                        MALE BONDING, HO!  THAT'S RITE!
                by Dave Barry, Pulitzer Prize winning columnist


          I got  to  thinking  about  the Men's Movement recently when our
     bathroom ceiling collapsed.

          Maybe you've heard about the Men's Movement.  It consists of men
     who  feel  they've lost  touch  with  their  fundamental  masculinity
     because of the restrictive pressures  of  the  modern world, with its
     industrialization,  neckties, fireworks regulations, etc.   So  these
     men are forming groups that only men can belong to, similar to the US
     Senate,  except  that they engage in virile ritualistic  male-bonding
     behavior  such  as shouting and roaring and hugging and  pounding  on
     drums.  I'm not making this movement up.  It  was  on  the  cover  of
     Newsweek, so you know it's not just a passing fad.   It's  a fad that
     will probably be around for months.

          The  movement first caught on in (surprise!) California, but has
     spread  widely.    I have here a newspaper article, clipped from  the
     Indianapolis Star  by  alert  readers Judy Voynow and Glenn Woodruff,
     concerning a gathering  of  a group called the Indiana Men's Council.
     The article, written by  Joseph T.  Hallinan, states that, before the
     group members started drumming, they  formed  a  circle, and each man
     introduced himself by giving his name and the names of his father and
     paternal grandfather, as in:  "I am  Bob, the son of Fred, the son of
     Norbert." After each man spoke, the other men shouted "Ho!"

          Here's my favorite section of the article:

          "Sunday's  gathering  was  the  first time that women  had  been
     allowed to attend a meeting of the Men's Council.  The women stood in
     the circle, with their men, and when it came their  turn  they,  too,
     were asked to cite their male lineage.

          "After  the  first  woman  did  so,  the men around her shouted,
     'Ho!'"

          She looked taken aback by the response, and then one of the  men
     explained they were not calling he a 'ho,' that it was just something
     they said."

          Maybe the men should  yell  something  less  ambiguous,  such as
     "Roger!" or "Nice set of  paternal  names!"  But  I  think  the Men's
     Movement is a fine idea.   I'm  definitely  out  of touch with my own
     masculinity, a fact that was driven home  when  our  bathroom ceiling
     collapsed.    This,  of course, happened at 1  o'clock  on  a  Sunday
     morning, which is when, as you homeowners know, the House Destruction
     Satellite,  orbiting  high  above  the Earth, beams down its powerful
     Decay Ray.  We heard a loud crash, and we went into the bathroom, and
     the  ceiling  was  lying  on  the floor in a sodden mass, with  water
     pouring down on it from somewhere in the attic.

          "Ho!"  I said, drawing  on  three  years  of  junior-high-school
     Industrial Arts training.  "Something is wrong!"

          A virile man would have  known  how to fix it.  But I am totally
     out of touch with my masculine  nature,  so all I could do was call a
     plumber.  He went into the attic and, following his natural masculine
     instinct, knew immediately what to do:  call for more plumbers.  Soon
     there was a whole tribal gathering up there, virile  men who were not
     afraid  to  crawl  around  the attic and confront naked plumbing  and
     shout  and  roar  and  pound  on things.  They might also  have  been
     hugging.    I  stayed  downstairs,  making  coffee  and  keeping  the
     checkbook warm.

          The problem turned out  to  be  the  hot-water heater, which the
     previous owner, apparently as a  prank, had located over the ceiling,
     so that it could do the  maximum  possible  amount  of damage when it
     leaked.  The plumbers wanted to put  the  new  heater in a downstairs
     closet.

          Here's what the virile man would have said:  "OK."

          Here's what I said:  "I'll ask my wife."

          My wife said no.  My wife is  completely in touch with her basic
     femininity,  and  she  is  not about to give up  something  precious,
     something   that  women  have  struggled  for  centuries  to  obtain,
     something that they value more than life itself:  storage space.

          You want  to  know  why, 20,000 years ago, nomadic Asian peoples
     made the brutal,  dangerous  trek  across  vast  expanses  of  barren
     wasteland to come to North America?  Because nomadic women heard that
     there were caves here with  plenty  of  room  for kitchen implements.
     Archaeologists are still finding ancient stored pots.

          So anyway, the plumbing tribe, roaring and pounding, put the new
     heater up in our attic, right next  to  the  old  one.   Soon the two
     heaters will start bonding, with the old one  passing  along  ancient
     water-heater lore and wisdom ("Sunday at 1 a.m., that's  the  time").
     And one night we'll hear two distinct metallic voices shouting "Ho!,"
     and  the  bathroom ceiling will collapse again.  And the whoe  ritual
     will be repeated.

          But this time I will have a meaningful role.  This time  I  will
     have  my  son  stand with me, and, as an older masculine man, I  will
     pass along to him the manly virile wisdom that I have accumulated.

          "Son,"  I  will  say.  "For each cup, you use one level scoop of
     coffee."
