Looking for a college prank? You've come to the right place. You too can become Master of the Spoons!
In the Fall of 1983, there were four Johns Hopkins students who could take the food service no more. (Actually there were 645, but only four with the balls to do anything about it.)
There was certainly no culinary point in going to the dining hall, yet we'd paid all this money so that A.R.A. Services, Inc. would sustain us. Virtually everything was served with some sort of translucent glaze. We were driven nightly to order pizza. We resented A.R.A.
Of course, we also worked for them. Three of the four of us. The fourth worked in a place that would come in handy later, but we'll get to that. Three of us worked not in the dining hall, but in the freshman dormitory Snack Bar, to which A.R.A. cagily drove the malnourished meal plan subscribers, fists full of parental cash. Thus, we discovered that all the meat A.R.A. was preparing for us was U.S.D.A. Certified Grade C (which meant that it must be cooked to within an inch of its life to avoid spreading disease).
We had enough. So one day we made a pact. We would, each of us, steal something from the dining hall with every meal. A plate, a knife, a glass, a bowl. We amassed a fair number of place settings. But the pact lacked focus. We needed a goal.
We decided to steal only spoons. All of them. Not a spoon a meal, not a bunch of spoons. We wanted to wipe out the A.R.A. spoon collection.
Our first couple of meals netted a few dozen. We were learning our craft. Pockets held some. Socks were good. You could stick some in your sleeves and if you moved carefully they didn't rattle. Our ambitions quickly grew. "Mr. N" one dinner came home with 110 spoons. Word quietly spread around the dorms. Other freshmen started dropping by after meals offering gifts of a spoon or two. Some were friends, some just wanted something to believe in. And some were just punks who wanted an excuse to steal. What we had on our hands was a movement.
Soon, things got rough. A.R.A. noticed that their supply of spoons was quickly dwindling. They put extra security on the doors. Backpacks were banned. If you rattled as you walked, you were a suspect. They searched book bags. We had to be careful. One dinner-time, "Mr. M" was caught with a fistful of spoons. Fortunately, he worked the Snack Bar and the manager who caught him knew what a sweet and honest lad he was and therefore believed his explanation that he was merely grabbing a few for a little party and would have returned them the next day.
We were causing havoc. We heard a student complain that he was having trouble eating his Cap'n Crunch with a fork. People were eating soup by lifting the bowl to their lips and sipping. Many wore cottage cheese moustaches from bending their heads to their plates. College is preparation for life, and sometimes in life there are just no spoons. Life lesson.
After several days, we modified our goal. Stealing all of the spoons was unreasonable. There would always be some being washed, some in use. We decided to stop at 1,000. We could solder them together and sell 500 sets of musical spoon sets at jamborees throughout the land. Or so went our first plan.
We collected our thousandth spoon on a Friday. It had taken one week. We felt like Scrooge at the end of "A Christmas Carol," where he joyously realizes the speed with which the spirits have changed his sorry life.
A couple of days later, A.R.A. bought more spoons. Soft food transport from bowl to mouth was reenabled. Students were free to slurp again. We had never considered the possibility, but we saw it and it was lovely. We decided it was time to return the spoons.
We'd kept them hidden in the ceiling tiles of one of our dorm rooms, and to keep count we'd wrap them in bundles of 20 with masking tape. Which you can see in the above photo.
The fourth member of our squad worked for campus security. As a dispatcher. Thus, he knew the routes that the campus goon squad travelled in their never-ending quest to bring to justice ne'er-do-wells like ourselves. At 3 AM, we posted two lookouts, and ran out to the quad in front of the dining hall.
What we did was this:
Rows and rows of spoons reached gently from the earth on silvery stalks, glistening in the dewy dawn and blooming in the early morning air.
Which created a fair amount of amusement and bewilderment among the breakfast staff. Pictured at right is chef Maurice, the first dining hall worker to open the doors, who looked out and declared, "This be spoon day!"
The management was good humored enough to wait until after breakfast to begin the harvest, letting all the students see the glory of Spoon Day.
But eventually it was time for the harvest to begin. In this picture, at left is the dining hall manager, and at right, bent in full rice paddie posture, is our boss at the snack bar, Mary.
And here again, the dining hall manager demonstrates the correct ergonomic position from which to harvest spoons.
Not everyone wanted to join the harvest festival. Here's Maurice telling Greg (vertically challenged today, but during the Reagan Administration we said "dwarf") to handle it.
And here's Greg joining the fun. Logically, he was an excellent choice to spearhead the harvest, as he was lowest to the ground to begin with.And remember...