Minor annoyances in Wonderland

By Zack Baker
210 west Writer [send email]

Graduation from Bowling Green State University looms a day away for me, and I have to admit I am pretty down about the whole thing. My whole life—with the exception of my family—is here, and I find myself getting nostalgic about the whole thing.

I have opted not to write a nostalgic look back at my years, in part because I know that time has improved the memories and faded out the frustrations. What was once hated is now loved, what was tedious and boring now enlightening.

So, knowing that I love this campus and will miss it only as much as I’d miss my left arm (the more toned of the two), I am going to give you the top five things I won’t miss about Bowling Green State University.

5. The colors: I’m sorry. I know, time has healed this a bit, and I am a big Browns fan, so I should be used to it. But I also remember that Garth Brooks song “Nobody gets off in this Town,” particularly this line: Nobody gets off in this town/the high school colors are brown/

Seriously, the name is BOWLING GREEN, not Bowling Orange. I know the story about the women’s hat, but I prefer my version, the one about a fired administrator who’s last job was to pick the colors. So he (or she) got drunk that night and picked the ugliest color scheme available which, of course, was Brown and Orange.

(Although purple and green may have been worse.)

4. The sidewalks that lead to nowhere: Anyone who has attended this school knows that whoever came up with the layout for the campus’ sidewalks should be forced to watch Gigli: The Directors Cut. The idea for sidewalks is to get from point A to point B in the shortest route possible. So why, I ask, are the sidewalks on this campus the equivilant of a picture frame? Follow a sidewalk in BG and you’ll think you are reading a conceptual poem. You see, the sidewalks don’t actually GO anywhere. I followed one once to its conclusion, and found that I was in the middle of nowhere, about to fall off the face of the earth.

3. The tractor pulls: My first day in BG, August 21, 1999, I saw a sign on a hotel. It read, “Welcome BG students and National tractor pullers.” There is nothing I can really add to that, except to say that I blame my lot of problems freshman year on that recurring visual.

2. The office buildings on the east side of campus: I started my college career in Chapman Learning Community. I left after my freshman year in part to be close to the campus media offices, but also to get out of the uninspiring east side of campus. I soon noticed that the gray brick buildings of Chapman and the Kreischer area reminded me of an abandoned downtown warehouse district. The buildings there are by far the ugliest and most depressing on campus, and are in serious need of work. Freshman year is hard enough without walking to the building and murmuring: “God, I live in THIS place.”

1. OK, I can’t go any further. I love and will always love this place. Bowling Green has made me a better person, and a more mature one as well—at least I hope so. There are so many people I will miss, so many people I need to thank for the last four years. I only hope the next four years will be as rewarding.

There is very little that I can say about the future. I have faith in my abilities to make it as a journalist, but am also filled with the paranoia of the uncertainty of the next step. I am heading to Kenton, Ohio to be a sportswriter. The people who work there, and the town itself, give me faith that everything will work out.

Boy, what a strange column this turned into. I promise to be back to my sarcastic self by my next column.

But for today, thank you.

Goodbye BG.