Stories are what make legends!  And we do have some legendary tales to tell.
Here is a place to share those stories of our mispent youth as we engaged in mischief, merryment and myth making!  So, please, if you have any tales to add, simply add them in a comment to THIS post, and I'll be sure to add it to the memoris.

We were filming one of the end scenes for the Bounty Movie "Aerosol Nights" (later renamed "Nick Bounty: Public M"). The scene called for Steve to get thrown off of a bridge. This was really written just as an excuse to try to cause Steve some bodily harm, but he was up for the stunt... until the actual day of filming.

We got to the bridge,he had a wet suit on under his clothes, but now he was having second thoughts. "I don't know guys..." he said. "I don't know how deep it is." Of course we didn't care and kept assuring him that is was good for the film. "But if it's too shallow, I might get hurt. And if it's too deep..."

Mid sentence, Steve was interrupted by a scream followed by a splash. And then another... and laughter. Giggling actually. Steve turned is head to see a group of 8 year old kids gleefully throwing themselves off the small bridge. Having been shown up, Steve jumped and the film was completed.

Nothing defines what I call "the Otter swagger" -- our wonderfully nonchalant approach to pretty much anything -- better than this incident, which took place during my senior year of high school. I had skipped lunch, as I often did, and snuck out in my car to have lunch at Mark's house.

Being a part-time-unemployed-college-student, Mark was just waking up around noon or so, so my lunchtime was his breakfast. As we sat and conversed in his kitchen, I began to notice small wisps of smoke drifting from the area directly behind Mark's head. Mind you, I was used to seeing strange things at Mark's house, mostly involving his brother (who even then was an Otter-in-training), his mom (whose impatience with our wacky ways has become the stuff of legends) or his dad (who... just did weird stuff). But I couldn't recall, to this point, ever having seen anything actually on fire at the Darin residence.

Nevertheless, I was an Otter, and as such, I had an unflappable demeanor to maintain. "Mark," I muttered, craning my neck forward to check out the source of the smoke, "your toast is on fire." Mark answered my non-emotional announcement perfectly. "Hm?" he said, almost as if I'd interrupted something much more pressing, and then, "oh," as he realized what was going on. He very casually stood up, made his way to the toaster and put the fire out. He tossed the blackened toast, and promptly resumed his half of whatever conversation we'd been having. Of course, any normal person would want to scream out "FIRE! FIIIIRE!" and proceed to call 911 and wave their arms frantically until the proper authorities arrived. But that just wasn't what we were about.

It was a strange, boring, foggy night in St. Mary's County: exactly like every other night in St. Mary's County, except that it was foggy. Mark was driving his gargantuan sedan-like vehicle, which had been named Loulio, (by virtue of a famous compromise), and was a beach simulator (by virtue of a dirty beach towel permanently affixed under the rear window). We had just left Francine's house, an unfamiliar address in a particularly rural and sinister area. At hand was the task of finding our way out of this strange, backwater neighborhood.

Through the thick fog, we could hear the moans of cows, somewhere nearby. Before then, I had never thought of cows as anything but peaceful, lumbering herbivores. But on that night, there was something menacing about their droning cries. Everyone felt it. Two of the riders simultaneously shared a waking nightmare of a cow viewed through the rear-view mirror, sitting in the back seat of Loulio, with a 'Michael Myers' Halloween mask stretched across its long head.

We became less and less at ease as we wound our way down the dark back roads, unsure of our path. We still heard the cries of the creatures, as they seductively called to us like the sirens of Ulysses. Our panic grew and we took a wrong turn. Mark made a corrective U-turn and we headed back the way we came. Not more than a few yards later, Mark slammed the brakes and we came to a screeching halt. Loulio's tires, and everyone in the car, screamed as we stopped.

There in the middle of the road, deserted only a minute before, was a small strike force of cows. They were staring directly at us, and their eyes glowed red in the lights of the beach simulator. Their malevolence and power was felt by all. The next several minutes are a blur of screams and panic in my memory. Somehow we did escape the beasts and Mark valiantly navigated us back to downtown Lexington Park, the unofficial center of power in St. Mary's. For a moment we felt safe in the light of Lexington Park's most historically important strip-mall. But once there, we crooked our heads to the sky, and the terror came again. For there, as it had always been, was a life-sized, concrete, full-color sculpture of cow. It towered there like an overlord, bathing the Belvedere Hotel and all the world below in its bovine malevolence. It was then we knew the horrible truth about the cows.