This saga’s been shared two generations thus far
passing student to student at the Crow’s Nest bar,
about when her committee with wisdom misplaced
laid her PhD aspirations soundly to waste.
It was late October when she was scheduled to take
her candidacy orals, her future at stake.
She’d studied for months every night until late
hoping to become a PhD candidate.
The committee was tough and grilled her for hours
about geology and space and exponential powers.
Nervous grad students just paced the halls
the sounds of their shoes echoing off walls
while outside it was damp with cold autumn showers.
But it was taking too long and they still were inside,
“I hope Sage passes, but what if she’s fried”?
Just then she emerged with a big smile despite
a question she’d missed about asteroidal tholeiite.
Her misfortune so sad we almost cried.
Only one thing to do when orals you flunk,
gather some friends and get really drunk.
So we drove to the beach to do what we did best,
down by the yacht harbor we went to Crow’s Nest
to party together and get out of this funk.
We drank and we sang as the sea fog rolled in,
first beer and whiskey, then tonic and gin.
Though speech a bit slurred and wallets too thin
we kept on drinkin’ ‘till a quarter past 10:00
when the 4 of us left and went for a spin.
We drove to Peter’s and emptied his bar,
he lived up on West Cliff, not very far.
Then just past midnight when we were down to 3
we drove to Farrell’s for donuts and coffee.
Now the world was graced with 3 wide-awake drunks,
Sage was in charge since it was she who just flunked.
Though drunk and wired, on a journey we went
hiking through the forest to find Connelly’s tent
where he’d lived for months since he hadn’t a cent.
Tripping through brush in the redwoods and fern
it was about 2:00 as far as we could discern.
In the distance we heard two barks maybe three,
“I’m sure that we’re close,” Peter shouted with glee,
“I hear barks from Connelly’s dog Wiley.”
Arriving in camp, we were now down to 2,
“Where’s Little David?”, we hadn’t a clue.
In his memory, we passed whiskey around,
‘till just past 3:00 then collapsed to the ground.
Thus is the saga, and most of it’s true.