It's one of those days. Rainy and cold. I'm wearing sweatpants and no makeup. Haven't left the house at all. My eyes are sore. I'm tired. And I don't feel like blogging anything original, let along five things for Friday.
Instead, in honor of my ten-year college reunion this weekend (which will most likely be lame but Adrian and I look forward to revisiting the scenes of our many crimes.), is something I posted recently on MySpace. (Yes, I am on MySpace.)
This probably won't mean a thing to 98% of the ten people who read this blog. It's a little like experiencing my college years vicariously.
Have a great weekend.
I'm off to have a Coke Zero and maybe clean a bathroom.
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To My Fellow Veterans of the College of William and Mary
A while ago, I stumbled across this list Adrian and I put together Homecoming 2000, after a mere three post-collegiate years. We had visited campus and noticed a lot of changes since our tenure. We started a list of things, good and bad, that have altered or disappeared completely from the campus culture. It was a funny, bittersweet little trip down that rocky road known as Memory Lane.
When we venture down to the 'burg in a few days, I am sure we'll notice a lot more changes to the good old alma mater. Should be interesting.
I thought I’d share the list with you. Give you a few laughs. Make you glad you got out of there when you did. Or maybe wish you were back.
(Some of these may be before or after your time. We started W&M in the fall of 1993 and graduated in the spring of 1997.)
Gone But Not Forgotten:
1. The Williamsburg Theater: Remember when everyone had a schedule in their room with the movies they wanted to see circled?
2. Marriott
3. The old, OLD bookstore before Barnes and Noble cleaned everything up. When all the textbooks were crammed back in that little room.
4. Knowing what is at the bottom of Crim Dell. Shopping cart anyone?
5. Prince George’s
6. Ernestine at the Caf, God rest her soul. Back when she knew EVERYONE’s name and didn’t just call you “Boo”.
7. Registering for classes with those scantron, fill-in-the-bubbles sheets.
8. The post office in the basement of Old Dominion.
9. Tercentenary Hall. When it was Tercentenary Hall.
10. Free-for-all frat parties. Did anyone ever write their real name on those lists?
11. Life without a Target or a Ukrop’s. We had to shop at Roses and Food Lion, dammit.
12. Nick’s Pewter Plate Pancake House
13. Thursday night raves at Psi U.
14. Real concerts at the Hall.
15. Halogen lights
16. When the candy counter sold cigarettes.
17. Alternatives
18. Mama’s (Old campus thing.)
19. X Phi Tau parties (New campus thing.)
20. The Leaf and College before they cleaned up and became respectable.
21. PiKa had a house. So did Sigma Nu. (Wait, does that mean there’s no more Liquid Lunch? Let’s hope that someone has picked up the banner.)
22. Smoking was allowing in PBK. Not that it ever stopped anyone afterwards…
23. Those first computer-generated picture id cards. The ones where your face rubbed off after about six months.
24. The great cast of characters that included Erkel, Crazy Smiling Girl, Dave Soul, Butt-Bag Boy, and others.
25. Chain voice mails
26. There once was no such thing as a “substance-free” dorm.
27. 412 parties
28. The Hippie House
29. Artistic expression on your dorm room door
30. Days before cable TV and unlimited Internet access. What did we do? Study?
And for good measure, here are a few things that hopefully never change…
1. William and Mary-Land of a Thousand Joggers
2. If you didn’t have seasonal allergies before you came to W&M, you graduated with them.
3. Streaking the Sunken Gardens… God help us.
4. The Great Hunt for a Parking Spot
5. Beast
6. 100+ degrees and 99% humidity on move-in day
7. The “crosswalks” that every 80-year-old tourist driving a land yacht ignores
8. Ghost tours
9. The smoker’s contingency on the porch of Tucker
10. Mug Night
11. Grand Illumination and the Yule Log ceremony
12. Ringing the bell
13. Those little kiosks covered with posters
14. The many accapella groups on campus. Wasn’t the per student ratio 10:1?
15. The Ninth Level of Hell, otherwise known as Freshman Orientation
16. Fire drills at 4 a.m.
17. Bread ends and house
18. The subway tunnel under Jamestown Road
19. The Walk of Shame
20. Going to the health center for a sore throat and being asked if you were pregnant.
Your Host
Other Places I Babble
2 comments:
I received a link to this post from a friend and we're both trying to figure out who Dave Soul and Butt Bag Boy were. Could you describe them a little? I was at W&M from '94-'97 so I'm sure I know who they are...
Thanks...and thanks for an entertaining read that pertains to my life. :)
Melissa
Okay, hopefully you'll get my response this way.
Dave Soul wasn't a nickname; it was his real name. He was a tall lanky fellow with longish brown hair, and I want to say he had a beard. Anyway, what was peculiar about Dave was that he wore shorts all year round. Even in frigid temperatures with ice on the ground, Dave was rocking some short and sandals with a fleece pullover.
Butt Bag Boy was a guy named Tim who was in my freshman class. He was chubby fellow with unfortunate taste in clothing who always wore a leather fanny pack. He seemed like a nice enough guy if not a wee bit socially awkward. Unfortunately, Tim left W&M and didn't return for the 94-95 school year. According to rumors, he was treated rather harshly by the other guys on his hall. I really hoped that wasn't true because I liked to think W&M students were a little more enlightened than to engage in bullying the different kid. But I know better; not matter how smart they are, people can still be pretty darn cruel.
Glad you enjoyed the post.
Now who's passing my blog along... :)
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