Officials in a lather over suds fountain

Boston.com / AP ^ | 07/10/2006

[Graybeard58]

Install a camera and catch the vandals in the act.

[The Red Zone]

Have they tried dumping in some liquid fabric softener. A little of that cuts a lot of suds in a hurry.

[GSlob]

In Middle Age on festive occasions city fountains used to flow with wine [a cheap variety. VERY cheap]. Did they call for cleaners and repairmen then?

[The Red Zone]

Gravity powered I guess. Dump in wine up stream.

[Kirkwood]

One of my favorite college memories was walking across campus at 3 am and finding 2 young women skinny-dipping in the fountain.

[Dallas59]

What kind of soap? I like Gain...

[Graybeard58]

In Middle Age on festive occasions city fountains used to flow with wine [a cheap variety. VERY cheap]. Did they call for cleaners and repairmen then?

Electric pumps were better quality in those days.

[The Red Zone]

Most laundry soaps are not high sudsing at high dilutions. I'm thinking something more along the lines of Joy or Palmolive.

[Jeff Chandler]

So why don't the dummies add a suds suppressor to the water?

[Texas Mom]

Have they tried dumping in some liquid fabric softener. A little of that cuts a lot of suds in a hurry.

Or if they added a bottle of white vinegar it would cut those suds in a jiffy.

[sneakers]

That prank was played every every year for years back in the 70's and early 80's here at our local university - IUP (Indiana University of Pennsylvania), which has two fountains. The university finally turned them off for many, many years. Within the last few years they finally turned them on again. I guess they figured the generation of "soap-sudsers" had finally passed from memory and no one would think to do it again!

Give it time.

[Panerai]

Oh man, I spent one semester going to IUP back in the early 90's.

[Khurkris]

Fountain Square in downtown Cincinatti has often been hit with this type of...'vandalism.'

[sneakers]

I graduated in 1993 ("non-traditional student") We were probably there at the same time. :-) IUP is a liberal hell-hole. They had a prof who had his name legally changed to "Talks to Trees". He just took a job at some university in New Jersey. The got rid of the Indian as their mascot (now it's a bear) and are talking about changing the name of the sports teams from "Indians" to who-knows-what.

I live five miles away from IUP.
I don't go there if I can help it.
I don't donate my money to the university.
I took my name off the alumni association e-mail list.

[jimbo123]

We used to suds the giant air conditioner cooling tanks when I was in high school. It was a tradition. The football field looked like a blizzard had hit from all the suds.

[sneakers]

Heh! Now THAT's creative!

[grjr21]

Someone dumped red dye in the Fountain at Love Park in Philadelphia one morning turning the water pink.The city immediately shut it down worried about the danger to the pumps .
But it was so popular  that the city decided that even though originally  it was vandalism  it  still looked good so from time to time they add coloring to it.

[sportutegrl]

I prefer Ty-D-Bol. It turns the water blue.

[knarf]

.. and makes peeing in it more acceptable and sanitary.

But ...

What about the little guy in the boat?