As of yesterday afternoon the food trucks were set up, and the protective fencing was placed around the monument, but the monument remained grease free. This morning however, it was thickly lathered with a crisco-like substance. Many of my co-workers said it seemed thicker than most years (2 years ago in fact, it wasn't greased at all on the basis of safety issues, but that Vice Admiral was only in position for 1 year).
I walked out at 1:30PM, the scheduled starting time, and listened to the Plebe class's accomplishments thus far. After a traditional song and the firing of a canon, off they went! The strategy was to take off their shirts (and socks), throw them at the monument, and the Plebes that got there first used the shirts to wipe the grease off. After 45 minutes I went back inside and pretended to do work. However every 10 minutes or so I got up and looked out the window as I pretended to do things like throw something away, copy, go to the restroom, etc. I felt like such a Navy nerd. After a half hour of this, I admitted to myself that I wasn't going to get anything done, shut my computer down and walked back outside. I met up with the midshipmen who work in our office who told me about the past few years and particularly when they did it ("It only took us 1 hour, 14 minutes and 38 seconds," one told me. "But who's counting right?" I laughed. We were particularly proud when we saw a very tiny, tan skinned boy nearly reach the top. Though I can't spell his name, he frequents our office, as he is one of the Sri Lankan students earning his 4-year degree here. There were 2 girls who were very actively involved as well, which I thought was pretty neat.
Around 3:45PM, when they finally reached the top and replaced their Plebe dixie cup hat with a Midshipman cover, Plebe year ended. As the shirts said "Keep Calm and Climb On- Free the Plebes, Class of 2015!" We officially have no Plebes on the yard now, as the newbies don't arrive until the end of June.
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