Mem'ries, CNG Style

I've been thinking a lot about my college years recently, and don't know why. Maybe it's because things seemed so much simpler then and the hardest decision I had to make on a daily basis was "Which of the three bars in my college town am I drinking at tonight?" Maybe it's because I have been going through old junk, trying to clean out and find a home for cards, mementos, jokes, etc. that I want to keep, but maybe don't have a daily place in my life anymore, simply because I don't have the room for it.

When I moved into my off-campus house my junior year, we had a town person as an across-the-street neighbor. He was a special case to put it delicately, and really grooved to his own drummer. I had a nice big porch at my house, so on our first night in the house, a group of friends gathered on the porch for some drinking and socializing. We soon realized that the man who lived across the street was flashing us through his window. It never happened again, and in retrospect, maybe he wasn't really naked, but it became lore, and for the next two years of college, my friends and I referred to him as "Crazy Naked Guy" (aka CNG).

For the last two years of college, my friend Jason and I had a radio show on WUSO 89.1 FM (thank you Springfield!). We held the 10PM-12AM slot once a week. We brought our humor into the show, and instituted a "Top 11 at 11" List, similar to Letterman's Top 10. Because CNG was a fixture around our part of campus, especially on Friday and Saturday nights when we partied, we tried to work CNG into our Top 11 list weekly. In fact, many of our lists centered around him.

I bring this up because I found three lists the other day. They weren't as funny as I remember, but it was fun to share them with my co-host and wax nostalgia. We also generally winged these lists on the show and put about five minutes thought into them. It's funny the things we focus on when we don't have much to worry about, and I need to remember that now - a little laughter and joy goes a long way, no matter how stupid it is. And long live CNG....his window-driving, Esiason-jersey-wearing, football-throwing self.