Oxford, Day 23. The Bear and Boar Society

"Hey, Joey! I want a calZONE!"

"Hey! Tony! Let's be REALLY LOUD!"

"You must not ah-kwiz-zice." -Matt (quoting Churchill?)

We WERE going to try to see all of the other colleges and the rest of what we hadn't yet done at Oxford, but God wasn't having it. It stopped pouring around 8PM, but that didn't stop us from going out for that last plate of greasy pub food for lunch.

Last dinner at Oxford was in a really nice, private little banquet room. I ate my meal with 170 year old silverware and got the feeling that lots of important people had done the same. It was kind of quiet and I could tell that it was starting to hit people that our time was just about up. It hit me hardest when I saw Dean's room completely packed up and cleaned, our 5 teacups placed nicely on his desk.

We all went out for one last drink at The Bear and then came back and I smashed most of my crap into my suitcase, with Marina coming in periodically to bite off little pieces of my soul. We watched a last Office in Andy's room and drank the last of the beers. Dean and I killed the Scotch with a toast to Blue Boars past and the many Blue Boars to come.

Before bed, I found the bottle looking sad and empty. I asked Dean to give it a proper burial with me. That idea somehow turned into all of us writing up a document listing the founding members of the Bear & Boar Society and stuffing said document (which was eloquently drawn up by Dean, who dabbled in calligraphy...another facet!) into the bottle, and finally tucking the bottle inside the wall between mine and Andy's rooms.

(There was one piece of paneling that wasn't screwed down at the bottom. We didn't cause any damage and I actually got the feeling that that our actions were expected from us. The porters probably have a whole collection of empty, sacred bottles from lame, starry-eyed college kids.)

It was even kind of sad when Matt came in to say his goodbyes. Things were still far from relaxed around him, and none of us are by any means all that crazy about him, but his starting the farewell process just got me feeling down and nostalgic. I really can't imagine having that much fun with any other group of (4 weeks previously) complete strangers. This is something that has changed who I am, and how I see the world and the people in it.

Even if there don't end up being as many Blue Boars in the future as we had all hoped for, here's to all of the great Blue Boars past.