Wesleyan University - Olla Podrida Yearbook (Middletown, CT)

Page 17 text:

Some cultural rituals transcend class dis- tinctions. In the case of the classes of 91 and '92, such common traditions may be wit- nessed at MoCon where multitudes continue to applaud the breaking of dishes and where the cacophonous clinking of glasses still her- alds an announcement from the top of the stairs. As a sophomore sitting on the fringe of McConaughyis eating scene, I witness these customs with no small nostalgia for the days when I too participated in breakage ovations and chaotic callings to attention. It think these traditions most honorable, handed down as they are from one class to the next. They bring back happy memories for those who return, provide a creative outlet for newcomers and engender a jovial comraderie among diners. I was commenting on just this point to a friend and fellow sophomore as we sat one evening at a table under one of McCon's potted trees when a sudden surge of activity around us evoked memories for which I was unprepared. I had forgotten about Uncle Duke Day. I forgot what we were eating tcan one ever really tell?l when the gift givers of West Co arrived. Dressed in jeans and t-shirts, incon- spicuous attire, they ran a circuit of the room missing not one hungry table. Soon an old familiar smell was in the air above smoking and nonsmoking seats alike and wisps of smoke danced above a band of lcongal play- ers beating their drums near the salad bar. As my friend and i looked on, people began to pound their tables to the stirring African rhythms. Voices shot across the room, tables began to grow. Tables that normally seated ten now took on sixteen and twenty. We were two at a table for eight and soon found that nearly all the other chairs had been taken. People began sitting on our table and as a young woman whose gaze scanned the ceil- ing came to take away the only remaining chair, she stubbornly struggled to squeeze it between the potted tree and my friend, screaming, llSkinnier, skinnier! at him until she had pushed and scraped her way through. People banged their trays against their tables in a frenzy of percussionism, one behind me with such enthusiasm he had to be restrained. And there were my friend and l, taking it in and recalling a time not too long ago when we banged the tables ourselves. The public safety officers came to chat with the dolors and the tempo started to sag. The guy behind me didn't seem to notice, though. He kept right on banging until someone took his tray away, after which he continued the ac- tion in mimet Since people were now trying to take away our chairs, we decided to skip des- sert and make it an early night. Few others would do the same. Such is the tradition. a by Dan Weinstein 13