The Antenna Farm: Abusing Mike Hoover and his pick-up.
Mike Hoover is a story all by himself. He joined Det. 2 after the cliques had formed, and unfortunately for him, it appeared that his IQ was lacking just enough to make him the prime target for massive quantities of hateful pranks. I hate to think of the mental stress we put this boy under, but he handled it much better than I can say I would have. Fortunately, I don't have to guess how I would have handled it, because I've never been the subject of such continual, non-stop abuse over such a long period of time.
If it sounds like we were total inhuman ass holes to this young man, we were, and I'd like to collectively apologize to him on behalf of the entire group. Sorry Mike, but damn, you never flinched. You took it like it was intended. Harmless fun.
It was winter, probably a January or February drill, and it had to be early 90's because it still snowed in Nebraska back then. My brother was in with me at the time, so that would put it about '93. David and I found some shovels after being tasked with scooping the walk by J.T. He never saved us 'weekend warriors' much avionics work, he just 'created' stuff to keep us busy so the drunks wouldn't break his planes. It was either that, or 'gold plate' a Huey in a phase inspection, and we'd done that a hundred friggin' times, so snow scooping it was.
Once the walk was cleared, we turned our focus to much more productive and creative efforts. We decided to make a camper top for Mike Hoover. It didn't start out that way. The first thing we wanted to do was pile the snow in his truck bed higher than the 'antenna farm' he'd grown on the hood and roof. Mike was involved with any organization that would have him from the volunteer firemen in his hometown of Louisville to the Knights of Columbus, and he had some form of communication in his pick-up so each entity could get a hold of him quickly. He also had every Gerber, Leatherman, and Hoover-matic type tool that would fit on his web-belt. Like I said, the early 90's in Nebraska had easily provided enough fluff to do the job right.
About half way through, David dropped his shovel and started to take a piss in the snow. This sort of shocked me because we had a small audience. I remember Troy Pabst being there. Troy was another Lincolnite that joined Det 2 right out of high school. Troy was studying horticultural at UNL, and brought back a butt-load of plants and leaves to study from Corpus Christi, Texas one summer camp. Troy was always good for a laugh, and is primarily responsible for a large portion of nicknames assigned to folks in Det 2. He labeled me with 'Hoey'.
If David didn't care that Troy (gazer) Pabst was watching him pee, I figured it was safe for me as well. After I noticed that David was writing my name, I wasn't to be outdone. I wrote his name in cursive. When Troy commented that future interpreters might think we were holding each other's dick because of the funny handwriting and such, we discontinued our handwriting lessons and continued to bury the truck and our handiwork.
When piling it on got boring, we decided to make it look like a camper top. I wish I'd taken a picture. From a distance, you probably couldn't have told the difference between our version and a real camper. Hell, even Mike was amused.
The worse thing I ever did to Mike Hoover is up to interpretation, but I think this next story is it. I never did anything harmful, depending on your perspective. It was a dare to start with, and I can't even remember who dared it. It was probably Troy Pabst. He was the same one who dared me to fire my .32 in David's apartment. I do remember that it was Ben Leduc who double-dogged it, and it was my brother, David, who told me I didn't have a hair on my ass if I didn't.
So I took the zip-lock to the shitter and filled it with a loaf of warmth. You know, it's hard to aim a turd when you can't see the hole it's coming out from. It's also hard to keep from peeing when you're trying to hold the bag open with both hands. I didn't want to pee, because my schwance couldn't be aimed in the stool without at least one hand. Stored in my right cargo pocket, I was literally armed with a 'shit bag'. It wasn't your typical feces collection. The previous night's drinking made sure the consistency filled the corner spaces of the bag quickly. Trent Fuller claimed later that it sort of looked like chili.
It got funnier by the moment as I carted it around asking people to guess what I had in my pocket. Dean Molzer actually guessed correctly, but wouldn't believe he had until I pulled it out and showed it to him. It was still steaming, and had caused the inside of the bag to grow foggy.
I finally got around to putting it on its dared destination, Hoover's dashboard. Not because I got tired of carrying it around, but because guys were trying to schmuss it on my leg to see if the bag would break, and I was getting bruised and charley-horsed all up and down my thigh.
"The universal aptitude for ineptitude makes an) human accomplishment an incredible miracle." Col. John P. Stapp