The Inception (Insemination) of PUD

Five years ago, I met a big fat Jewish kid and an Italian. I know this sounds like the beginning to a politically incorrect joke, but it is actually the story of how I met my two best-friends. While you may think a story about how friends met would typically be boring and generic, you must consider multiple factors: a) I am telling this story b) we are the most unlikely threesome c) our exploits together have been anything but boring.

When I arrived at Franklin & Marshall College on August 25, 2001, I was already familiar with the campus. I had spent three weeks at a summer program called S.P.A.E. (Summer Program for Academic Excellence) which I had been accepted to following my early decision acceptance. We were a mish-mash of race, intelligence/grades, humor, and drinking styles and because of this plethora of differences, we always wondered why we were chosen for the program.

My familiarity with the campus, and being used to living away from home due to two years in boarding school, made my adjustment very mild. While all others were panicking over gaining 15 pounds freshman year, my only concern was making friends.

Enter The Blob.

During Orientation, we participated in multiple team building activities to help us become acclimated and help facilitate bonding within the hall of our dorm. During one such activity, a man with a guitar had us dancing to his hippie music. He was like a Raffi for high-schoolers. He asked us, at one point, to choose a partner, figure out who was heavier, and have that person lie on their stomach. In the fray of being talked to like I was 3, I turned to the kid next to me and he turned to me. His name was Jordan Wolk. He was Jewish. He was The Blob.

I decided, in this confusion, that I was bigger than him and lied down on my stomach. The singer told those standing to stand on their partner’s back and pretend to surf. My back has never been the same.

We quickly became friends, strangely enough. He watched Sports Center 3 times a day, I hated watching sports. I played computer games, he sucked at Madden. He was mildly introverted, I was outgoing. He was fat, I was thin. And yet we connected.

Ah, but where, say you, is the third?

John Ford, our ex-football player, ogre, grunting, sports-loving, Italian friend lived two doors down from me freshman year. He was a big guy at the time, having just quit football and letting himself go just a bit to gain a little over his freshman 15. I remember thinking upon first meeting him that he was a jock and that we would probably never be great friends since he would be hanging out with the football group. Having just quit football, he still had that swagger that typifies football players.


We soon discovered that he had, indeed, quit football and he quickly shed his “jock swagger” as he became more comfortable with our hall. Within the first few weeks of knowing him, I remember having two major thoughts: 1) This kid is fucking hilarious, and crazy to boot 2) This kid can fucking drink. If there is one thing Ford and I do well together, it is drink. A typical night of me and Ford drinking together consisted of us drinking way too much, blacking out, and trying to piece the night together the following morning.

He too loved sports, so he and Jordan had that in common. But his background was in a group of friends who were confident, extremely social (alcohol), “cool kids”. So this side of him was a stark opposite to Jordan’s “overprotected” high school life (his words).

I have a theory that each of us connected on one major aspect each, and our commonality on these three fronts drew us in as friends. As I said, Jordan and Ford loved sports and so conversation was very easy between the two of them. Jordan and I had/have a disease in common called “Nice Guy Syndrome”. We are both “The Sensitive” guy, and so we were able to connect on this level. Ford and I were both incredibly sociable. Give us social setting and we could break the ice and have a good time.

All in all, not one of us have a definitive answer as to why we connected, all three, at the same time. The years that followed proved that our group, our little threesome of sorts, was meant to be.

And so on that day, August 25th, 2001, the little egg we would eventually deem, “PUD”, was inseminated.

To be continued…