If you weren't tipped off by the big white tents and hundreds of cars piled up everywhere, this weekend was alumni weekend. I spent it with a Dictaphone, allowing me to record what was discussed in each big white tent. Sy-(Snootles)-and-the-Ramblin-(Root-Beer)-Gnome selected some excerpts from the recordings, to be published herein:
Class of 1998 (Fifth Year Reunion)
"Well, the Hideaway's gone."
"I know. Looks like the two best things about this school'Äîthe Hideaway and complete residential segregation'Äîare just memories. I really miss the Old Duke the Class of 1998 knew."
"So do I. I hear there are fewer mind-numbing on-campus parties with people getting drunk piled in the halls, too."
"Yeah, the social life here has really gone downhill. Real shame."
"I think it's that Jerry Moneta guy's fault. I read something about him in that awesome Duke magazine we get as alumni."
"Yeah, probably. F---ing Jerry Moneta. What a f---."
Class of 1993 (Tenth Year Reunion)
"For the national championships when we were in school here, we had some real campus looting, none of that sissy s--t they had in 2001."
"Ah, yes, the days when the men's basketball team had a semblance of academic standards, even graduating its players. Back when they wore Adidas shoes, pre-Krzyzewski Nike sellout, pre-Krzyzewski 'look at me in my big office' phase."
"Oh my gosh look at her! Look at her! Wow. I mean hey, she has to be at least a freshman in college, so she must be 18 already, so it would be totally legal! I'm telling you! Plus, I drive a BMW. She'll be way impressed."
"You're forgetting, 700 other guys here drive a BMW."
"Oh, damn, I forgot about that."
"The problem is, all girls care about here is what frat you're in."
"Yeah, really. They're so shallow."
"Totally. They're not very hot either."
"I know. Which is what's important."
Class of 1978 (25th Year Reunion)
"Remember when Star Wars came out summer after junior year? Man, I would watch that thing every day for six months. I remember I thought I would have such a successful career back then, in whatever field I chose, just as I knew star Mark Hamill would. Unfortunately, I haven't done quite as well as he has, but still."
"Yeah, but that's a tough guy to compare yourself to. Corvette Summer was a hell of a flick. Almost made me forget he was Luke Skywalker for a second there."
"No kidding, that was something else. Hell, no one does facial contortions like Mark Hamill."
"No, you got it. Oh, by the way, did I tell you? These bastards ticketed my car. I couldn't find any place to park it so I just rolled up into Clocktower Quad and left it there. They ticketed my white Ford Taurus rental car. What's worse, the Mercedes next to mine went untouched."
"Well, it's a dilemma for them. They want to squeeze the money out of us that they can, but they don't want to annoy us in case we're someone like Bill English who gets so pissed when they ticket him that he tells 16,000 people he won't give another cent to the University. Duke probably goes by the '20 grand rule.' If your car's worth less than 20 g's, they take the bird in hand, since you don't have much to give anyway."
Class of 1963 (40th Year Reunion)
"Gee whiz, what an excellent school. Actually, I just donated several million dollars to this place."
"No kidding! Well I'll be!"
"Yep. You see, I thought about all the people dying of malaria, AIDS and tuberculosis in the Third World, thousands every day, about how desperately money is needed for health care to save their lives, and I thought, 'Well that's not really urgent.' After all, why put my money toward saving human lives when I could put it toward letting privileged college students enjoy material comforts they didn't have before? It wouldn't make sense!"
"No, it wouldn't. Particularly after Duke let your two underachieving sons in just because they were legacies."
"Um'Ä yeah well, I wasn't going to mention that."
Class of 1953 (50th Year Reunion)
"Women? Living on the same campus as men? When the hell did this start?"
"You're telling me! What in damnation has become of this place?"
"This is the most horrible thing I've ever seen."
"You said it."
"I sure did."
The observations on conventional social life at Duke last Monday seem to have had a strange and unexpected result. After studying Duke's social life for years as objectively as possible, I attempted to describe it, thereby perhaps illustrating why some people find the parties so alienating, and exposing the lameness of our segregated social system. Race was thought of only to demonstrate the striking racial segregation that exists here. If some saw stereotypes in the descriptions of what I have seen again and again at Duke's parties, then maybe that is because a segregated social system impels people to do certain things and act a certain way to fit into a specific social group so that the system itself, and the parties that come out of it, ultimately and inevitably perpetuate racial stereotypes. The purpose of the column was precisely to illustrate the limitations of the system of segregation, as compared to a system of (to use the phrase of the letter) "enlightenment and mixing." One hope was to spur the community to something better, something deeper, et cetera. I suppose I should have made this a little bit clearer.
THEODORE HUXTABLE'S PROTEGE hopes that this column complies with the DUHS compliance office.
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