friday afternoons often reminded jake of law school , when , depending on the weather , he and his friends would either group in their favorite bar in oxford and guzzle happy-hour beer and debate their new-found theories of law or curse the insolent , arrogant , terroristic law professors , or , if the weather was warm and sunny , pile the beer in jake 's well-used convertible beetle and head for the beach at sardis lake , where the women from sorority row plastered their beautiful , bronze bodies with oil and sweated in the sun and coolly ignored the catcalls from the drunken law students and fraternity rats .