vacation, all i ever wanted

I've been on vacation for the last week and a half or so, and I haven't had access to a computer on any sort of regular basis for some time. This particular post comes from the business center at the Hampton Inn, College Station. My beloved Aggieland, Texas.

It's great to be back here. The last time I was down here was almost four years ago, for a football game sometime in the fall of 2001.

This town has changed. And I'm not sure it's for the better.

Anyone who went to college here at the turn of the millenium certainly had to have been familiar with the Thursday night dominoes tourney at the Dixie Chicken, that most loved bastion of redneck college hangouts. I spent many an evening playing darts there. It was the greatest of the "come as you are" genre of Texas college life. A t-shirt and jeans type of place.

I had hoped that nothing had changed, but I was disappointed. I went in there a couple of hours ago and the kids were all dressed up, the guys in their frat-daddy polo shirts and the girls in whatever they currently think the guys are looking for, i.e., not much left to the imagination. The food and drinks have gotten more expensive. Worst of all, not a single group was playing dominoes. Or shooting pool. Or throwing darts. What's happened to my old hangout?

I asked the owner of the place, who still works as bartender every day, what was going on. He opined that ever since Bonfire stopped, and admissions standards made getting into this school the province of rich white kids only thanks to the Texas Legislature's stupid top 10% rule, that the simpler aspects of college life have given way to a more yuppie-ish student population. In other words, the place is turning into SMU.

The signs aren't just around the University though. All around town there are brand new shopping centers and new glass encrusted towers. It's beginning to look like North Dallas in a town that houses Texas' leading agricultural and engineering college. This school used to be for farmboys, and fraternity membership was frowned upon. Now I see more BMWs than pickups.

These kids don't know what they're missing.