Tattoos and shorts for rebels

One conclusion to be drawn from the “March Madness” national collegiate basketball tournament, men’s version, presently winding down on CBS-TV may be that a guy can’t play Division I college basketball these days unless he sports garish tattoos from his toes to his nose, supposedly as certification of his rebel qualifications.

And if he also has various body appendages pierced for the off-court dangling of eye-catching trinkets, well, so much the better in making Mommy and Daddy proud to have their boy on national display for his allotted 15 minutes of fame.

The irony, of course, is that in trying to rebel from conformity via what psychiatrists and psychologists euphemistically call “body modification,” the wannabe rebels in short pants and tank tops wind up conforming like so many legions of look-alike peas in a pod.

Thus, the bona fide “rebel” in the lot – the basketball player who, by his nonconformity, truly stands out on a crowded floor – is the player who doesn’t have a tattoo to flaunt or a nose piercing to display. Shades of bygone days, when the popular method of rebelling consisted mainly of letting one’s hair grow south to one’s knees while simultaneously driving the neighborhood barber out of business.

The hair thing also resulted in a similarly bland conforming non-conformity, which eventually became so boringly widespread its practitioners finally said the hell with it, giving the deal up as a bad job in favor of tattoos and body piercing as the better way to drive The Establishment nuts. Another season, another March Madness, some other fad will most likely have temporarily taken over this essential task. Using the forehead as paid advertising space for the sneaker companies, perhaps. Or a Nike swoosh carved into each cheek.

Among other rebels without a clue is Macho Man Of Winter, whose specialty is running around loose, hatless and in shorts out of doors in the middle of a January cold snap. The species can often be spotted trudging through campus snows at the University of Maine, on his way to the Alfond Arena to sit on a cold metal bench for two hours to watch a hockey game.

I know these Rhodes scholars are freezing their buns off, and they must know it, as well, although I am possibly presuming too much on the latter count. To make matters worse, I suspect they know that I know that they know.

Ah, well. Perhaps the hospital emergency room doctor will be touched, giving them the standing ovation they seek, when the medics cart them in on a gurney to be treated for the severe hypothermia they have so doggedly pursued.

A more alluring campus species, first cousin to Macho Man Of Winter, is Sunshine-Worshiping Coed Of Early Springtime. When she and her girlfriends show up at frigid Mahaney Diamond in April, ostensibly to watch a baseball game while wearing barely enough to flag a freight train, it truly is a sight to behold.

All about them, veteran fans with hot coffee in hand are clad in every article of clothing they could find in the front-hall closet, topped by snowmobile suit and horse blanket in order to fend off double pneumonia. But the sun-worshiping contingent sashays in to the ballpark either naively unaware of, or gamely unconcerned about Mahaney’s reputation for being far and away the coldest spot on the North American continent when the frigid winds of early spring, fresh off the polar ice cap, roar in from centerfield.

Immediately upon the head-turning arrival of the entourage, the well-insulated old fogies high up in the stands – not a raw Mahaney rookie in the bunch – begin to speculate as to whether this may be the coeds’ first rodeo, and if so, how long the remarkable performance can be expected to last before the inevitable bailout occurs and the sun worshippers flee back to their dormitories.

“Half an inning,” one old geezer will offer. “One pitch,” suggests his chum. “Maybe two, if they aren’t Phi Beta Kappa smart.” Smart or not, adds a third, if they’re around for the top of the second there’s a beer in it for you. Before the Maine Black Bears have finished their at-bats in the bottom of the first inning the out-migration is at full throttle.

The following weekend, youth having a way of being wasted on the young, the daintily clad sun worshippers with the slow learning curve will sally forth to the ballpark to try again, and history will repeat itself. The snowmobile-suit and horse-blanket crowd remaining will smile in appreciation that baseball season is finally here. And not a moment too soon.

BDN columnist Kent Ward lives in Limestone. Readers may reach him via e-mail at olddawg@bangordailynews.net.