Bagging

It was the early sixties, pre-hippie and pre-permanent-press. Which is to say that Kenyon men (it was also pre-women) still wore actual shirts that needed actual ironing. A new, space-age material was sweeping the country: plastic.

Enter the plastic bag and a whole new world of possibilities. In brief, Kenyon students discovered that the dry cleaner was packing their freshly laundered shirts inside an ingeniously simple new inspiration for mischief. What could be easier or more satisfying? Remove shirt from bag. Add water. Seal shut. And launch the bulging bomblet from a handy tree, window, or roof--aiming, of course, for an unsuspecting passer-by below.

Splat. Gush. Drench.

By the late 1960s, according to one account, the Delta Phi fraternity had a "bagging machine" made of surgical tubing and a plastic bucket--in effect, a catapult for water balloons. Pranksters would let fly from the roof of Hanna Hall. With practice, a skilled bagger could score a direct hit on a victim emerging from Leonard, across the way. In one case, reportedly, the water bomb landed on a student's mother.

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