In this threadpullin celebrated his son’s first solo in an airplane, and then pondered the aviation custom of cutting off the shirt tail as a mark of this event. Actually, I had the entire back of my shirt cut off when I solo’ed, not just a shirt tail. This scrap of fabric is also typically inscribed with names, date, airplane number, and hung on the flight school wall as a sort of trophy.
Actually, I’m only certain this is the custom in North America. I’ve heard that other places do things like upending buckets of water over people or cutting necktimes.
In the old, open cockpit days pilots who had solo’ed not only had a snipped shirt, they also wore white silk scares around their necks (which, given how those old engines threw oil, probably didn’t stay white for long)
Anyhow - there’s a custom from aviation. What strange/odd/unknown/unique customs are their in your avocation/hobby/trade/whatever that is known to the “in” crowd, serves as a rite of passage, or otherwise takes on ritual status?
This was more of a hazing ritual, but I guess such things are also a rite of passage.
Wa-a-a-a-ay back when, “gels” were used to adjust the color of theatrical lights. These were transparent, colored films with wonderful names like “bastard amber” that were cut out of big, rolled sheets to fit into frames that were mounted in front of the lens of the lighting instrument.
And wa-a-a-a-y back when, they were made of gelatin, hence the name. (Now, they’re made of some kind of plastic, though they’re still called gels.) Gels were saved from one show to the next, and they did get dusty from use. So the hazing ritual was to tell the newbie stagehand to go wash the gels.
When the gelatin got wet, it transmogrified from a thin sheet to gob of sticky goo. Panicked newbie admits s/he has ruined the gels. Much laughter ensues.
Don’t ask me about how I know how panicked one feels while watching the gels dissolve…
Here’s another hazing ritual my roommate does when he has two atheist friends meet each other for the first time. He takes each aside and tells him that the other one is super-Christian and that he’d better not say anything bad about Jesus or the other guy will get offended. The goal is to make the two friends so awkward around each other that eventually one will say something nice about Jesus, and then the other–misinterpreting his goals–will also say something nice about Jesus so he doesn’t offend him, and then it spirals upward until the two atheists are praising Christ’s name. Then he comes on the scene and reveals that nobody in the room is actually Christian, and hilarity and (most likely) mutual beatings ensue.
He. The only difference between a beginner and a not-beginner is my hobby (no idea what to call it in english; a somewhat silly, and doubtlessly wrong translation is “shiny weapons”.) is the weapons. Beginners use wooden stick, not-beginners use steel axes, swords, glaives, whatever.
The Rite of Passage consist of one of the old geezers looking up, seeing a group of us talking and saying “Hey, you guys can bring metal now, if you like.”
BUT, since many people cannot afford, or choose not to buy/make, a steel weapon, you can’t really tell someones experience that way. The only ones you can be sure about are thoose with bows; if you’re alowed missile weapons in battle, you’re good.
In a somewhat related, but not identical hobby (roman reenactment), a finished suit of plate armour (segmentata) isn’t propperly broken in until you’ve worn it while eating, worn it to the toilet, slept in it, and slept whith someone in it. As far as I know, no-one had yet completed the whole list.
Way back when, a hot air balloon crash landed near our house. Basically, they tried to get over a ridge that abutted our property, didn’t get up high enough, and came down. We ran out to see how everyone was, and no one was hurt. So, we helped them pack up their balloon, the ground crew’s pickup finally figured out where they’d come down, and we sent them on their way.
So, the next time they took the ol’ balloon out, they invited us along. We all got to ride, which was a really neat experience. And afterward, we were made honorary members of the balloon crew. The ceremony basically consisted of drinking champagne and the crew members rubbing mud in our hair. But what the hell, it was a blast.
Less than a week after my husband started working in a prison, random drug test day for the inmates came up. His boss started running down the proceedures with Hubby, talking about the forms which needed to be filled out and which dorms went in which order and “Oh, here’s your rubbed gloves.”
“What are these for?” Hubby asked.
“Didn’t anyone tell you? You’ve got to . . . you know . . . hold it for them while they piss.”
“WHAT?!?”
“Yeah, 'cause they might have masking agents on their hands or under their nails which would taint the sample.”
Hubby left his office, bewildered and a bit put-off by the notion. He says he thought about it for a while and decided he was just going to flat-out refuse to do it. If they fired him, so be it-- he was not going to hold another man’s penis.
The inmates lined up for the testing and it began. Hubby instantly realized that the boss had been teasing him because no one even indicated something like that was expected. All of a suddden, the doors burst open and his boss came flying in, his eyes wide with panic. “Hey! Hey!” he shouted to Hubby, “Wait, come here! I need to talk to you!”
He explained that they always told “newbies” they had to hold the inmates’ penises, but that he had gotten busy and hadn’t had a chance to explain it was a joke before the testing started. He had raced to the testing site in a panic, worried what would happen if Hubby had taken him seriously and grabbed an inmate’s penis.
Well, when we patched out a prospect to full patch holder, things would get a little rank. With my bunch, we never made them do anything that the statue of limitations would never run out on. Other than that, well, it could get a little rank. Bawahahaha
In the Cub Scouts, one of the first things is that you get a pin, (wolf?). Anyway for a probationary period the pin is worn upside down. However the scout master does not put the pin on upside down. Someone holds the kid by his feet upside down while the pin is put on them.
In my ROTC unit, the male freshmen did atomic situps.
This involved being blindfolded and sitting up - only to have the blindfold yanked off as you plow, bare-faced, into the naked ass of one of the upperclassmen.
I didn’t have to do it, as I was female - but I was also on the elite “hump squad” (long story, but I was the only female on the squad) so I played witness to a large amount of these hazings.
I know, it sounds really twisted, but it’s quite funny. One of my best friends (who wasn’t at the time, of course - I barely knew the guy) stopped in time and just screamed at the ass.
My major is divided in 5 “grades” plus thesis. First graders do not have labs, do not wear labcoats and 1/3 of them never make it to 2nd grade. Also, first grade usually takes two years (take, retake… and maybe, just maybe, then you finally find yourself having to buy two labcoats). Therefore, firstgraders are viewed, not as “quimiquitos” (what students and alumni of that school call ourselves) but as mere wannabes.
I’ve seen an upperclassman introduce his little brother, a first grader, to another upperclassman, at the school’s bar. The little brother offered his hand. The other guy looks at the hand, looks at the kid, says “remember to introduce us again if he ever gets the coat, will you?”, pats the kid on the shoulder and turns back to buy a soda for him.
You’re not a real quimiquito until your coat looks like it’s snow-rated camouflage. Buying new coats may be a necessity when the old one has managed to grow holes, but it’s… something polite company doth not notice. People kind of look at a spot over your shoulder rather than at you, when you have a totally-white coat on.
You could also tell what course someone was on by how he poured his soda (no alcohol in that bar), even if no coats were in sight.
First grade: normal. If he can get a soda, that is, the waiters don’t see any reason to hurry for a first-grader.
Second grade: hold glass without lifting it from the bar. Hunch down until your eyes are flush with the desired level of soda. Pour carefully, slowly, without talking and without moving anything except the hand that holds the soda bottle.
Third grade: hold glass without lifting it from the bar. Pour at normal speed without taking your eyes away from the glass and without talking as you pour.
Fourth grade: hold glass without lifting it from the bar. Pour very fast while you talk with someone over your shoulder.
Fifth grade: hold glass diagonally, as if pouring beer. Pour at normal speed while looking in the general direction of the glass; may maintain a conversation at the same time.
Anybody who looks too old to be a student and who pours normally is a visitor.
This is less of an “occupation” ritual and more of a “My Team” ritual.
Vicious Viper hotsauce. 2 dots on the finger, directly onto the tongue. Preferably right before one is to go onto the phone, so one ends up trying to talk around the fire on their tongue. Dave cried like a bitch. I took a drink of milk, a bite of my sammich and kept going.
But you’ll never get me touching that stuff again. It’s nasty.
