[Rockingham]

I too was at UF at that time and recall that those black pledges were not just branded, but they were also marched around campus in groups wearing nothing but shoes, a loin cloth, and a head wrap. The leader of a group was called slave master and had the pledges marching, dancing, and chanting in unison.

Of course, this was but part of the craziness of UF campus life in that era. The mass student disruptions and the Vietnam war were over, but other causes bubbled up and could be found represented in the student union and in front of the main library building. Hare Krishnas. The Revolutionary Communist Party. Lesbian Feminists. A street preacher named Jed.

With a VA hospital attached to the UF medical complex, there were also lot of head cases wandering the campus as out patients or on day release. Campus security was loaded with crony hiring and too many unfit officers. Street criminals and rapists found the UF campus and student community easy pickings.

Some good things were also gestating though. Gainesville boy Tom Petty was teaching himself how to play the guitar, write rock tunes, sing, and find and manage a band to success. "I Won't Back Down" is now a staple of UF football games, and the park that Petty enjoyed as a boy is now named for him.

[srmanuel]

I remember my first Halloween Ball that was held on the Plaza, when a guy wearing diaper, tied to a cross, with long air resembling Jesus Chris was being carried around in the crowd, along with a man and woman, naked and having sex in pubic. I figured by being there I was going straight to hell; it was a decadent as anything I had ever seen, and I was a freshman.