle push, he landed with a thud on his bed. I think that was where the term crashing originated.

Roscoe only had a few more weeks to go in his residency at the house, and they went by without any other major incident. But Brother Brian managed to imitate that ridiculous laugh to a tee, and we would cajole him into replicating it whenever we got together for some imbibing.

When the Colonial was demolished some years later to make way for development, I wonder if the construction workers heard the sound of breaking glass accompanied by “hoo hoo hoo ha ha.”