Volume 1 number 10, October 1999 Go Ahead—Be Punks Two things sparked my interest in last month’s paper. The first is that our esteemed publisher printed 500 copies. That seemed like a lot to me but Deirdre has informed me that she normally prints fifty copies more. The decrease is due to the Whole Earth closing [also due to summer’s end and the resulting dearth of tourists—Ed.], where the paper was sold. The second thing I noticed is that the paper has always been available at the UAF Bookstore. The paper appears to be growing and has a more varied audience than I had realized. So far, I’ve been writing with the assump-tion that my friends and neighbors are the paper’s primary audience. Well, I guess that isn’t true. UAF punks are also reading the paper. I call UAF students "punks" because that’s what they are. I should know: I was once one myself. Young or old, they are still in school, selfishly focused on improving themselves and often realizing they have a lot of free time to enjoy and flaunt in front of the rest of us. How many times have you seen these people go out and blow off some steam after putting in a hard day of sitting on their butts listening to someone lecture about blah, blah, blah? I’m not using the term punk to be derogatory. One of the highest compliments I have ever received was from my good friend, Bradley Hodges, who is at least ten years younger than I and one of the most diehard punks I’ve ever met, a sort of punk for peace. He once said that I was "nothing more than an old punk." I like the idea that I can still waste precious time being selfish and possibly stirring up trouble. We had just spent a half-hour at work hot-dogging around on four-wheelers, having fun, kicking up dust and behaving, well, like a couple of punks. My own experience at UAF was somewhat less than living in a dream-like trance. The details are not important. Let it suffice that I still look forward to the day until I can’t remember anything about it. Maybe then the bitterness will leave my body forever. Perhaps some things have changed at UAF, but I seriously doubt it. I know some things haven’t changed at all, like the parking situation. It seems to me that the parking fees and fines collected are a major source of income for UAF. It must be, because the privilege of parking my car on campus took a big chunk of my income. It got so bad that I decided it was worth the risk to park illegally. If I was only caught three or four times a semester I would still be ahead of the cost of buying a decal. That was a little education the university probably didn’t count on giving me. I wouldn’t recommend this dodge tactic anymore. Security is just too efficient these days. Are you punks as fed up with the parking situation as I was? I have a solution, but it would require the cooperation of the majority. As long as you insist on having a vehicle on campus, the situation is never going to change. Why not just get rid of all your cars? Seriously, they are an expense you could do without. Sell them all and have a party. In most cases the stupid parking stickers are worth more than the vehicle they are stuck to. Without any cars, UAF can’t collect any parking fees or fines. This bold initiative would result in a lot more time for the security department—time that could be better spent fostering a sense of mutual trust between them and all of you punks. Imagine a restaurant where once the customers are seated, the waiter informs them that in addition to paying for the meal they must also pay a parking fee, and that they better pay it soon because halfway through dinner the fee is going to increase. The restaurant owners decide this is necessary because fewer people are showing up to have dinner. What they don’t realize is that the previous customers have started informing everyone else that they might be better off eating their next meal out of state. In fact, at the "restaurant" in question, if the customer doesn’t pay the parking fee, the cost of the meal doubles and you can’t have any dessert. The owners think they can get away with this ridiculous policy because people have to eat, don’t they? The only remotely rebellious act I ever officially committed while enrolled at UAF was to embezzle money from the student union. The crime was not premeditated, so this act only questionably meets any requirements to be a punk. I was elected president of the Earth Sciences Club, and the previous president suggested a big party to get the year started so the new students could meet the old ones and maybe make some friends. I was told that there was plenty of money left over from the previous year. I organized this gigantic pig roast at the Golden Eagle. (That’s right, my future home away from home. Where else would anyone have a party?) The feast occurred back when it was still fashionable to have pig roasts in Ester. My brother knew a native Samoan who was willing to show us how to cook up an oinker island-style: piled onto hot rocks and then buried in wet newspaper (banana leaves if available) to trap the steam. It was delicious; everyone had a lot of fun and the future never looked better. Shortly afterwards the student union informed me that policy dictated that all unspent club funds from the previous year were to be returned. The money we had spent, about $700, wasn’t ours anymore. The Earth Sciences Club would receive no additional funds until we repaid the debt and if we failed to do so we would get into real trouble. Talk about a balloon-popper. So much for doing all the really cool stuff we had planned. The entire year was one cheap fundraiser after another. It was everything we could do, short of extortion, to squeeze every last dime out of club members. It was not the best year for the Earth Sciences Club. I guess a real punk would have stood up to the student union and told them to buzz off. Or at least take the $700 out of the previous president’s hide. Why would a punk even want to be president of the Earth Sciences Club? So forget most of what you have read in this article. I just realized that UAF students are not punks—they’re all nerds. I should know: I was once one myself. Only a nerd would be president of anything. Perhaps I have transcended my once all-consuming youthful nerdlyness and meta-morphosed into an Old Punk. I just want to raise hell, shed responsibility, go against the establishment and beat the snot out of conservative republicans and liberal democrats (you know who I mean). Better to be an old punk than never to have been a punk at all. | ||
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