One of those stories that surfaces when other things are being mulled about. When I arrived in the dorms at the UofM in 1958 and got the room assignment I met the 3 guys that would be my cohort for the year. Tiger, Cal, me, and another guy that I can't remember.
When 4 guys meet for the first time to share an apartment a certain amount of "pissing on the post" occurs to establish pecking order. So we told lies and postured and drank too much in an attempt to sort out who was Alpha and so on. A few days into the term we were all sitting around the living room BSing and I was playing with my brand new shiny dissecting kit. Teasing needles, chain hooks, pins, forceps and a very sharp scalpel.
Cal was sitting next to me on the couch talking his usual trash about how great New Jersey was and how crappy New York was and generally being a pain in the ass. He took a look at the kit I was holding and said something about it being a "kids toy" or something to that effect. Said you couldn't cut ice cream with the scalpel and that his knife (in New Jersey at the time) was a real "cutter". So I said something like "May not be able to cut ice cream but it could cut you easy enough." His reply left no doubt that this was a challenge. So I very slowly drew the blade down his thigh, nicely exposed in a pair of shorts, and sliced open a 3 or 4 inch cut, deep enough to bleed. Because the blade was so sharp and the thigh poorly supplied with sensory nerves he didn't feel much. Then he looked at the cut and blood and screamed and ran to the bathroom. He came out several minutes later with a bunch of band aids on his leg.
We never had that conversation again, and Cal was wary of me. Didn't phase Tiger, though, and later in the term he tried to kill me with a tire iron and I tried to kill him with a machete. Another tale for another time.
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