Dear Otus,
We were out of town last weekend at the big TCU-Iowa State game (we're retired out of Des Moines -- Go, Cyclones!), so we missed the hubbub over at Beaver Lake for the annual Polar Bear Plunge. I understand it even made national television. Can you fill us in?
-- John Blutarsky,
Bentonville
Dear John,
It was wholly a pleasure to hear from you even under these embarrassing circumstances.
Readers who have been with me for 35 years (come April 1) know I like a good joke as much as the next cat. But there are lines of common propriety and decorum that are not to be crossed. There are matters of basic human decency and respect for others that are not to be the objects of derision, ridicule and twisted juvenile mockery.
When those lines are crossed, public safety becomes an issue. It goes far beyond what some consider a harmless prank. It goes to the very fabric of our society when such things occur.
It make us wonder how today's young people were brought up. It causes us to pause and question the inchoate menhirs of our cultural foundation. It makes us want to slap those frat boys silly.
Most readers already realize I'm talking about the ugly, inexcusable incident that happened Dec. 6 at the Prairie Creek Public Use Area east of Rogers on the shores of Beaver Lake. An iPhone video went viral with 2.8 million views.
The marina parking lot was the site for the Annual Arkansas Arctic Antics Polar Bear Plunge sponsored by the Quad Cities Polar Bear Club of Northwest Arkansas.
The club, made up mostly of retired residents living in Bella Vista, Bentonville, Lost Bridge Village and Holiday Island, has gathered the first Saturday in December for 18 years to take a dip for charity in the chilly waters of Beaver Lake.
Old friendships are renewed, new members are welcomed and good sport is had by all.
The most rewarding aspect of the AAAAPBP is that it allows the region's 187,386 Yankee retirees to remember their youth -- the good times they so enjoyed in the ice and snow back home in Michigan, Minnesota, Illinois -- even Iowa.
The plunge enables those Arkansas transplants to carry on beloved family traditions that go back, for some of them, to the early 20th century when their fathers took similar plunges in such places as Lake Michigan, Lake Superior and Long Island Sound.
Unfortunately, tradition doesn't stand for much to the puerile frat boys of Delta Tau Chi fraternity at the University of Arkansas at Fayetteville. The "Delta Taus" have been on Panhellenic probation twice in the past six years, and this incident will surely lead to a third censure, and possibly revocation of their charter.
The fallout from the Delta Taus' "lark" was a running joke on Jon Stewart's The Daily Show on Comedy Central all week, so I suppose it did make national headlines.
Stewart lampooned those who labeled the frat boys "hooligans, thugs and moral degenerates who should be publicly castigated and made societal pariahs."
What exactly did the churlish Delta Taus do?
They ruined the AAAAPBP event, scared the bejeebers out of a harmless bunch of elderly folks and sent four of them to Springdale Memorial Hospital with heart palpitations and suspected onset ephebiphobia, selachophobia and gelotophobia.
Dec. 6 was a mild day in Northwest Arkansas. The relatively warm weather brought out more than 140 elderly Polar Bear Club members who gathered at Prairie Creek with the best of intentions.
It was a festive occasion as the retirees reminisced about plunges of yesteryear and swapped tales their parents had told them of plunges from their own youth.
Cheering them on, supposedly, were 17 members of Delta Tau Chi, who had come up from Fayetteville in two minivans, a Jeep Grand Cherokee and a Toyota Camry. The frat boys waited until the club members were chest-deep in the lake and happily splashing about before unleashing their prank.
From behind a hidden area at a nearby fishing dock came the menacing fin of what appeared to be a 12-foot great white shark. The Delta Taus started screaming, "Shark! Shark!" and chaos hit the polar bear club.
It was a mad stampede to cover the 40 or 50 feet back to the boat ramp. The club members were greeted by inebriated fraternity boys who hauled the open-jawed fiberglass shark up onto the shore while hooting and hollering. It was a sad day for civility.
AAAAPBP president Vernon Lubenic said the club's legal advisers are investigating action against the fraternity.
Until next time, Kalaka reminds you to be kind to our Yankee retirees, because there but for the grace of God ...
Disclaimer
Fayetteville-born Otus the Head Cat's award-winning column of humorous fabrication appears every Saturday. Email:
mstorey@arkansasonline.com
HomeStyle on 12/13/2014