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Show I was told they'd be the greatest years of my life ; for a while, they were... Quite a change from the people up on the hill throw-each throw-each other and occasionally on a block "U." But it's 'ng lf-. basically the same spirit which shouts cheers at anfts-. eagerly throws whitewash on concrete as sends a ,,- "lal1-Remember "lal1-Remember in high school when everyone told you are the greatest years of your life? The same thing muT in college, and you may have walked around sayineI i; are the greatest years of my life. 8Wo"i, Not so many people think that way any more and th change lies. There aren't any more great years in'anvbodfi'" are only great days, and that was maybe yesterda tomorrow. V'- Used to be Homecoming was really big-time around here. But it's obviously not so anymore. Accompanying a .general decl.ne -n campus morale and student group .dent.f.cat.on Homecom ng n the most part degenerated into another ,n a se es f o"mf stomps, nameless Homecoming queens, and Saturday Homecoming football games. There are not enough people excited enough about Homing to do the traditional whitewash job on the block 'U much less make a J scheduled event out of it. There are always the standa d campus service organizations who will turn out a dozen or so peop e be ween them and o a quick and dirty job of it. There w, I be no do usmgsw. h whitewash, little laughter or nonsense. And with luck a few people down in the valley will notice it. And so it goes with a half-dozen other defunct events. "The times they are a-changin'," sang Bob Dylan, "so get out of the way if you can lend a hand!" We aren't going to set the change in homecoming up as good or bad. A change is a change, and no more. If it turns out to be a deviance, normalcy will return. If it's a deep-rooted change, it will become permanent. Permanent, that is, until it changes again. Remember the old Homecoming dance, bless its waltzing little heart? People used to go to Homecoming dances, and they danced around and glorified in their ceremonial associations. And then the stomp became the ritual of the day, a dollar a head and grubby clothes, do your thing at intimate intervals, and sweat besides. And now even the stomps are fading. And following the Homecoming pattern, there is really nothing in the works to take its pake. The skits and songs aren't that popular anymore, even to the tew people who participate. The Creeks and service organizations aren't too psyched up about it the way they used to be. It's hard enough for them to keep their heads above the financial water, much less throw some extra effort into organized singing and acting. And the Homecoming football game really isn't the Homecoming football game anymore. It's just another football game with a few added attractions. Indeed the marching band would have done up a special salute to the visiting alumni, complete with the numbers of outstanding years and a few applicable tearjerker songs. And the Homecoming queen will be paraded around the track in a red convertible con-vertible at halftime for everyone to see and whistle at. But it's only after seeing a few of these things that people suddenly remember that there is a Homecoming. Homecoming symptomatically has taken a sideline to new endeavors. It began not so long ago when some organizations began donating their decoration money to more humane causes. Now its come to the point where 500 University students, acting under no kind of permanent perman-ent title or with no shiny trophy as a reward, will work a full day for nothing to clean up a blotch in the city, and in the process send a good number of people to school who never would have had the chance otherwise. And we suspect the project's alliance with Homecoming had little to do with its success. |
