If you're a regular reader of -The Post's Opinion Page (in addition to your no-doubt unerring devotion to catching Thursday's edition, of course), last week you might have noticed a couple of letters from alumni who graduated a few decades ago.
Those alumni pointed out that, when they weren't walking to school barefoot uphill both ways through snowdrifts and over broken glass with their little brothers on their backs, they found the time to go class on Saturday morning.
The letters came as an answer to the recent pity-parties students were throwing for themselves in response to OU President Roderick McDavis' plan to add more actual classes on Friday, despite the long-standing maxim that Thursday is, in fact, the new Friday. (Tuesday is the new Thursday, of course, and Wednesday - well, for personal reasons, I'm of the opinion that Wednesday can go to hell.)
Now, it does seem silly to lament the loss of a free day that will no doubt be filled with productive labor when we are all working saps in the fast-approaching future, especially in contrast to the mandatory weekend classes of yore. But then again, at the age of 18 those same alumni could have bought near-bear, which at 3.2 percent alcohol by volume, would get you to The Buzz (but not beyond, of course) almost as fast as your modern day light beers. So you'll have to excuse me if my sympathy isn't forthcoming What stands, however, is the larger point: Things were different back then. It was a simpler time, when people didn't have to deal with, say, divisive wars or affronts to liberty ... oh wait.
But to see that OU has changed, you don't need to go back 40 years - 4 will do just fine. So gather round, kiddies, and let Uncle Noah tell you what it was like back in the glory days of '02.
Back in those times, we still had freedom. No matter what the government said or thought, or which rogue nation was threatening us, we had the liberty to pick - at will, with no threat of censure - to have a paw print on our hoodies instead of an attack cat.
And in that golden age, we could still drink liquor out of shot glasses with an OU logo on it. Nowadays, the university has banned those logos on shot glasses, saying it doesn't want to promote the kind of binge drinking associated with doing shots. If present-day students want to drink from university merchandise, they'll have to do it just five beers at a time out of the 60 oz. OU pitchers available at College Bookstore.
Also, back then the campus terrain was a little more hospitable. Students on their way to football games could walk to Peden on a Saturday afternoon across a pristine grassy field, free from the danger of running into random bumps and sinkholes, or worse, bad poetry--. Yes, OU officials might have been just as concerned with alcohol abuse then as they are today, but at least they didn't erect booby traps for the drunks.
Local media were a bit different back then, too. In the present day, we endure such perennial journalistic exposes as Students aren't sleeping enough! and Students are drinking and doing drugs! But in those untamed times, we were at the precipice of a different wave of clich+
17 Archives
Noah Blundo
