No. 1 party boy from America's No. 1 party school

It’s probably because of my years at Ohio University I drink responsibly whenever I should and irresponsibly whenever I can.

It’s a vast over-simplification to say, but the only thing I can recall learning with any clarity there from 1981-1985 was never mix Ouzo and beer. In the same glass.

We used to do that all the time and, guaranteed, whenever we did someone was bound to lose their pants.

You can’t spell bourbon or ouzo without OU.

It was a fountain of knowledge where I went to drink.

Those were some of the T-shirts they sold on campus when I was there. I still see variations of them when I go back once every year or so to see the old gang.

We fly or drive in from all over the country and get two or three rooms at the diviest hotel down near the Hocking River. In a town where big guys are called “Tiny,” the hotel on the lowest point in southeastern Ohio is called The Highlander.

Tell someone who attended most any other college a group of 40 somethings are going to go back to the university they all attended in the 1980s and many assume lecherous activities will ensue.

They think the guys will slip off their wedding rings and spend their nights chasing around the comely innocents.

This is wrong on multiple levels. First: I never met an innocent at OU, not to be confused, please, with Ohio State University in Columbus.

Second: most of us are too fatigued and too wise to chase anything anymore.

Third -- and this is key: there’s not a soul within a 50-mile radius more important to us than the dozen or so people clustered around those tables tilting from too many pitchers of beer.

It was after leaving Athens I began to understand games were for people who were inept at the art of conversation.

Why would you engage in any distraction that kept you from learning more about the people sitting right next to you?

Those were some of the things that crossed my mind when I learned Ohio University was named by the Princeton Review as the No. 1 Party School in America.

It’s a chicken and egg sort of question, but I didn’t go to Athens because it was a party school. But I did go there because at the time the Ohio drinking age was 18.

I learned later on -- surprise! -- it had a great school for journalism. Hey, I liked to journalize!

If anything exceeds its reputation for being a party school, it is its reputation for grooming dynamic journalists.

Media big shots Roger Ailes and Matt Lauer graduated from there. Legendary actor Paul Newman dropped out of there.

My academic achievements fall somewhere deep in the middle of that spectrum.

I remember when I went for one of my first post-graduate interviews. It was at the Nashville Banner. The managing editor, a fine southern gentleman, saw Ohio University on my resume and asked if that’s where Woody Hayes coached.

No, sir, that was Zero State in Columbus.

“How long were you on the school paper?” he asked.

One year, I told him.

“What’d you do the other three years, drink beer?”

Yes, sir.

“Good. I did it for four.”

In a world where crabby tight asses seem to make all the rules and then more rules regarding the original rules, convivial folk will always have a way of finding one another.

I got that job and it was instrumental in launching a career that has led me to friendships with some of the world’s most fascinating individuals.

Athens was where I became who I am.

So cheers, Ohio University. I’ve been under your influence for 30 years now.

And gloriously under the influence for many of those years.

And it’s all just been one hell of a good time.

Grinnin' at mammogram confusion

I smiled this week at the intense reaction to the scientific study that said too frequent mammograms cause unnecessary stress and can be safely reduced.

It was a beautiful smile, too. The mostly straight ivories look like rows of surfboards left to bleach in the summer sun.

It’s a contagious sort of smile. I’ve found people nearly always smile back when I smile at them.

In fact, the only people who as a rule don’t smile back are dentists.

And that’s because my smile is pearly proof that seeing a dentist the recommended once every six months is a colossal waste of time and money.

Trust me. I’ve been to see a dentist exactly once in the past 24 years. Just once.

Like most kids, I was the child of parents who were skillfully brainwashed to believe we all needed to see a dentist once every six months.

And I must compliment the dental lobby for convincing a parade of generations that this directive came in stone from Moses. It’s just accepted wisdom.

Pity the poor podiatrist. No one ever thinks to go see him or her even once a year when you could argue that many of the nagging back infirmities that plague our elderly stem from persistent feet problem.

I did my regular dental thing until one happy 1994 night in Athens, Ohio. Me and the boys were closing up the old Nickelodeon bar on Union Street where a bunch of us were paid to inebriate our fellow Ohio University students.

Once we closed and cleaned up the joint, we’d hike up the Def Leppard and blow off steam with hootch and horseplay.

I don’t recall the insanity of the motivation, but I remember jumping up on big Bill’s back. I must have thought if I surprised the gentle giant I could gain a split second wrestling triumph over him that I’d extrapolate into a lifetime of boast about the night I slammed big Bill Morrissey down to the Nickelodeon dance floor.

My advantage lasted a nano-second. The next instant I remember was feeling a not unpleasant sensation of flight. Bill’d sent me sailing. The whole world slowed down. I’m convinced with sufficient feathering the propulsion could have sent me soaring clear past the jukebox.

Then -- damn that gravity -- I landed on my lip. I remember seeing my maxillary lateral incisor spinning out of my mouth and sashaying about 10 feet across the dance floor. It was the most soulful motion any part of me’d ever achieved on that dance floor.

The next day I went to the local dentist who gave me the sort of oral devastation Dustin Hoffman’s character underwent at the hands of a sadistic Nazi dentist (and can there be a more malevolent job description?) in the great 1976 thriller, “Marathon Man.”

It was root canal. If a woman had ever treated me as poorly as that dentist did, I’d to this day still be casting about for romance with gentle farm animals.

I vowed that very day I would never go see another dentist. To compensate, however, I’d become a fanatic about self-care. I stopped eating sweets. I began concluding every meal with a vigorous water gargle before departing the table and heading to a nearby toothbrush. And -- this is key -- I floss after anything goes in my mouth and that includes the ears and other soft nibbly parts of my dear wife.

And that’s just what I did. Around about 1994, my mother’s alarm over my dental non-conformity could no longer be ignored. To appease her, I agreed to a check-up.

After about 15 minutes of poking and prodding, the dentist said, “Your teeth are perfect. Keep doing what you’re doing.”

I’ve never met an unhappy dentist. Most look forward to retiring at about 55. Truly, they are a joyful lot and I think I alone know why.

It’s because most Americans march herd-like into their offices every six months. Once there, the dentists poke, proud, scrape, drill and nick at the integrity of even healthy teeth. Repeat this every six months and a healthy mouth will eventually need constant dentist-enriching attention.

In fact, the people I know who go to the dentist most faithfully are the ones who most need to go to the dentist.

We are a nagging nation of hypochondriacs. We believe there is a pill or potion to cure every infirmity.

If you’re convinced that yearly mammograms and those semi-annual dental visits and on and on and on will prolong your life, then go right ahead.

Me, I’ll just sit back and smile at all the commotion.

You may wonder whatever happened to that old tooth. I have no idea. I guess it just got mopped up with the rest of the mud and the blood and the beer on that long ago evening of now forgotten revelry.

Doesn’t matter. The lesson the loss taught me proved more valuable than anything the Tooth Fairy could ever bestow.