Roseyland

Back in October, I went back to college for homecoming and my fraternities 125th anniversary. I couldn’t wait to blog about it, yet somehow I’m just now getting to it. Hmm… I considered just scrapping this post, but I knew you would want a tour of my college. It is the greatest college in the universe after all. I went to Doane College in Crete, Nebraska. Doane is a small liberal arts college with about 1000 students and Crete is a small town of about 5000 people. Doane had a great community. Everybody knew everybody and all that stuff. At Doane, I was a double math and physics major with a minor in computer science. I was also a member of the Delta Kappa Pi fraternity. Which is odd, because I’m not really the frat guy type. My fraternity was great though. It gave me this incredibly active social life that required zero effort on my part. I’m a big fan of things that provide big rewards for minimal effort. I should totally put that on my resume.

Let’s start the tour, please keep your arms in legs inside the tram at all times. This first building is the new education building (I think). This building did not exist when I in school. It looks very prestigious though, I’m impressed. Doane has a lot of education majors, and they spend their entire college careers cutting shapes out of construction paper, or so it seems.

This is a hallway in the new math and science building. This building also didn’t exist while I was at Doane. See the trophy case? In this case there are profiles of alumni with their picture and a description of their current job. They are supposed to inspire the students or something. One of the alumni profiled is me. Seriously, I’m inspiring young people. Try not to judge my college based on this, the other alumni profiled are totally cool, I’m not sure how I slipped through the selection process.

It’s my quad!!! This is where I lived my junior and senior years with these guys. Doane has “quads” which are basically 4 dorm rooms with a shared living area and bathroom. Our quad was Colonial 6, or quad 6, or the top door in the picture.

This is Main street Crete. It hasn’t change much since I was in college, or since 1950. There are a few bars on Main street and a Runza.

What’s a Runza you ask? The best fast food ever. It’s ground beef and cabbage inside a bread bun. German immigrants brought it to Nebraska, and now it’s fast food. If you are ever in Nebraska, you must try a cheese Runza. I’d give anything for a Runza in St. Louis. I used to go to the Runza on Main street nearly every Saturday for lunch. Partly because I love a cheese runza, and partly because I could never get up in time for lunch at the cafeteria.

Here is one of the campuses two ponds with the new dorm in the background. This dorm also didn’t exist when I was at Doane. Why do I keep showing you pictures of things that didn’t exist when I was in college? Well, the pond existed, and the swan. I think. How long do swans live?

This is the Cassel open air theatre. This is where graduation takes place and probably some other stuff too.

This is a picture of the homecoming football game. Most of the students and some alumni stand behind the end zone during the game.

This is a picture of what you can get at the concession stand during the game. My fraternity runs the concession stand. I avoided that duty in college. I don’t do food service. Also, notice what is for sale for $2.00 with Gatorade and Water. POP! that’s what it’s called people. “Soda” is something people in upstate New York say when they are trying to be fancy.

This is by far my favorite part of Nebraska. I love these roads. The rolling hills, they way you can see for miles and miles. Nebraska, believe it or not, is a beautiful state. I used to go for drive on these roads every weekend. Just to get away from it all and clear my head. It was like a from of meditation. I haven’t found anywhere like this near St. Louis. Driving to Augusta or Hermann is close, but it takes at least 45 minutes before you are truly away from the city.

Here is another picture. It’s pretty.

Here is a picture of a bunch of people from my fraternity in a garage. We spent a lot of time in this garage. We had blackball meetings here and other activities. Good times.

This is a picture of my fraternities 125th anniversary banquet. A weird thing happens when you graduate from college. For the first year or two, you go back a lot, and you still know lots of people and it’s almost like you never left. Then you start to go back less, and when you do go back, you realize that you don’t know anyone and that everybody looks really young, which means you look old. Then you stop going back, because nobody likes to feel old. I expected this banquet to be like that, but I was completely wrong. There were only a handful of guys back from my era, everybody else was much older. It was actually very cool, I heard stories and learned things about my fraternity that I never knew. The whole banquet was kind of surreal. There was a bunch of grown men singing old fraternity songs. If you had been there, it probably would have freaked you out.

Still here? I’m always amazed when somebody makes it to the end of one of my longer post. Here is flickr set if you want to see more pictures of Doane. It is a beautiful campus.