not sure if I should even post this

Sep 3, 2010, 1:37 PM

on a public forum like Tnet, but what the heck... if it's inappropriate a mod can delete it if they wish. A question for those of you at CU in the mid-to-late 70s, in particular if you lived in Norris Hall or the Quad dorms closest to Norris. I was talking to my old roommate on the phone last night, and he brought this up.

Does anybody remember the bizarre "Harlow tradition" in which everybody would start throwing beer & liquor bottles from their dorm room windows into the parking lot below? Actually, I think it was a paved area above the parking lot, there was a basketball goal there....between Norris and the Quad.

The background story. I lived on the 2nd floor of Norris for 4 years. One year several members of the swim/dive team lived on that hall, and one was a guy named Chip Harlow. The way it all started... late one night somebody was standing in that paved area yelling "Harlow!" at the top of his lungs. I'm guessing he was drunk and trying to find Chip, but didn't know what room he lived in. So he thought he'd just holler his name until Chip heard him and came down.

Now this was late, maybe 1 or 2 in the morning. Finally somebody got pissed, opened their window, and yelled down for him to STF up. He paid no attention and kept screaming "Harlow!". Soon there was a verbal war between this guy outside and several people yelling down at him from the dorm windows. Eventually my roommate & I got interested and opened our window too, just to see how this was gonna end.

The verbal war keeps escalating... next thing you know, we hear a bottle crash on the pavement. Somebody has gotten mad enough to throw a beer bottle at this guy! He just laughs and taunts them to throw more. So they oblige him. He's still yelling "Harlow!" of course. We see more and more windows going up, and more people joining in to chuck bottles at this azzhole. Man, it was crazy.

Anyway, that's how "Harlow" was born. And it had many repeat performances. You'd be sitting in your room late at night, and out of nowhere you'd hear somebody throw open their window and yell "Harlow!" ... and then a crash. That's all it took. Almost immediately you'd hear more windows open, and the beer bottles would start raining down on the pavement. Sometimes it would go on for a half hour, no joke. That area looked like a war zone the next morning, just a sea of broken glass.

It was totally bizarre and became a mini-tradition. If you were in somebody's room and saw a box of empty bottles... you knew they were "saving up for the next Harlow". People who lived on the other side of campus or even off-campus knew about it. You'd go to class on Monday and somebody would say "heard you guys pulled another Harlow this weekend". LOL

I hadn't thought it in a long time, but me & my old roommate were laughing about it last night. Crazy times back then. Shades of Animal House, for sure.

So... anybody else remember "Harlow"?