the first streaking

I just heard the song by Ray Stevens about the Streaker. I remembered that I was at Odessa College on Odessa, TX in 1974 when the first streaker in the country came by. It had to be one of the most ignorant fads that could be done.

The streaking got so bad that it was embarrassing. One guy comes running out of the Student Union bldg wearing a ski mask and nothing else and his car wasn’t there waiting for him. He ran in place for a few seconds and it drove up fast. He dived in the back window. There was a gathering of high school girls and a whole group of guys streaked through. There is little more stupid looking than a bunch of naked guys running through a building. One fellow ran across the football field and the president of the college ran after him and tackled him. Then the president let him go and the guy ran off, rather chagrined.

A girl wanted to streak so a crowd gathered. Clothes began to be thrown over a bush while everybody waited. Quite a crowd gathered. About that time, someone shouted, Wait! She’s behind us! The girl behind the bushes was a ruse to divert the crowd from the girl who wanted to streak. She was embarrassed so she waited until no one was looking then ran. What purpose it served I don’t know. In fact, what purpose the whole thing served, I don’t know.

The fad spread to the rest of the country pretty quickly as stupid fads do. But I was at Odessa College when it began. What an honor. Now if I could only have been where disco began. That was the real honor.