Op-Ed
The Hill At The (Madison Square) Garden
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I graduated under duress this past May. It has been six months since someone handed me a piece of paper and sent me off to grown-up land, but sometimes I still try to find ways to un-graduate, if such a thing exists. Admissions insists that it doesn’t, but that doesn’t mean I can’t keep trying. In fact, I recently sent my diploma back. I received a thank you note from the sustainability office and scattered applause from the Redbuddies, but was informed that this really meant nothing.
As I expected, I really miss Cornell, The Hill, and the madness that it all entails. I miss Olin Café, Rulloff’s, the line at the Palms, and Happy Dave. I miss the wine tours, congregating around CTP and singing the “Hey Song” at the hockey games. I miss the bubble, the knowing everybody, the fact that we could go out every night and still be productive and not broke.
Most of all I miss the people. Some Cornellians are in an apartment essentially down the hall from my door, but others are waaaay out there in New Zealand. Which is a bit of a hike. Somehow, complaining that “the party’s all the way up in Linden? But that’s soooo far away,” seems really shortsighted right now.
Which is why Homecoming had everyone so pumped, since we had another — albeit fleeting — shot at a Cornell weekend. And why, that weekend, everyone sheepishly wanted to go to the Cornell Store to buy some Cornell stuff, because, well, we’re alumni, as weird as that sounds. It’s also why I get all excited when the Alumni Magazine comes. And why I subscribe to The Sun to get the paper copy delivered to Boston even though the website is the first thing I go to everyday.
It’s also the main reason I still write a column. I wrote a weekly column for three years at Cornell and figured I was done, or as spent as spent could be. But then I started law school, and kind of felt a tug and started thinking about writing again. Writing for a different newspaper, however, felt weird. I felt like I was cheating on my wife. My really hot and sexy wife.
But I’m glad I did choose to write again, because it helps me, at least in my head, preserve a little part of college. It’s a way for me too keep a little bit of it still and not let go. Because, as was said in the hands-down greatest film of all time, I’ll never let go! Never! Once a week here in Boston I get to again do something I did in woo! College! It’s nice to at least pretend I’m a part of it again.
Some of the ’08s will attest to this, but there’s no way to convey to you the massive amounts of time, conversations, and man-hours that were expended in talking about Homecoming, convincing people to come to Homecoming, planning what we were doing for Homecoming and so on and so forth. I mean, some people came in all the way from Arizona, from Iowa, and even from Wyoming. All for one weekend to do what we used to do. To relive college, to do the CTB-Rulloff’s-Palms migration, if that was your bag. Heck, I even made it a point to arrive one day early, on Thursday, for the best deal ever, which is the $3 Long Islands at Dunbar’s, though I never made quite made it all the way there. But just to see everyone again was tremendous. Homecoming was a great time. At least, I’m told that I had a great time. It took me a couple of days to even get my voice back. Which, in law school, isn’t the best thing.
What I do remember about that weekend, however, is answering the same question over and over again. I now go to law school at Boston University. So naturally, everyone wanted to know whether, come Thanksgiving weekend, I would go to the game at Madison Square Garden, and, if so, in which section I would sit.
I am also told that this is when I started wrestling people, and almost got kicked out of the bar.
But, when the dust settled, there was, and has always been, one rational answer.
Of course I’m rooting for Cornell. It’s the undergrad, the college, the alma mater. It’s what you always go for. Don’t get me wrong, B.U. is great and I love law school, but it ain’t college. Not even close. I mean, my editor at the B.U. paper is thisclose to Andy Bernarding me and imposing a moratorium on the Cornell talk in my columns.
Think about it: Thousands upon thousands of Cornellians, in Madison Square Freakin’ Garden, all singing at the same time. And then taking over the garment district bars. There’s no question that it’s going to be an Event, capital E. Only two questions remain: where will we congregate after the bars close, a la club sidewalk, and what the heck are we going to chant? Screw B.U., B.U. Too? That doesn’t work. Screw B.U., That Means You? A little better, but not quite there. We still have, however, over a week to think about this.
So I’m going to be there with bells on. And I know that dozens of people from the Boston-D.C. corridor will be there as well. Even if you don’t have tickets, at least have to go to the area to see what happens when a thousand crazed Cornellians go out to the streets to celebrate this, our alma mater. Hail to thee.
Carlos Maycotte ’07 is a first-year law student at Boston University School of Law. He can be contacted at cam98@cornell.edu. Alumni Viewpoint appears periodically.