It’s Big Game week (that means Stanford vs Berkeley), and so it seems a good time to post this excerpt from the book.
The Summer of 1986
By the end of sophomore year, it was becoming ever more clear that Stanford was EXPENSIVE and draining my parents’ finances. Two more years of this would be pretty painful. I did everything to save money, and many things to earn it, like being a research subject at the Stanford Medical Center. I got a fun and unique summer job with a company that inspected fire sprinkler systems in buildings, which took me to the very top of the Transamerica Pyramid (not the top floor, but the top point). And for housing I found the thriftiest accommodation in the Mid-Peninsula, the Chappie office.
I was at the office all the time anyway, and by then I had been the Chaparral Business Manager for a full year, so I was sort of “in charge” of the space already. Old Boy JW was back East and everyone else was gone for the summer. The office had a sink, and a fridge, and the Storke Building had bathrooms downstairs. Roble Gym was a block away and open each day, with showers and an occasional hoops game. I crashed on a couch in the office for a couple nights, before moseying up to Roble dorm after dark, going in a side door, up some steps, and grabbing a mattress from a random vacant room of a higher floor. Never missed. Maybe never even noticed. Down the steps, behind some pine trees, eucalyptus and other vegetation on a mostly deserted campus after dark, I slipped the mattress up the back steps and into the Chappie office without much trouble.
I worked Monday to Friday, sometimes extra on Saturday, and ate sandwiches and Jack In The Box. For partying, I calculated that the cheapest buzz was the biggest plastic bottle of cheap vodka, with the biggest bottle of chaser, both swigged from the bottle. I’d drink as much vodka as I could without vomiting, then do the chaser, some kind of lemon-lime-grapefruit mix. I’d sit up on the balcony and watch the people go by, and in and out of the Daily office, where they were still putting out a paper two days a week.
A couple of times I would yell down at them or make some clever comment. A couple times, Daily people might come up late night while working on their issue.
A few weeks in, I got a call from B. He was back East and BORED and wanted to know what was going on at Stanford. I told him nothing, other than drinking straight out of the vodka bottle, and there was plenty of room in the Chappie office. So B. flew out and became my roommate at the Chappie. The night he got there, we moseyed up to Roble dorm after dark, in the side door, up some steps, and into a random vacant room of a higher floor many doors past the room I had visited before and grabbed another mattress. Never missed. Even easier the second time. Through the pines and eucalyptus. Up the back steps and into the office.
And that’s where we lived, summer of 1986. I created a nice little apartment in the corner room with the balcony. B took the paste-up room, which still left the main room for general partying. At least until the night of August 3, but that story begins in late July.
The Proposition
I was in the Chaparral office when B and N came in.
“We’ve got an idea, and we want to know if you want in on it,” they said. “We’ve been in Berkeley, in their Union, and the glass case for their big stuffed bear is unlocked.”
“Unlocked?” I exclaimed.
B and N explained it was a freestanding glass case, with a trophy case lock on it, and it was unlocked, in the lobby of their Union. The lock was there, but it wasn’t engaged. If we can get into the building, we could get the bear without breaking a lock or any glass.
Remember what I said about leaving no clues, and no property damage? This piece of prank real estate sounded like an incredible opportunity. I mean, the greatest legends at Stanford, or Berkeley, were the stealers of The Axe, but Stanford already had The Axe, it would be stupid to steal it from ourselves. But Oskie, Cal’s Golden Bear mascot in the glass case in the UC Union would be almost as cool, maybe even cooler.
We decided that we all three of us should return to Berkeley, to case the location, see how we might get into the building, and plan the prank. Luckily it was Olden Times, when there were not many, if any, security cams. We went to Berkeley the next weekend, and it was as B and N had described. The case was unlocked, and the door somewhat ajar. We pushed the door back in a bit, to make it look more normal and less obvious it was unlocked.
We walked around the Union on that day and looked at our options. There were many rooms in the building, seemingly many not in too much use. Large parts of the building were mostly uninhabited. And so the plan was hatched.
One of us would hide in the building, and just stay there after hours. Then at some pre-arranged time, he would let us into the building, and we would liberate the bear. There was a parking garage beneath the Union, and there was an elevator close to the bear case that opened right into the parking garage below. We would move the bear into the elevator, down to the basement parking garage, into the car and away.
Since it was his idea, and since it was a bit INSANE, we let N be the one to stay in the building.
We went back to the Chaparral office to plan some more. We figured we would encounter the least number of people around the union early on a Sunday morning. So late that the last partier had gone to sleep. So early there wouldn’t be a jogger or preacher awake yet. On this crazy drunken Saturday night in the Chaparral office, we set Zero Hour slightly more than seven days into the future, 4:30 am, Sunday, August 3, 1986.
The Heist
Saturday afternoon, we drove N’s Jeep Waggoneer over to Berkeley, picking up Jack In The Box on the way. We dropped N off outside the Union and watched him go in. B and I proceeded to kill time in Berkeley for the next 10 hours or so. We went to one movie, and then another, ate, ultimately watching the midnight showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show at the U.C. Theater in Berkeley.
We brought a battery-operated alarm clock set to 4:15 in case we happened to doze off. And while I had indeed fallen asleep in the movie theater, as we got closer to Zero Hour, the adrenaline was more than enough to keep us wide awake.
At 4:30, we drove under the Union, to the basement parking garage, right up to the doors by the elevator.
But N was not there. We waited for what seemed like an eternity but was probably just a minute. From across the parking garage, a figure approached us. It looked amazingly like a Deep Throat scene out of All the President’s Men. We hid behind the Waggoneer, but the guy was walking right towards us.
“B!” “J!” “It’s N!”
B and I let out a collective exhale.
“The elevator’s disabled. Locked.”
“Oh fuck.”
“We’re still good,” explained N. “I blocked the doors on the main floor, we can get back in. Let’s go.”
We had to exit the parking garage out onto a plaza next to the Union. We quickly crossed the plaza to the propped open door, went in and closed the door.
We approached the case. Would it still be unlocked? We grabbed the trophy lock and tugged. The door opened.
We had naively hoped the bear would just lift off his base, perhaps slide off of stakes. But it didn’t budge when we tried that. We grabbed the base and slid it out onto the floor. We then attempted to rock it back and forth to loosen it, but it wasn’t working.
Now this glass case was in the main lobby of the UC Berkeley Union, with A LOT of windows all around. We were taking too long and doing it with the great potential of being seen, even at 4:30 am, plus however many minutes we had taken so far. Each passing minute raised the likelihood of a passerby. We had to think fast.
The elevator was right there, the intended path of our escape, now blocked to us. But would the doors still open? Someone pressed the button and lo and behold, the elevator doors opened.
We quickly moved the bear and its base into the elevator and let the doors close. Now in the elevator, which luckily was quite large, we flipped up the base to reveal the bear was attached to the base with two large threaded screws with perhaps one-inch nuts on them securing the bear.
While I can brag about our preparation, I still must admit that we did not bring a wrench big enough for that size nut, a completely idiotic lack of planning on our part. I was sure we were screwed. Our only chance was that the nuts would spin with only hand power.
I put my hand on the first nut, and it spun!
Far from a rusty farm or basement nut and bolt, this was a pristine, shiny university nut and bolt. Both nuts spun off with no trouble, and we detached Oskie from his base. He wasn’t very heavy, I don’t think more than twenty-five pounds. The problem was that he was a bit unruly to carry. We thought about two people carrying, but that required coordination and made it harder to be quiet, and invisible.
Oskie, including his extended arms, was about seven feet long. I am 6’ 8” and experienced with baling straw and hay. I suggested that I could carry the bear alone.
We decided on our next move.
When the elevator doors opened, N would head out first, clearing the way, opening doors and making sure the plaza was clear of people. I would carry the bear, as quickly yet as normally as one could carry a large stuffed bear. B would shut the case, leaving our calling card and joke, an 80s-fad “Animal in Car” window sign (a sarcastic second-wave response to the “Baby On Board” signs that had been the rage) attached to the glass, grab any tools or anything we might have inadvertently left, close the doors, and get out of there.
We listened to see if we could hear anything, but it was still silent, so we opened the elevator doors and hightailed it out of there–out the door that had been propped open, across the plaza, down into the parking garage and into the back of the Waggoneer. We pulled out of the parking garage nice and smooth—no screeching tires or anything to call attention. We drove south, away from Berkeley into Oakland, presumably a different police jurisdiction, and then made our way onto the freeway, back to Palo Alto. I remember looking at my watch while riding away. It said 4:51.
It was still darkish when we got back to Stanford, coming down I-280 to Sand Hill Road, taking “the back way” onto campus, the easiest access to the Chappie offices, and more importantly, closest to the HVAC room above the Stanford Daily’s bathrooms in the Storke Building. We backed into a spot as close as you could get to the building, then got out to see if anyone was around.
During this part of such a prank, the key is to not call attention to yourself. Just act naturally. No one is looking to see if you have Berkeley’s bear in your car. If no one knows a crime has been committed, no one is paying any attention at all. On the other hand, if the crime has been discovered, maybe they ARE looking to see if you have Berkeley’s bear in your car. It was still way before 6 am, and it was a Sunday. We correctly thought we had several hours before the crime would be discovered.
Stanford was still deserted at this time. We went to the Wagoneer, got the bear, now wrapped in a blanket, and calmly walked it into the doors of the Stanford Daily, turned all the way to the left where the bathrooms were, and into the men’s room. In that bathroom there was a ladder and access to the HVAC room above. One of us went up, and the others lifted Oskie through the service entrance. The HVAC room was quite large, even with the equipment, so there was plenty of space. We could prop him up so he stood on his feet—or rather the big screws that came out of the bottom of his feet, while leaning on a vent. Dry. Secure. Very secret.
We closed the door to the ceiling, putting it back just as it had been. It looked perfectly normal. And other than the off chance that someone went up there to service the equipment, very well hidden. And, most importantly, not hidden in the Chappie office. We likely took leaks in that bathroom and tried to maintain composure walking out. “Just usin’ the john…”
But no one was there even upon exiting the Daily. No one was watching us. The realization that we had done it was setting in. The rush of energy that came from successfully lifting our rival’s mascot out of their own Union and hiding it in the ceiling of the Stanford Daily was a fantastic feeling. Certainly, we would become legends, added to the list of Stanfordites who had successfully pranked Berkeley. We headed straight to Safeway where we bought six bottles of Cook’s Champagne, two for each of us. We went back to the Chappie office and got really, really drunk.
And so it was that in August 1986, three members of Stanford’s Class of ’88, B, N, and I, used the Chaparral office as a base of operations on a mission that helped UC Berkeley’s Oskie (as we jokingly misspelled his name throughout the prank) expand his horizons. We let him out of his glass cage in the UC Union in Berkeley, to a couple week stay in the HVAC room over the Daily, then on to a Redwood City storage locker for a few months, and then a year or so at N’s house in Fresno.
There were no signs of break in, and no clues other than that Animal in Car thingy that we left in Oskie’s case. The lack of any sign of forced entry, either on the building or on the case, led people to initially think it was an inside job.
We planned well, and executed well, and had everything covered except for one key item, what to do with Oskie after we succeed – the one item we hadn’t considered. So, over the next fifteen months we had to keep cover, and a straight face, while both campuses were abuzz with Oskie speculation, while even our close friends and employers talked about it, while we sent letters to the Bay Area press creating a small media event, unknowingly and ironically mimicking the actions of someone it would be years before I even heard of, the Zodiac Killer.
News reports stated that this was being treated as a felony, as I’m sure it was. A quasi-realistic stuffed bear, beloved by thousands of Weenies, as Stanford students derogatively refer to Berkeley students, is certainly worth more than $500, the value threshold for felony theft. One press account mentioned the bear had “acquired the status of a deity or icon to the campus community.”
The prank was big news around the Bay Area, showing up in newspapers, TV and radio. I was riding across the San Mateo Bridge with my boss when the news came across the radio. He turned up the volume and was said, “Hey! Did you hear about this?” I feigned excitement, or at least feigned not knowing anything about it. I had pulled pranks before, but I wasn’t really prepared for all this. KGO radio offered a $500 reward, no questions asked. Phil Frank drew Farley cartoons in the San Francisco Chronicle about the heist on successive days, imploring us, the bear stealers, to communicate, a letter, a ransom note, anything. It was in the news, and on people’s lips—all in all it was quite surreal. We hadn’t thought this part through at all.
I knew the Chaparral would be a prime suspect in the heist, as would the Stanford Band, and any of Stanford’s fraternities. I figured it was inevitable that someone would contact us, and so I imagined what a Chappie like myself, known for pranks and other campus hi-jinks, would think of the theft of the bear being done by someone else. As expected, a call came to the office. Luckily the call didn’t come from the police, but from the Stanford Daily.
“Hi, I’m so and so and I’m calling to see If you know anything of the whereabouts of the Berkeley bear?” they asked.
“I heard! It’s fucking awesome!” I said. “Totally incredible! What do you know about it?” The Daily reporter then proceeded to tell me how the bear was estimated to be 800 to 1000 pounds, standing eight feet tall, and that it was last seen in a vehicle heading north out of Berkeley. It was all I could do to keep from laughing, because all of those “facts” were completely wrong! To be fair to the Daily reporter, those were the “facts” in the initial reports in the press.
The truth was that the Bear weighed perhaps 25-30 pounds, it might have been longer than seven feet, INCLUDING its outstretched arms, and it left Berkeley to the south. Rather than an enormous and heavy Ursidae Maximus, think of something more like a furry piñata.
And the best part, while I was quoted in the August 8, 1986 Stanford Daily as knowing only what I had read in the papers, Oskie was at that moment residing IN the Stanford Daily offices, in the HVAC room above their bathrooms in the Storke Building! For me, this particular aspect of this particular prank is the pinnacle. To be in the rival Stanford Daily, talking about my prank, with the crux of the prank actually IN the offices of the Daily is a coup of incredible pranksterness. It is hard to describe how satisfying this was.
The thing is, lack of evidence can become “evidence” in itself. Since there was no sign of a break-in at the Berkeley Union, and no broken case, it led to people thinking it was an inside job. The longer that idea was around, the more people who ascribed to it. It soon became conventional wisdom that it was an inside job.
“We didn’t do it,” said the Stanford Daily, in an editorial in the August 12, 1986, Stanford Daily, which includes a quote from Stanford Police Chief Marvin Harrington to the Berkeley Nation regarding the missing Oskie: “Look closer to home.”
Having both the Stanford Police and the Stanford Daily inadvertently helping us cover our tracks was extremely satisfying. It is worth taking note of how this worked, and works, on matters such as this. And there’s more.
That issue of the Daily was yet another coup. In addition to the Daily editorial staff unknowingly running cover for us, the front page contained a story about the horrible, horrible Pie Incident, including interviews with my three Chaparral compatriots who said their punishment for such a harmless and fun prank was too high.
Because I had been one of the Chaparral Pie Throwers, but didn’t get caught, I faced no consequences. But right above that article, in the top right of the page, was a photo of the empty glass case in the Berkeley Union, where Oskie once stood. Two stories about two pranks on the same front page of the Daily! Neither story mentioned me, but I had a hand in both. All while the Daily staff was writing editorials that Stanford didn’t do it. It was an amazing time in my prank career.
I kept waiting for the police to call or arrive at the Chaparral office, but it never happened, except for the night of the theft.
I know I should have told you this before now, but it just didn’t seem to fit anywhere. Ironically, the police DID visit the offices of the Chaparral—the very night of the bear heist, or rather, the next morning. At 7am, joggers reported that three guys in their underwear were having an unusually raucous party at the Chappie. The police visited us and confiscated our illegal items including our booze and a makeshift bong. They also asked us if people were living in the Chaparral office, because they saw the two mattresses, the toothbrushes and food there.
I was sure that this would lead to us being caught. Certainly, upon hearing of the bear’s theft, any police detective would ask for a run down on any abnormal or strange events that occurred on either campus that night, especially the Stanford campus. That’s what Columbo, or Sherlock Holmes would do. That’s what I would have done if I were a police detective. We had screwed up by celebrating. Soon we would be questioned and almost certainly be caught.
But the questioning never came. Apparently, a drunken party at the Chaparral offices was deemed as a normal event.
As for living there, we tidied up and went to our friend’s house in Los Altos for a while, then came back to the office when the heat was off. Nevertheless, fall term was starting soon; students, professors, campus life would be returning. Some quiet evening, behind the pines and hedges, in the side door, up the steps, back to the random rooms, back on the still empty bedframe and springs, we returned the mattresses to Roble dorm. Had anyone noticed? It didn’t look like it, and now that the mattresses were back and everything restored, and we were out the side door and into the night, no one would. At least for the mattresses.
As for the bear, I always wondered if the Stanford Police didn’t try too hard to catch us. Telling Berkeley to look for an inside job could have stemmed from Stanford pride. Yes, there were no signs of break in, neither on the Union’s door, nor the glass case. But ask yourself, who would steal the mascot of UC Berkeley? Come on, is this an idiot test? The perpetrators are most certainly from Stanford.
What Do You Do with a Hot Bear? Part 1
Did I mention we planned well, except for the part where we succeeded, and then had to decide what to do with the Bear?
As we approached Big Game 1986, we bounced around many ideas, all more implausible than the next. All involving risk. Various ways of getting the bear onto the field, which would be hard as the game was AT Berkeley. We thought about leaving it at the home of Stanford coach Jack Elway. Or getting it into the locker rooms of the team. Eventually we realized we didn’t have to do anything with the bear, THIS year. In fact, perhaps we could hold it until after we graduated.
When we realized we didn’t need to do anything until Big Game 1987, that easily became the most popular idea. Doing nothing was very appealing at the time. Even so, the secrecy and stress of this was a constant theme for all of us.
As the days counted down to Big Game, there was a fair amount of Oskie speculation in the press. Cal accusing the Stanford Axe Committee, police questioning them and the Stanford Band. But we stayed silent. Apparently, annoyance with the situation was building up inside the Cal boosters and football team. Because…
On that Big Game, Cal avoided having their all-time worst record by completing one of the greatest upsets in Big Game history, November 22, 1986, beating heavily favored Stanford 17-11. I have always wondered if we, the Bear Stealers, were in part responsible for inspiring Cal to kick Stanford’s ass so handily that game.
The Hammer & Coffin Vault
For a while, JW had talked about the Hammer & Coffin vault. I didn’t know if he was joking, or if he had really heard something about it. Either way, we had wondered what might be in such a vault. I mean, an 80-year-old “secret” organization of Stanford grads might reasonably have items they wanted to hide, I mean to keep safe.
We would go to San Francisco for occasional Hammer & Coffin meetings to discuss what was going on with the Chaparral, or make plans for the annual banquet. The board of the Hammer & Coffin were mostly graduates of the 1950s, but might have individuals who graduated from the 30s to the 70s. Even then, it was unclear (at least to me) who the H & C board were, but at that time it seemed to be run by T, editor of the Chaparral in 1955. We met in the board room of T’s business, in a skyscraper in downtown San Francisco. As one of these meetings was ending, I approached T.
“Does the H &C have a vault?” I asked, “I have something I may want to put in it.”
“Vault? We don’t have a vault,” said T. “What on earth are you talking about?”
“Well….” I paused. “I thought it might be a good place for the Berkeley Bear.”
A look of panic came across T’s face. He put his hands over his ears, turned, and walked hurriedly down a hallway to his office. I followed.
“No really,” I said, “You don’t need to know…”
“Please, stop talking,” said T. “Look over there.” And he gestured to the office directly across the hall from him.
I looked into the other office. There were blue and gold Cal items on every square foot of wall space, on the desk, on the shelves, logos, pom-poms, bears, pennants, blankets, hats, plaques, mugs, stress balls and doilies.
“This is what I have to deal with,” said T. “Every day. I don’t want to know anything about the Bear. I can’t know anything,” he said. “And what is this nonsense you are asking about a Hammer & Coffin Vault? There is no such thing.”
Fresno
After paying for a storage locker in Redwood City for a few months, and with the 1986 Big Game come and gone, we decided it would be cheaper and safer if we took Oskie to the home of N. The three of us, plus B’s roommate K, drove Oskie out to N’s home in Fresno where he could be safely hidden and stored for free.
Of course, this was the perfect time to take pictures of Oskie, to prove we had him and to show how much fun he was having, so we took photos of Oskie barbequing in a Stanford T-shirt and hat, lounging by the pool, and drinking a beer with us.
And then we just cooled out for a year.
The funny thing about Fresno was that the following fall the Stanford Band performed a halftime show titled, “Where’s Oski?” (they spelled it the Cal way) and it’s worth noting a funny coincidence about the show.
As it would be, I was the only bear stealer in the stadium for this show. I watched the band do their routine, consisting of several songs, where they suggested various places Oskie might be, like Hawaii, Vegas, and other famous locations. But then, for the finale number, they revealed where Oskie REALLY was: Fresno.
How did they know? Only a few people knew, and it wasn’t anyone in the Band. Their suggestion Oskie was in Fresno turned out to be a joke, the same way Johnny Carson would joke about Fresno. But in fact, the real cosmic joke was that at that exact moment, the Oskie the Bear was indeed in Fresno.
“Who is writing this shit?” I asked?
Oskie’s Broken Foot
We also were deep in discussion about what to do about Oskie’s broken foot. It seems during the theft of the bear, Oskie’s right foot fell off, but we did not discover this until some weeks after the heist. We were despondent, as we had never intended to damage him, and thought we had been careful. We wondered about Stanford-friendly taxidermists, or even distant taxidermists. For many months our favorite plan was to drive Oskie to Colorado where my family has a cabin, and find a taxidermist there, hoping they had no idea about the Berkeley Bear.
Then a miracle happened. Comically, and thankfully, at one point when we were moving the bear, we noticed a strange tab of leather on the broken foot, with fur attached to it. It looked like torn fur, but I touched it and felt a claw. It was a flap of fur that had flipped up, and attached to it was…Oskie’s missing foot! Oh my god we were so happy.
The Ransom Notes
The next year, Senior year, we knew we had to do something with the bear. We still had all of the options from before, all still as impractical and risky as the previous year. But it was also getting lame that we weren’t doing anything with our prank. We had done it, we had stolen the bear out of Berkley’s Union, but now those days were long past. We needed an idea now. And so, we decided to take Phil Frank up on his suggestion, and send a ransom note.
We made some ridiculous demands, mainly around the police or Cal or Stanford agreeing not to prosecute us. We wanted a letter “on really nice paper” pledging no prosecution, signed by the President of UC Berkeley, Stanford’s President Donald Kennedy, California Governor Deukmejian, Sammy Davis Jr., the President of Round Table Pizza, and a few thousand UC Berkeley students.
The letter was roundly disparaged, and no wonder—our demands were sort of stupid.
Did investigators still think this was an inside job? If so, one would have had to believe the perpetrators were trying to frame someone from Stanford. It’s likely Berkeley investigators would have given up on the inside job theory by this time. As for Stanford, police must have had their doubts too. Or was it convenient for the Stanford community to still maintain they had nothing to do with it? Was it tribal loyalty to Stanford to not try so hard to catch us? Or, did they really believe it was someone from Berkeley, given no forced entry and no broken locks? One way or another, we were never questioned. This point really illuminates the value of leaving no damage, and thus few clues, when pulling a prank.
After the ransom notes hit the press in early October 1987, Oskie fever was back on. Even though our demands were completely ignored, Oskie was again on the lips of the Bay Area.
RF’s Spectacular Oskie Idea
RF was a recent alum, a well-respected prior Editor of the Chaparral, with a prank history of his own, the mastermind of the Mickey Mouse on the clocktower. In other words, he had prank credentials. And as an older “Old Boy,” he held rank over me, and I rightly held much deference to him.
He had an idea for the staff that sounded hilarious. But as he told us his idea with obvious excitement in his eyes, I experienced something like a “Hitchcock effect”, un-zooming the camera while trucking in, producing a strange film-noir thriller effect.
“What you need to do is make a fake bear,” he said, “and then put it in the back of a pickup and drive around. Drive around Stanford. Drive around Berkeley. You’re sure to eventually be stopped by the cops, but when they do, the bear is fake!”
At the time of this story, there were only seven people who knew about the bear, and R was not one of them. He just thought it was a funny idea.
“That’s a great idea!” said one of the Chappies. Then they turned to me, “What do you think, Jim?”
Can you imagine? Spending a lot of your time trying to devise a payoff to the Oskie prank while not getting kicked out of school, and here comes this idea presented to you, one you SHOULD be very excited about and eager to take up. This is a great idea… for everyone who is NOT an actual stealer of the bear. All in all, this moment was surreal. I remember, my brain repeating, “Oh my god! Oh my god!” (OMG had yet to be invented).
“Oh, yeah, that’s a cool idea…. But isn’t that just cashing in on some else’s prank?” I said.
“Yeah! That’s the beauty of it. You didn’t steal the bear, it’s just a fake! You’re not doing anything illegal. You don’t have anything to worry about because you didn’t steal it.”
Now I had practiced for the police or the press asking me about the bear, but I had not envisioned this.
“Umm, umm… I dunno.” I said. “It’s funny, but it will take a lot of time…”
“It’s just papier Mache. It’s an art project. It’s one fun evening with beer.”
“Well, we’d want it to look realistic, otherwise this will be lame. The paper said it’s eight feet tall,” I said.
This was one of the many times I conveniently used the incorrect reports in the press of the great size and weight of the bear to throw people off. Estimates in the paper put the bear at seven to eight feet, and weighing hundreds of pounds.
RF was clearly disappointed that I wasn’t so enthusiastic with his idea. I really did try to see a way, but in every scenario it would cause people to notice us. If I wasn’t on the police’s radar screen, why do anything, even a joke, to put myself on one? If I were the cops, the Chaparral would already be on a short list of suspects. So, we did not make a fake bear and go driving around Stanford and Berkeley. I declined to do RF’s prank idea, much to his disappointment.
What do you do with a Hot Bear? Part 2
While we didn’t do his idea, the concept of using a fake bear to hide the real bear was incorporated into our thinking and seriously considered in various ways right up to the conclusion of this prank. For example, we likely couldn’t carry the real bear on to the football field, but we could bring a fake one, especially, as had been pointed out, if it were big and clunky and obviously a home-made substitute. We considered it for quite a while, but even though revealing the real Oskie inside of the fake one in front of a Big Game crowd would have been legendary, we still couldn’t figure out how to do it without being arrested, and worse, expelled.
We discussed what to do with Oskie extensively, over many months. We revisited the idea of leaving it in the yard of Coach Elway’s house or in the locker room of the Stanford Football Team; skydive the bear on to the field, all kinds of ideas were considered. But any possible scenario we came up with seemed to lead to our getting caught and punished.
With no traction from the first ransom note, we sent a second with reduced demands and even less of a response. The head of the Stanford Axe Committee remarked in the press that it looked like we were getting desperate. We were.
So with another Big Game approaching and no good idea, we did the most logical thing–which still could theoretically get the bear on to the field during the game–but more importantly would be getting the bear off of our hands. The only people with a reasonable shot at getting the bear onto the football field was the group many people thought had taken it all along, the amazing, incomparable, irreverent Leland Stanford Junior Marching Band.
Of course, as one of the organizations most likely to have stolen Oskie, it would be hard for them to say that it just “showed up” in the Band Shak. So that’s where we put it.
We knew that the band was playing at the Thursday night Big Game bonfire rally on the other side of campus. During the rally, two of us would put the bear in the shack. The other two would watch the area and make sure no band members or random people wandered near the Shak, and if any did, our guys would attempt to delay them.
We took the bear, wrapped it in garbage bags, and slipped into the Band Shak while the pep rally was going on. The place was deserted. Quick in, nice and quiet, leave the package leaning up against the wall, and right back out into the night. The one and only time I was ever in the Band Shak, I left the Berkeley Bear for them.
We got back to the Chappie office and called the Band Shak, getting their answering machine. In my best disguised voice, I told them that Oskie was there.
As we would learn months later, the leaders of the Band got back to the Shak before the rest of the Band. When they found Oskie there, they FREAKED, and quickly got him out of there.
When those guys returned to the Band Shak, they said they found the band members, “dismantling” the Shak looking for the bear. The mass of Band members had returned from the rally and played the answering machine message. I think they may have been drinking too.
The Bear was out of our hands, Big Game 1987 came and went without anything about it.
The following year we learned that Oskie had made his way back to Berkeley, by way of a fountain in San Francisco. The Stanford Axe Committee had left it there, sometime after the Band had gotten it to them.
All three of us, and our accomplices, graduated from Stanford in June of 1988. I got out by the skin of my teeth, with the minimum number of credits and minimum grade point average allowed. I was outta there, and off to New York City.
The Missing Link is a prank, a Chaparral prank, or a prank by the Daily on the Chaparral, made during a summer session. It’s a mystery.
Oskie’s Excellent Adventure was a prank that used the Chappie office as a base of operations. during a summer session.
If the Missing Link is a prank in the way I think it is, then this story is more than appropriate.
The Only Time Richard Got Angry at Me 
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