Hey Chico!

They were ordinary, everyday pants. Actually, they weren’t pants at all. They were Bermuda shorts. They weren’t expensive or colorful. They were plain, blue-jean shorts that you would buy from JC Penny’s. But, they were on my body when I left my parent’s house on a Friday night, and they needed to be on my body when I got back to my parents house Saturday morning. If those shorts were not on my body when I returned home, then my parents would know I was up to “no good” the previous night. I couldn’t have that. It would ruin my unscathed reputation of being a “good kid.”

It started out with a phone call from my friend Fletcher telling me there was a party in Chico. Fletcher drove a black Jetta with tan leather seats that you would stick to in the summertime unless the AC was blasting. It was this Jetta that was going to get us to the party where I eventually lost my shorts. During this particular party, there was a series of mini-adventures that would set in motion my mission to find my shorts. It is this quintessential quest that would turn out to be one of my most memorable experiences in high school.

Let’s rewind and go back to the beginning. It was the end of May, and the sun was just going down in my hometown, Oroville, Calif. Oroville is only 30 minutes from Chico, where my friend Fletcher and I were headed for this ridiculous party. In the “valley,” when the sun is just touching the tops of the Sierra Mountains, the clouds look like sherbet ice cream; it is the most perfect sight that any two eyes could see, especially when you’re on a path to party, about to graduate from high school. When the sun is setting with nothing but clear blue sky with hues of pink, one can only guess that the coldest it’s going to get outside is 80 degrees Fahrenheit. It is like a waterloo sunset and I was in paradise. That is the brilliance of Chico, beautiful summer nights to host the biggest outdoor parties on the block.

It was these giant parties and 22 bars two miles from campus that got CSU, Chico, named the number one party school in the nation in Playboy in 1987. Chico earned the title because over 20,000 people decided to rampage in downtown during Pioneer Days, an annual festival with a parade through the streets. The memory of that fateful night has nearly been relived every Halloween since. Chico held the title for fifteen years before falling to number two in 2002. The number one slot that year and years to follow went to Arizona State University.

But, just because they weren’t number one doesn’t mean that President Dr. Paul J. Zingg and previous President Dr. Ed Rollins still didn’t send out memos to all faculty asking teachers to, “Maintain high academic expectations throughout the semester, including on Fridays and around holidays like Halloween… and we should all stop referring, even in humor, to Chico State as a 'party school.' Such references simply perpetuate an outdated image, normalize alcohol abuse, and demean the high academic quality of this institution.”

It was the “party school” title that made almost every high school student in Butte County want to party in Chico. It was that very “party school” reference that beckoned my friends and me to party there all the time. I mean, come on, it was the end of senior year. We had no worries and were already accepted to the colleges of our choice. It was this care free, or should I say careless, attitude that got my shorts lost.

When Fletcher and I arrived at this block party, our friends were waiting with screwdrivers in hand. As soon as I stepped out of the car, I had a drink drunkenly placed in my hands and chants of “drink, drink, drink,” soon followed. My friends were already sloshed. It was great, and like a “good girl,” I did what I was told. I drank and drank and drank some more. I drank so much that at one point I was singing in unison with every other drunken person to none other than Billy Joel’s “Only the Good Die Young,” a classic to say the least.

After our drunken singing, we decided to go swimming. This is where everything went awry, and I lost my shorts. I got in the pool, which, as I look back, was a huge mistake. I went to pull myself out, my hands slipped, and I hit my head and almost passed out. After I was dragged out of the pool, I was banned from swimming, but like all good parties, the alcohol kept a nice flow. Once the screwdrivers stopped, I found Malibu Rum, and once the Malibu stopped, I discovered that Gin tastes like pine trees. Right after I drank the shot of Gin, I had an epiphany. My shorts were gone.

Click on the Greek letters to continue

Osprey - JournAlum - The Lumberjack - KRFH/610 AM - Travel

2008 Travel Journal

Editor-In-Chief - Matthew Hawk

Copy Editors - Anthony Barstow, Rose R. Miller, and Matt Barry