You probably think that I am a sentimental sap. That may be true but I recently read that my old dorm complex is being torn down and I got a little sad. This is the place where I figuratively came of age. This is where I met my wife, this is where I made friends and where I learned that warm Old English 800 was terrible but it was fun anyway.
By Friday noon the planning was already underway for the Friday night party. Who’s room, who was buying and when? A typically afternoon of anticipation involved watching SportsCenter after the girls watched their soap operas or playing touch football or intramural softball with the guys. After that it was Nintendo, forties and pass the pipe (if you were into that, me only a couple of times). Saturday morning was non-existent but waking up in the early afternoon started the cycle over again. You have to do that stuff when you are young, right?
Of course that was not all of my weekends, but a lot of them. The others were with my girlfriend. It was going out to local restaurants for breakfast or going to the mall in the nearby town. When at the dorm and not partying it was study time. A lot of days and nights working on math problems or chemistry problems with her on the bed watching TV.
The cafeteria was central to all of the halls in this complex. It was brand new in 1992 the year before I attended the school. We all called it ‘Butt Food’ for a nice, adoring nickname. Even though I primarily hung out with people from my dorm, the cafeteria was a meeting place for all students that lived on campus. It was infrequent where we didn’t meet another friend that was there at the same time.
After doing some reading, it appears that the new dorm complex was occupied in 2014. Not totally forgotten, classes for certain departments were held in the abandoned dorm complex while their particular buildings were being renovated. Science, Theater and Athletics have used the space in the interim. This is where the problems with maintenance costs began to surface. ‘If we are going to keep using this in this way, we really should…’
Tearing down the dorms seems like a permanent loss. It has been over thirty years since I called it my home but the fact that they are gone makes the memories fade that much faster. Every time we were in town, we would drive by to rekindle the old, very good memories. The tossing of keys out of the window so people could get in after hours, the times we lounged on the grass in the early spring sun even the ten minute parking limit that we had to rush to beat the ticket writer.
I live in a town with a sister college to Southern Oregon University. Since I have lived here twenty years, I have seen an amazing amount of change. A new athletic complex, student medical center and education building that has been built. The old education building has become ‘Student Success Center’ last year. The Oregon Police Academy used to be here, and now the math department has moved in. The Oregon Military Academy used to be here as well. That is now the ‘Student Welcome Center’. Since the pandemic years, it seems like they have gone crazy building empty buildings with less and less on-campus students.
I can say without a doubt that there has been more change here than at SOU because I am connected to both. Both are regional schools but here, at least half of the students are commuters. The population centers are completely different with half a million locally close versus 100,000 in southern Oregon. That is to say there are many more students on campus and in town in SOU with similar enrollment sizes.
The title is an homage to Kurt Vonnegut. As soon as someone got killed for doing something stupid or something completely random kills a soldier “And So It Goes” was his response. This isn’t random nor is it stupid but it does kill my memory.
End Your Programming Routine: The advantage of getting old is wisdom. I am not opposed to them being torn down as they have been vacant for over ten years. I am sure that they did not survive the digital revolution as there was no wiring for modern data service. As a taxpayer, maintenance and upkeep for sentimental purposes is a fools errand. Ultimately, I am just sad to witness the end of my era.
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