Friday, May 9, 2008

The Knobs

This photo shows me (left) with my college buds from BYU -- Bob Maes, Galen Kekauoha, and Jeff Aldous. Collectively, we were known as (and continue to call ourselves to this day) the "Knobs." I'm certain the appellation has crude and antisocial origins, but it seemed to fit; it was even the name we gave our intramural basketball team. We all got to know each other during our freshman year, 1977-78, living in Penrose (T) Hall in BYU's Deseret Towers dorm complex (which, incidentally, is in the process of being torn down now). Bob and I were roommates in T-720 -- we were both from Albuquerque, although, being from opposite sides of town and different stakes, we hadn't known each other previously. Galen and Jeff were cousins who, though they didn't know each other particularly well, decided to room together, and they lived next-door to Bob and me in T-721.


We all had a lot of interesting experiences together as freshmen, but two of our favorite pastimes stand out in my mind. The first was a basketball-based game we invented in which all of the participants (generally 3-4 persons) worked together against gravity. The aim was to see how many consecutive baskets we could make without having the ball touch either the ground or a person who was touching the ground. The ball was put in play by someone's shooting a free throw, and if the shot missed, someone either had to tip the ball in the basket or at least keep it in play by jumping off the ground and tipping it to someone else who could make the shot. I don't remember all the specific rules we made up, but the game always ended when the ball hit the ground or someone couldn't quite get off the ground when handling it. Due to all the funny bounces a basketball tends to take off a rim, it was a lot harder than it sounds; however, I remember we set a record one night at the Smith Fieldhouse (during a dance that we'd skipped out on) of something like 130.

The other pastime I remember was the late-night bull sessions we used to have: we'd pack about 8-12 guys together in someone's dorm room, turn out the light, and shoot the breeze in the dark about anything and everything for a couple of hours. You'd think that would get boring after a while, but we never seemed to get tired of it.

The above photo was taken during a Knobs reunion we had in 1999 at Zion National Park in southwest Utah, which was memorable to me for (a) our hiking up to the airy summit of Angels' Landing, and (b) our sloshing our way up the "Narrows" and Orderville Canyon. Bob and I have since gone backpacking together in the Grand Canyon twice, in 2001 and 2006, but the four of us haven't really gotten together in a while now. Bob and Jeff live in Utah Valley (Bob in Cedar Hills and Jeff in Provo), and Galen lives in Van Nuys, California.