I remember Isabel.

I remember hearing the cheers resonate through the halls of Capital Hall as RA’s posted signs that read, “Thursday classes are cancelled.” I remember moments later my next door neighbor barging into our room, practically knocking the door off its hinges, excitedly assuring my roommates and I that, yes, classes and internships would be cancelled the next day.

I remember Chris smiling, reaching for the booklet full of CD’s on his desk, saying, “I know just the song.”

I smiled and agreed; before he even said it, I knew what he was going to play: “Hurricane” by Bob Dylan.

Seconds later, there were six people in our room, singing, screaming, along with us: “HERE IS THE STORY OF THE HURRICANE! THE MAN THE AUTHORITES CAME TO BLAME FOR SOMETHIN’ THAT HE NEVER DONE!”

The whole week prior to this announcement I remembered thinking that Washington, D.C. was way too far inland; thinking that the forecasters were just fabricating this storm to make for an exciting newscast. Excitement, plus, hysteria, equals, viewers, I remember thinking.

I guessed I was wrong -- Hurricane Isabel was knocking on our door, and we were about to accept it with open arms.

21-year-olds were in high demand that night; my guess is that the Tenley Mart had its best liquor sales in weeks that night as well. Every few minutes we would see another kid on our floor walk by, quietly, and sneakily, with a backpack ready to burst at its seams.

“Got a lot of work to do tonight?” we asked them with a smile and a laugh.

Absolutely, they replied, except it wasn’t the pencil and paper kind of work, it was the mind numbing, liver poisoning kind of work. Within hours, most all of the students on my floor would be transformed, degraded if you will, into a bunch mindless, sloppy, incoherent, drunks, and none of them seemed like they could be more excited about it. I know I was.

When I woke up, slightly hung-over, the next afternoon, Friday, happy that I was still in bed at 1 rather than at my internship, the wind and rain was pounding Washington -- Hurricane Isabel was here.

The forecasters weren’t lying afterall, and that afternoon we would hunker down in our dorm rooms, watching weather reports, drinking slowly, waiting for the nightlife to begin; anticipating something epic.

At around 12:30 a.m. I remember the lights began to flicker. I remember crossing my fingers and praying for the lights to flicker one last time, and then just fade to black completely, and finally. My prayers were answered, and almost immediately the fourth floor of Capitol Hall was transformed into one very large blackout party.

No one cared about the rules -- there were no rules. There was no drinking age. There were no rules about not drinking or not smoking in the dorms. When those lights went out, freewill was the only rule that applied, and the RA’s were not going to tell us what to do anymore. It felt like our liberation from a horrible tyrant -- no longer would we be held down by the man! We were free from the chains that held us back! FREEDOM!

Lets go outside, I remember someone saying. Why not, we asked ourselves -- we need to live our lives to the fullest. It would be a good story to tell one day I thought. Like: I wrestled a bear; I caught a foul ball at a Major League Baseball game; I got drunk and ran around barefoot, yelling at passing cars on Wisconsin Avenue during Hurricane Isabel with my friends at 3 a.m. It all seemed so logical at the time.

Before passing out in her bed that night, exhausted, deeply drunk on cheap wine, I remember thinking: “You tried to beat us Ms. Isabel. But, no, no. You lost. We defeated you. We won.”

The next afternoon, Saturday, when I woke up the clock was still blank -- electricity had not been restored, and soon we got the word that it wouldn’t be for several days, maybe even a week.

I remember rejoicing at the thought -- “back to simplicity.” No alarm clocks; no phones; no television; no air conditioning; no hot water; just candles, brain-inebriating liquid, good people, and good conversations. I remember thinking, “This is what the Pilgrims must have gone through.”

We decided that when our non-drinking, Republican roommate decided to go home for the weekend our room would be the party room. We gathered eight Triple A Batteries for Chris’ stereo, four candles, one couch, one futon, and six bottles of wine for ourselves and our four partying guests. We didn’t need anything else; we had our provisions.

The six of us talked about our feelings on Washington Semester and politics and life and love. We drank our wine and danced. And every few minutes another one of us would reiterate our happiness to be together; our happiness that we had no power and our happiness that we could all be together having a non-electronic good time. Then, we danced some more.

The night ended early that night as my lady and I retired to her empty bedroom, where an empty bed and candle light awaited us. The wine just made it that much more intimate.

“God bless Isabel,” I remember thinking while I was laying there next to her, drunk, feeling more comfortable than I had ever felt before.

When Saturday arrived, for many the “roughing it,” attitude had changed -- Isabel was well gone by that sunny and beautiful afternoon and that “free willing” attitude was gone for most of the students living on the fourth floor of Capital Hall. How would cell phones be recharged? Where would we eat? Where would we watch football? “Wussies,” I remember saying to myself. “How do you think your forefathers felt?! How do you think the people of Indo-China feel?! You can’t even go a day without checking your e-mail! Pathetic!”

I remember my feelings worsened when many of students living on the fourth floor of Capital Hall decided that they would rather spend $50 to stay in a hotel than enjoy our blackout -- one of those people included my lady.

The four of us, Chris, Alex, Chris and myself, would stick it out though -- we were real men. Chris’s stereo was still working; we could go to CVS and get more candles; Tenley Liquors was still selling cheap wine. We had our essentials; we didn’t need air conditioning or AOL Instant Messenger, we were perfectly content with conversation.

At around hour 55 of the blackout, well into my second $6, Carlo Rossi bottle of wine, I remember being belligerently angry; telling her to leave me alone -- yet, ironically, I was the one calling her. I was sad because she was going to make me sleep alone in my bed that night. “Whatever,” I said, pressing the “end call” button before either one of us could say goodnight and goodbye. She called back seconds later, but I just tossed the phone across the room to be lost until “God‘s electricity” turned back on in the morning.

“Who needs a drink?” I remember saying, reaching for my bottle. The three men surrounding me agreed, and took sips from their bottles as well.

“Led Zeppelin?” Chris asked us.

“Why did it take us this long to put it in?” I answered.

“Stairway to Heaven”? Chris asked us.

There was no question in any of our minds that the greatest rock ’n’ roll song ever written would suffice for that moment.

The four of us just sat there, as if in a trance, listening.

I remember thinking, “Ha! You idiots in your fancy hotel rooms. You are missing out on the most surreal moment of your life right now! I hope you are comfortable!”

I passed out that night, alone, content with life. “This is what life is all about,” I remember thinking.

When the sun set the next night, Sunday, while I was eating my fifth slice of pizza in two days (the closed dining halls left us with little choice between the main campus dining hall or Angelico, the pizza place up the street); when Chris’s stereo finally ran out of batteries; when I hadn’t showered in two days, I decided that maybe “roughing it” was getting a little old. I had told my parents that a hurricane was coming, but I hadn’t spoken to them in about five days (my mother, being the paranoid woman that she is, at this point thought that I was either missing or dead).

Laying there in the middle of my floor, in the dark, alone, with our final candle burning, I thought about the nights before when I made new friendships and bonds; when I killed more brain cells than I should have. I sat there thinking about how in 30 years when I look back on my college experiences, I probably won’t remember more than half the things my professors tried to teach me, but I will probably remember Isabel.

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