The Night We Dropped The Bomb
One cold night in 1966 when the snow was piled high in Chicago, some moron (it could have been me) came up with the sophomoric idea that we roll a huge snowball off of the roof of Norton Hall, a six story men’s dorm. When we were assured that most of the Norton Hall brethren were fast asleep, a handful of us from Smith Hall poked our heads out the seven story Smith Hall men’s dorm fire escape window and stepped into the frigid night out onto the wrought iron deck as the winds swept up our pants. Hanging from the edge of the fire escape, we jumped about two feet onto the snow pack that covered the flat table of the Norton Hall roof over a chasm that dropped seven stories straight down to concrete.
The snow was stacked a foot and a half high over that oblong roof, but a train of brethren poured out of that window onto it like circus clowns from a BMW Mini to participate in this spontaneous, pea-brain plan. Within moments, an unorganized party formed a small ball and began to roll it around the slightly slanted roof. The heavy white powder clotted together tightly, and all kinds of debris – including the roof - began to stick to it, exposing the black tar surface that protected the dormitory. With a few rolls of the growing ice pack, more strength and more bodies were needed to keep the frozen lump moving. Each advance of the ball laid the roof bare in its wake. The rolling, growing lump sounded firmer with each turn against the roof’s straining trusses. In middle of the roof, we soon had a massive ice orb about five feet high and were straining to dislodge the inertia of this boulder with each push. The mere weight and the effort it now took to budge this thing began to concern me that it might not make it across the roof before it began to press down on the rafters and break through the men’s dormitory like the I-35E bridge coming down on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.
I had the vision of some poor, humble devil in the Pastors Course on Norton 2 getting ready to bend down on his knees next to his bed. He feels really stressed and anxious because the hour is late and he has not studied for his mid-term Greek exam in the morning. So he decides to supplicate for some divine intervention. Before he flicks the light and folds in prayer, he looks up just in the nick of time to behold a sign whose words were probably on every desk in the building – “Perhaps Today”. Aha! He is reminded again that the coming of the Lord is imminent and may possibly arrive in time to save him in the morning. So he hits the deck with folded hands for a season of prayer and begins to hasten the Day of the Lord. He is calling down the second coming of Christ just as this frozen wrecking ball accumulates the last frigid straw on its camel-like back and comes crashing through the beams of the top floor and begins its descent to the basement. As the pastor-who-would-have-been gets to the part in his supplication where he quotes the next to the last verse of the Bible and cries out, “Even so come quickly, Lord Jesus”, he immediately hears a thunderous noise above him that grows louder and louder with each second. It sounds like the dormitory is coming apart and he assumes his prayer has been answered - the Lord is in the process of renewing the universe. He lifts his head and jumps to his feet in his pajamas and starts singing “Coming Again”, staring into his black ceiling with his arms outspread. He is all prepared for the trumpet blast that will precede his ascent upward through all six floors of Norton Hall and into the cumulous clouds with all the saints. As he hears the one-ton avalanche making its way straight through Norton Hall and getting nearer, he senses that his rapture is nigh and decides he is going to perfectly time his lift-off with a shout of acclamation at the same time. When he hears the ice-train burst through Norton 3 just above him, he is certain the ceiling is going to be torn off in the next second, and he will behold the new heavens and the streets of gold and see everyone playing a harp and singing "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder". So he screams out at the top of his lungs with the joy of the redeemed, “Here He comes now!” In the next instant, the ceiling caves in and he is pan-caked beneath five floors of beds and Bibles and disappears into a black hole with the other disciples who were ready to meet the Lord in the air but find that they are going below instead. They all land in the tunnels and the laundry rooms under the Institute beneath a two thousand pound snowball. Little did he know that a bunch of neophyte pre-millenialists were on the roof moments before tampering with eschatology and being used of the Lord to fulfill some hidden prophecy.
None of that happened, of course. But action was needed immediately. The surface was starting to creak and pieces of the roof were lifting up and adjoining the sphere. Since there was a three-foot ledge around the roof, some were erecting a ramp to bring the boulder to its destiny. Others anxiously anticipated what was about to happen and scrambled to the edge of the roof overlooking the Sweet Shop and peered down to see that the Pinkerton guard that walked nonchalantly around the campus all night did not happen by and get unexpectedly nailed through the concrete with the round end of an enormous ice-cold ball peen hammer.
Somehow this six-foot in diameter behemoth was pushed to the top of the snow bank and precariously rested on the edge of the precipice with a good part of its girth already extending over the edge. Then time seemed to go into slow motion. I was on the left side of the gargantuan mass leaning out over the roof with a gleeful smile pasted across my frozen face. I looked to my right as this ice pack curled over the back of my head like the drive wheel of a locomotive. I reached up and placed my hand on it to steady it as it precariously rested on its shelf. I looked again to make sure that Pinkerton guard would not step around that corner and to enjoy his last L&M moment only to have the hand of God come down on him silently out of nowhere and flatten his leeward cleft into oblivion.
We all sensed the time had arrived. My hand was on the ball. “Now,” I said. Without a sound, the frozen meteor rolled past my head like Little Boy out of the belly of the Enola Gay over Hiroshima with my hand still on it. The invisible claw of gravity from deep within the magnetic center of the earth reached up, grabbed it, and yanked its heft with all its might into itself with fierce ownership. Many hands clasped the edge of the roof and tens of eyes beheld six white feet reduced to a luminous dot against the blackness of the canyon down which it flew. It was like watching the lens of an SLR camera go from f-stop 1.0 to 32 in automatic mode as it shut out the light of the sun. Within three seconds, the unstoppable force met the unmovable object and slammed directly into the center of the left concrete and brick arm of the railing that led up the stairs into the post office. Ice splayed from its center like a wave from the fusion of an atom bomb and welded itself instantaneously into the crevices of the wire brick walls of the buildings below. The sound and shock wave from the impact raced back up toward the roof at 767 miles per hour in a deep, ominous and frightening sonic boom. No one said a word.
In the morning, I hustled down to the steps of the post office to study the results of that collision of matter. The first thing I saw was where the center of the ice ball delivered its most concentrated force. Sitting on the arm of the cement abutment directly in the path of the nucleus of the bomb was a steel fan blade with three round and curved paddles like an airplane propeller. To this day, how or why that fan blade was sitting there in the middle of winter I will never know. But it gave irrefutable testimony to the power that exploded on that banister. The fan blades were molded in perfect right angles to the shape of the object on which it rested as if a five ton sheet metal press in a manufacturing plant had bent it to product control specifications.
That afternoon I got a call to come visit Mr. Mortenson, the dean. He said he knew about the snowball last night, and he knew who was on the roof. He said he only wanted to know the answer to one question: Did I push it? And if I did not, did I know who did? Now here was that Bill Clinton moment when he said, “It all depends on what the meaning of “is” is. But in this case, “is” was now “push”. Before I tell you what I said, I have thought often of that night. Yes, my hand was on the bomb before launch time. Yes, my hand was touching the bomb as it slowly cascaded over the precipice and left my touch. Yes, I was standing beneath and beside it, and, yes, I said, “Now” to initiate the thrust. Yes, I was looking forward and not backward all the time. And, yes, Moody had ejected former students for less than dropping a one-ton bomb that could have sent people to be present with the Lord or the devil. So as he waited, I processed all this data and even tarried for an extended time to pray about what my answer should truthfully be. This took maybe a half of a second, and I gave him my response. He said, “Thank you. You may go.” I graduated a year and a half later. So did everyone on the roof.
The snow was stacked a foot and a half high over that oblong roof, but a train of brethren poured out of that window onto it like circus clowns from a BMW Mini to participate in this spontaneous, pea-brain plan. Within moments, an unorganized party formed a small ball and began to roll it around the slightly slanted roof. The heavy white powder clotted together tightly, and all kinds of debris – including the roof - began to stick to it, exposing the black tar surface that protected the dormitory. With a few rolls of the growing ice pack, more strength and more bodies were needed to keep the frozen lump moving. Each advance of the ball laid the roof bare in its wake. The rolling, growing lump sounded firmer with each turn against the roof’s straining trusses. In middle of the roof, we soon had a massive ice orb about five feet high and were straining to dislodge the inertia of this boulder with each push. The mere weight and the effort it now took to budge this thing began to concern me that it might not make it across the roof before it began to press down on the rafters and break through the men’s dormitory like the I-35E bridge coming down on the Mississippi River in Minneapolis.
I had the vision of some poor, humble devil in the Pastors Course on Norton 2 getting ready to bend down on his knees next to his bed. He feels really stressed and anxious because the hour is late and he has not studied for his mid-term Greek exam in the morning. So he decides to supplicate for some divine intervention. Before he flicks the light and folds in prayer, he looks up just in the nick of time to behold a sign whose words were probably on every desk in the building – “Perhaps Today”. Aha! He is reminded again that the coming of the Lord is imminent and may possibly arrive in time to save him in the morning. So he hits the deck with folded hands for a season of prayer and begins to hasten the Day of the Lord. He is calling down the second coming of Christ just as this frozen wrecking ball accumulates the last frigid straw on its camel-like back and comes crashing through the beams of the top floor and begins its descent to the basement. As the pastor-who-would-have-been gets to the part in his supplication where he quotes the next to the last verse of the Bible and cries out, “Even so come quickly, Lord Jesus”, he immediately hears a thunderous noise above him that grows louder and louder with each second. It sounds like the dormitory is coming apart and he assumes his prayer has been answered - the Lord is in the process of renewing the universe. He lifts his head and jumps to his feet in his pajamas and starts singing “Coming Again”, staring into his black ceiling with his arms outspread. He is all prepared for the trumpet blast that will precede his ascent upward through all six floors of Norton Hall and into the cumulous clouds with all the saints. As he hears the one-ton avalanche making its way straight through Norton Hall and getting nearer, he senses that his rapture is nigh and decides he is going to perfectly time his lift-off with a shout of acclamation at the same time. When he hears the ice-train burst through Norton 3 just above him, he is certain the ceiling is going to be torn off in the next second, and he will behold the new heavens and the streets of gold and see everyone playing a harp and singing "When the Roll Is Called Up Yonder". So he screams out at the top of his lungs with the joy of the redeemed, “Here He comes now!” In the next instant, the ceiling caves in and he is pan-caked beneath five floors of beds and Bibles and disappears into a black hole with the other disciples who were ready to meet the Lord in the air but find that they are going below instead. They all land in the tunnels and the laundry rooms under the Institute beneath a two thousand pound snowball. Little did he know that a bunch of neophyte pre-millenialists were on the roof moments before tampering with eschatology and being used of the Lord to fulfill some hidden prophecy.
None of that happened, of course. But action was needed immediately. The surface was starting to creak and pieces of the roof were lifting up and adjoining the sphere. Since there was a three-foot ledge around the roof, some were erecting a ramp to bring the boulder to its destiny. Others anxiously anticipated what was about to happen and scrambled to the edge of the roof overlooking the Sweet Shop and peered down to see that the Pinkerton guard that walked nonchalantly around the campus all night did not happen by and get unexpectedly nailed through the concrete with the round end of an enormous ice-cold ball peen hammer.
Somehow this six-foot in diameter behemoth was pushed to the top of the snow bank and precariously rested on the edge of the precipice with a good part of its girth already extending over the edge. Then time seemed to go into slow motion. I was on the left side of the gargantuan mass leaning out over the roof with a gleeful smile pasted across my frozen face. I looked to my right as this ice pack curled over the back of my head like the drive wheel of a locomotive. I reached up and placed my hand on it to steady it as it precariously rested on its shelf. I looked again to make sure that Pinkerton guard would not step around that corner and to enjoy his last L&M moment only to have the hand of God come down on him silently out of nowhere and flatten his leeward cleft into oblivion.
We all sensed the time had arrived. My hand was on the ball. “Now,” I said. Without a sound, the frozen meteor rolled past my head like Little Boy out of the belly of the Enola Gay over Hiroshima with my hand still on it. The invisible claw of gravity from deep within the magnetic center of the earth reached up, grabbed it, and yanked its heft with all its might into itself with fierce ownership. Many hands clasped the edge of the roof and tens of eyes beheld six white feet reduced to a luminous dot against the blackness of the canyon down which it flew. It was like watching the lens of an SLR camera go from f-stop 1.0 to 32 in automatic mode as it shut out the light of the sun. Within three seconds, the unstoppable force met the unmovable object and slammed directly into the center of the left concrete and brick arm of the railing that led up the stairs into the post office. Ice splayed from its center like a wave from the fusion of an atom bomb and welded itself instantaneously into the crevices of the wire brick walls of the buildings below. The sound and shock wave from the impact raced back up toward the roof at 767 miles per hour in a deep, ominous and frightening sonic boom. No one said a word.
In the morning, I hustled down to the steps of the post office to study the results of that collision of matter. The first thing I saw was where the center of the ice ball delivered its most concentrated force. Sitting on the arm of the cement abutment directly in the path of the nucleus of the bomb was a steel fan blade with three round and curved paddles like an airplane propeller. To this day, how or why that fan blade was sitting there in the middle of winter I will never know. But it gave irrefutable testimony to the power that exploded on that banister. The fan blades were molded in perfect right angles to the shape of the object on which it rested as if a five ton sheet metal press in a manufacturing plant had bent it to product control specifications.
That afternoon I got a call to come visit Mr. Mortenson, the dean. He said he knew about the snowball last night, and he knew who was on the roof. He said he only wanted to know the answer to one question: Did I push it? And if I did not, did I know who did? Now here was that Bill Clinton moment when he said, “It all depends on what the meaning of “is” is. But in this case, “is” was now “push”. Before I tell you what I said, I have thought often of that night. Yes, my hand was on the bomb before launch time. Yes, my hand was touching the bomb as it slowly cascaded over the precipice and left my touch. Yes, I was standing beneath and beside it, and, yes, I said, “Now” to initiate the thrust. Yes, I was looking forward and not backward all the time. And, yes, Moody had ejected former students for less than dropping a one-ton bomb that could have sent people to be present with the Lord or the devil. So as he waited, I processed all this data and even tarried for an extended time to pray about what my answer should truthfully be. This took maybe a half of a second, and I gave him my response. He said, “Thank you. You may go.” I graduated a year and a half later. So did everyone on the roof.