Dillon Hall Diaries: Kiwi Can Contests

I polish my black, dress big boy shoes twice a year, whether they need it or not.  But whenever I do, I think back to the Kiwi Can Contests we used to have at ND in Dillon Hall.

Dillon is situated on the South Quad, and runs east to west between Alumni Hall and the South Dining Hall (the emporium of haute cuisine).  From an aerial view, Dillon would resemble a capital H turned over on its side, with the vertical line, connecting the two long stems, a little left (east) of center.  Now picture a short offshoot corridor running south from the main east-west line near the southeast corner of the building.  That corridor, approximately fifty feet long and six feet wide, housed seven rooms, each a double, including Room 158, my junior year home.  That corridor was the scene of some of the best "killing time" moments for the fourteen of us who were residents of that den of iniquity. It's where we held our Kiwi Can Contests.

Rumor had it that Dillon's in-house rules supposedly called for quiet time between the hours of 7:00 and 10:00 p.m.  To say that decree was loosely enforced would be an understatement.  Nevertheless, for those of us who chose not to make the long, often cold trek to the library to do our studying, we did maintain some semblance of decorum in the evenings.  That is, until 10:00.  Then it was Kiwi Can Contest time!
 

One of the beauties of the Kiwi Can Contests is that it was free entertainment, meaning more money to spend on beer when the weekend finally arrived.  The only equipment needed were two cans of Kiwi shoe polish (color optional) and a frisbee. I don't take credit for inventing the Kiwi Can Contests; it was more of a collaborative effort from our band of fourteen.
 

Here is how the Kiwi Can Contests worked.  Two cans would be placed upright on the floor, thirty feet apart, in the center of our corridor.  Each contestant would toss a frisbee toward the can on the far end, attempting to knock it over. One point was awarded for each successful toss; first to get to fifteen points was the winner.  Just like ping pong, you had to win by two.
 

Sometimes we'd play doubles, to shorten the waiting time for the non-participants.  (The queue was always long.)  And, there were a couple of other wrinkles, such as periodically placing a barrier (usually a stack of books) a few feet in front of the target.  The upshot of that practice was to force the participants to carom their frisbee tosses off the wall. Even without the barriers, knocking down a Kiwi can thirty feet away with a frisbee is not as easy as you might think. Oh, we were so proud of ourselves when we became expert marksmen!
 

Of course, the concept of wagering on the Kiwi Can Contests would be the farthest thought from our minds.  Well, not really.  It didn't take too many nights before our little corridor resembled a raucous casino.  Guys from all over Dillon, at that time the largest residence hall on campus, came down to our corner of the building.  We were the South Quad's version of Vegas.  After this had been going on for a few weeks our rector, Father James "Flash" Flanigan, came around to check it out.  We took the fact that he didn't shut us down to be the same as receiving his blessing.  That would not have been the case with Cavanaugh's Black Matt.  (See my December 16, 2012 post, Black Matt Lowers The Boom.)

When I was in grade school at St. Joe's, one of our favorite pastimes was pitching pennies.  By the time I was a junior in college, I had graduated to Kiwi Can Contests.  What further proof needs to be offered as evidence of the furtherance of my education?