Morjes!

Welcome to my blog. I write about fitting in, sticking out, and missing the motherland as a serial foreigner.

Flashback Friday: A Knight to Remember

Today's Flashback Friday is more of a happy trip down memory lane guided by photos, rather than a story with an actual beginning, middle, and end. Enjoy the awkwardness that is 19-year-old Bridget.


While we were at the BYU in the late 1990s/early 2000s, Jeremy and his brother lived in a house south of campus called The Reagle Beagle. The fact that the house had a name doesn't mean that it was structurally more special than any other house south of campus. In fact, I once heard one of Jeremy's roommates say that their house was so run-down and tainted by accumulated college student filth that if there were any children living there, they would be removed by the state.

I'm sure there's a story behind the misspelling of "Reagle" in the house's name, but it's not a story I'm familiar with. Let's assume they were going for "Regal Beagle."

In any case, this house was full of male college students who loved to plan and put on elaborate events. In my time dating Jeremy while he lived there (or dating Jeremy while his brother lived there, as was sometimes the case), I can recall an organized pre-dawn excursion to hike Mt. Timpanogos, some kind of Valentine's extravaganza, a Halloween costume party/dance at which a king and queen were crowned, a trip to a remote cabin where they played revolutionary war-style paintball, a few football games, and the two events I'm writing about today: a Christmas sweater party, and a faux high school dance.

First, the Christmas Sweater party.


As you can see, they went all out on the decorations. The mandatory attire for the men was a Christmas sweater. I think they got them all at a thrift store, and the more doo-dads hanging off of them (sequins, small Christmas ornaments, pom-poms, teddy bears, puffy paints, etc.), the better. In some cases, the hanger marks in the shoulders of the sweaters from their time hanging on the rack at the store were still very visible.


One of the roommates dressed up as Santa Claus and we all got our pictures taken with him. This is Jeremy's brother Scott (the one who escaped from a Russian hospital).


...and here are Jeremy and I. I'm not sure why Jeremy is not wearing a Christmas sweater. Maybe he wasn't actually living there at the time and thus was exempt from the rules.

The other memorable event was the faux high school dance. We all dressed up in formal attire and went to dinner at a soon-thereafter defunct restaurant on University Avenue called The Blue Coyote, or Coyote Bleu, or something like that. Then we went back to the Reagle Beagle for a dance and also to have our pictures taken:

The theme, if I recall correctly, was "A Knight to Remember." Or maybe it was "Medieval Nights," as seen on this classy backdrop. Either way, there was a theme, and it involved a corny pun on k/night.

The backdrop, by the way, was painted on the actual wall. I believe it was a part of that room's decor independent of any high school dance-themed activities that sometimes took place. Impressive, I know.

There are other stories I could tell about the Reagle Beagle and its occupants, and maybe I will someday. There was the mystery of how the house was approved by BYU and yet managed to have both girls and boys living under the same roof (but on different floors), or the night that Jeremy and a roommate went after an intruder with a cast-iron frying pan and a tennis racket, or that revolutionary war paintball activity, of which I have video footage...

Perhaps another day.

Book Review: Guests of the Ayatollah (Mark Bowden)

The Dark Knight, at long last