Now we can get all the official doomsaying underway since the Mayans were right in predicting how the world will end…through more, continuous coverage of how angry Whiteys in Iowa and New Hampshire are; two states that don’t mean crap in the bigger picture.
This month’s header picture was taken from my recent vacation. It’s McCormick Hall. For many Marquette freshman like myself, it was my first home away from home. Based upon the cylindrical shape (and the terrible smell of puke over the weekends), the building was nicknamed the beer can.
McCormick used to be a males-only dorm until the Nineties. Some crazy person then decided to make it a co-ed building and change the females-only building O’Donnell to males. Looking back, I can see the administration making the safety argument but after seeing how much Marquette has gentrified the surrounding area, it’s a harder sell.
Anyway, I had some pretty good times in that dorm despite…
- Community bathrooms. One Friday evening, someone left a deuce in the shower.
- The rooms were horribly small for two people to share. I think I’ve seen bigger prison cells; on TV/in movies because I’ve never done a stretch in the pen.
- Bunk beds.
- A visitation policy which treated us as if we were children. If it was intended to prevent unplanned pregnancies, the policy was a huge failure since dozens of babies were conceived there and may have McCormick as their middle name!
- It was across the street from the Ardmore Bar (now some Irish pub). This was only an issue when drunken upper-classmen would shout at our building. They enjoyed taunting us freshmen for being the first group to get screwed over the law being changed.
Contrary to the more finicky eaters, I had few issues with the food. I did learn it’s pretty hard to prepare stuff in bulk and make it taste fantastic.
While I was taking this photo, I quickly remembered how much we freshmen reveled in throwing stuff (often bottles) out of our windows from the 10th floor and watching the impacts. I’m sure we would be doing this without David Letterman as inspiration.