Memories highlight four years at Duke

Endings always invite records and retrospectives. Last year, the media's millennial maelstrom marked the end of the 20th century with a myriad of lists. Who was the (hu)man of the year/century/millennium? What was the most significant invention? Book? Sporting event? Battle? You get the idea. And this, if you haven't already guessed from my opening sentences, is my final column of my final semester as student at the University.

So what shall I list here? My favorite study spots? My favorite sunny spring days? My favorite basketball moments? There's got to be some way to catalogue my four years here. I've got a lot of favorite controversies from The Chronicle. Probably the most frequent offender has been Parking Services, their swift and merciless ticketers and the utter lack of available spaces on campus. (All I've got to say about this is that if you've ever visited a different campus-like Carolina, for instance-then you know what a real parking crunch is.) There have been countless Duke Student Government election recounts, runoffs and revotes; and not a single Krzyzewskiville line policy went without at least a few angry letters of indignation. Parties, too, have sparked a lot of angry reactions, as obnoxious frat guys, keg restrictions and bonfire policies intermittently dominated these pages.

On to more weighty topics: We've seen homosexuality and the Bible butt heads multiple times. Jesus rose in chalk dust all over West Campus. Richard Nixon's portrait almost went up in the Law School. I think there may have been two or three people who thought that Students Against Sweatshops were doing more harm than good, but most of the time we just laughed at those folks. And then, there was that delightfully drawn-out debate about whether Western Civilization is in fact superior to that of India. (And I'm sure glad we got that settled.) Wait, let me broaden that to every column, letter or article ever written by or about a Duke Objectivist... thanks guys, you've been great!

I suppose that now, in my final column, I could weigh in one last time on several of the current debates that have yet to die out. (By the way, I wish that whoever whitewashed the East Campus bridge again would show enough faith in their own beliefs to sign their names or the name of their organization on their self-described message of intolerance.) But, if I did that, I wouldn't be able to close my final column with a list of all the great positive experiences that I have had in these four years. And, if you remember from the beginning, that kind of was my point in writing this column.

However, rather than writing about the aforementioned sunny days or basketball, after searching back for some of my warmest memories, I realize that I've probably had the most fun here at the University when I have been standing in a capacity crowd at the Cat's Cradle or on the quadrangle as some great musicians did their best to entertain me. As something of a music snob, and a definite music addict, I have seen more than my share of mid-major and independent bands come through the Triangle.

Of course, sometimes, it was actually more fun just to travel to and from the concerts, like when some friends and I got lost looking for a Waffle House after an AVAIL/Suicide Machines show, or when the sketchy cabdriver who drove us back to Duke from a Purple Schoolbus show in Carrboro took a detour to what, in retrospect, must have been some kind of whacked-out drug deal. But one time, I only had to travel down a flight of stairs, as the Pat McGee Band played an intimate and fantastic show in the basement of Trent Hall. Nevertheless, there is nothing quite like the feeling you get from the crowd at a rock concert, whether you're singing and dancing with Adam Sandler or They Might Be Giants in Page Auditorium or skanking in the mosh pit to the beat of Less Than Jake or the Mighty Mighty Bosstones.

So thank you, Viskasity, for being the house band at the Coffeehouse throughout my freshman year, offering me a refuge from my roommate's musical tastes-he strangely thought that Dave Matthews was somehow better than the sublime noise of my favorite band at the time, Screeching Weasel. And thank you, to the people who brought underwear to the Cradle and tossed it at the lead singer of Jets to Brazil, and to the guy who tossed a jar of urine at Vanilla Ice. (Although I wasn't there, when I read about it in The Chronicle, I agreed that it was richly deserved.) And thank you the most all, Jim Wilbur, because when you and your band, Superchunk, were finished with your show on the Main Quad, you gave me some grapes that you snatched from the green room.

And, when you think about it, is there anything better than free grapes?