Jeff Getting That "College Experience" He Missed Out On

As a graduate of one of America's great commuter colleges, San Francisco State U., I received the best education $1200 a semester could buy. I got a well-rounded, liberal arts degree and a spiffy diploma that sits on a shelf in my office next to my softball trophies.

One thing I didn't get though, was the College Experience. No Animal House fraternity parties, no sneaking kegs past the nosy RA on the fourth floor of the freshman dorm, no sabotaging of the toilets on the girls' floor----you know, all those things that you look back on fondly years after leaving school. Me, all I have are books on Gamal Abdel Nassar and the Suez Canal Crisis and that little diploma.

That all changed this past Sunday. I was bouncing around Ninth and Irving with my brother Jon AKA Giovanni looking for a place to catch the 49ers game. We settled on an Irish pub (shocker!) called The Blackthorn. It had several TVs and the Sunday Ticket package, and they take credit cards (woohoo!).

We settled in for some ciders and beers and had a nice time with a hearty group of locals to watch the games. And by "locals" I mean people from Philly, New York, Pittsburgh and Indianapolis who live here in San Francisco and gather at sports bars to watch their hometown teams. They even had a little grill out back and fired up some hot dogs for everybody.

As the afternoon games wound down, Giovanni and I were hanging out back having hot dogs, beers and cigs, when our little afternoon idyll was completely shattered. First a huge group of singing (badly) Irish soccer hooligans came in to celebrate a big victory. A woman with a thick brogue slurred to us that County Kilsomebodyorrather beat Kerry. Gio and I hunkered down as the songs got louder and less intelligible. I could make out a few place names and a few "IRAs" but not much else.



Then, things got real hairy. I looked inside as literally dozens of college age kids in matching "team" T-Shirts moved the pool table aside and started setting up long tables with tons of plastic beer cups and huge pitchers of domestic beer. "What is this?" I asked my brother. "Flip Cup" he replied. I guess Gio really DID get a better education at UC Santa Cruz, because I didn't know the first thing about this game.

And really, I still don't. It involves a lot of yelling, flipping plastic cups, more yelling, and chugging huge amounts of beer. Several of the combatants stumbled outside for a "break" taking slugs of a grandaddy jug of Wild Turkey. Soon people were stumbling all over the place, falling onto our table, into our laps, etc. When one celebrant dropped and shattered an entire pitcher of beer we decided we'd had enough of college and matriculated to Clement St. to catch the Packers-Cowboys game.