Over Thanksgiving I traded some classic college tales with my parents and was surprised to find our stories were much the same.
The more they shared, the more I realized there are surely some things inherent to the college experience, regardless of whether you attended college in the ’60s, ’70s or the ’00s, a decade from which I get great amusement out of calling the naughts.
First, I found that college students have always made jokes, structural or otherwise, about the buildings that house their majors. For me and all English majors, that building is Lee Hall, and you can’t so much as walk in one door and out the other without hearing someone make a crack at the building.
Creaky old Lee Hall with its peeling walls and failing air conditioners. Always smelling of the stairwell’s new paint job and always with a bathroom or two closed. Of course, you can’t forget the perpetual din of construction outside the building, which renders a catch-22 during class time. On a warm day, you either melt away because the air conditioners aren’t working, or you open a window and force the teacher to scream in order to be heard. If ever a chemistry teacher needed to demonstrate the principle that heat rises, he needs look no further than Lee Hall. The more stairs you climb, the warmer it gets, even in the winter.
But despite all the jokes, I love the atmosphere of Lee Hall and find it to be the perfect building for English majors. Not because English majors suffer an academic neglect similar to that felt by the building, but because in Lee Hall you can imagine yourself in a musty, ancient library or study. You blow the dust off of some classic piece of literature and bury yourself in it, watching the motes float through sunlight, which is usually all you have to go by, since the fluorescent lighting only works about half the time.
Another thing universal to the college experience is dorm pranks. During my freshman year in Hull Hall, a guy on the third floor-whose name I shall withhold-passed out in the hallway one weekend night. My guy friends immediately began rooting through their rooms and stacking all the empty cans they could find around Generic Drunken College Guy X. When he awoke in a daze, his confusion about his situation turned into a hysterical predicament when he attempted to stand and all of the cans came crashing to the floor, taking him with them.
Likewise, my dad shared quite a few stories about the pranks he and his fraternity brothers played on each other. The worst was his tale of whipping up a batch of Ex-Lax brownies and Saran-Wrapping the toilets so that when the brownies took effect, well, you get the idea.
I was most surprised to find one other thing that is apparently universal to the college experience, crossing the generation gap and bringing joy to all. To my delight, my mom shared with me that Boone’s Farm was a popular beverage when she was in college in the early ’70s. Ah, Boone’s Farm, one good which I’m almost positive has never felt the sting of inflation.
At approximately $2.47 a bottle, Boone’s Farm, though little more than a fizzy, slightly fermented fruit juice, is enjoyable if only for its cheap novelty. My mom shared that during her college days, you could buy Boone’s Farm at bars, and it was served in a beer glass with ice. Boone’s Farm flavored apple wine product-the epitome of class, available in 22 flavors ranging from green to blue to four kinds of strawberry that all taste the same but all are equally delicious.
I had never before realized there are some things inherent to the college experience, but realizing that makes me appreciate them that much more.
So if you’ve never taken the time to notice the decadence of your favorite campus building, or never played a mean prank on a helpless friend, or never tasted the fizzy sweetness of Boone’s Farm, you haven’t gotten the most out of your college experience. I might go so far as to say you haven’t lived.