When I was at Vandy for Rites, Kyle introduced me to a funny newspaper.  Some of the articles are from there, some are from the regular Vandy newspaper, The Hustler.  For whatever reason, I liked this set.  I guess I'm getting all sentimental and crap now that I am mad that I'm not graduating in a month!  The first one is just funny, the other two I like a lot.  As many of you who are reading this know, I have now gone to Vandy a lucky 13 times.  This means that I have enjoyed many a Vandy newspaper while sitting in Rand waiting for people to talk to.  (Some argue that this makes me an honorary Vandy student, although the Vandy card office people disagree with us!)  The last one on this page is written by a guy that always makes me laugh and so I thought I'd share the last column.  Of course you haven't enjoyed the previous ones, but you'll just have to suck it up and deal. :)

Without further ado..

Ask A Vandy Dining Manager...

Q: Why are my goddamn "Tuna Sandwiches" so expensive?
Gladu: Simple, my dear sheltered Vanderbilt student; the reason is Vanderbilt Dining’s high regard for quality. How many other campuses have you eaten at? None, I’m sure. You can't get beer-fed, hand-massaged, farmbred tuna for your sandwich everywhere. Sure it is not easy to charter a plane to fly each tuna from Ireland fresh everyday, but the difference is quality. We only want our customers to have the best. Remember, we only operate 1% above costs.

Q: Do you know we are college kids with budgets?
Gladu: Nonsense! I know each one of you meddling kids…I mean wonderful students…have multi-million dollar trust funds. How else do you think we can get away with charging prices that make Disneyworld look inexpensive? What the hell are you? An HOD major? Remember, we only operate 1% above costs.

Q: This question concerns the Varsity Markets. Why are the candies so expensive?
Spiros: Good question! The Varsity Markets at Vanderbilt are dedicated to giving our customers the best products available at affordable prices. Our candy prices are reasonable considering the cost. For example, gummy bears are on the endangered species list; therefore we have to pay expensive poachers. Years of excessive hunting have decimated their numbers. Also, we are destroying their natural habitat - the sugar dome - and turning it into a mall. We want our customers to have the absolute best possible products. If it means violating the terms of international treaties then so be it! Remember, we only operate 1% above costs.

Q: From where did those gloriously creative product names come from?
Shawn: Actually it is more of a think-tank of highly paid persons with marketing degrees who came up with the product names. Each of the 5 people in the think-tank is paid a nice salary (6 figures), drives a modest company car (Mercedes CL600) and works long hours (20hours/week). We also pay our employees a small royalty for each item that sells carrying a name they developed. Our staff is highly trained and has come up with great names (H2GO, Varsity Markets and Rocket Subs just to name a few). Keep a look out for our new product “Ripoff2Go." Remember we only operate 1% above costs.

- by Brad Ploeger
April 18, 2001

Time to find a new home 
Published April 23, 2001 
Clark Calhoun 
columnist 
"There are things in a life that matter," Kevin Arnold tells us at the end of a really good Wonder Years episode. Now, certainly, my biggest fans will recognize that I've used this quote twice before. But I still think there's some mileage to be had - some kernel of wisdom we can glean - from the little guy's monologue. What Kevin's talking about specifically, of course, is Winnie Cooper, but I think we can extrapolate plenty more from him. 

Even in the sixth grade, Kevin knew something about penpointing those things most important to us - the art, Saul Bellow writes, of "circling among random facts to swoop down on the essentials." All of us worry about having an ample supply of those 'things that matter' when we grow up (and I use the tired phrase "when we grow up" on purpose - we are still little boys and girls, and we act that way most of the time). 

So, as we age we want and need to find somebody to love who loves us back. We need to have somebody that we can list as family, whether we're related to them or not. We need work that rewards us with a decent paycheck and the sense that we're doing something serious for our own good and possibly even someone else's.

But these aren't our worries, for the most part: we're fortunate kids from a pretty damn fortunate generation, and we know that most of the basics will fall into place.

But there's another pressing concern that's bugging me more and more as I push toward graduation. This summer will be the last I spend at home, and thereafter I'll be shoved into the world to get a job and create a home of my own. But how can I do this, when my very notion of "home" is tied up in the people and things at my parents' house?

Now I know that I won't be speaking directly to the situation that many of you are in: plenty of people have moved so many times that their notions of home aren't so tied up in "place," and plenty of people have parents who move to some mountain hideaway right when the last kid heads off to college. But I'm fairly certain that "home" is a universal-enough theme to address in this little column.

Home as I currently know it is Stone Mountain, Georgia, part of that chain of Atlanta suburbs so indistinct that you never know when you've left one and gone into another. Almost three years ago I left there, aching to take leave from those avenues and people that were (I thought) making life a lot harder for me than it should have been. And now, three years later, I'm here writing this earnest piece about how important it is to have a "home" - that one place that's as much a part of me as the bad hairstyle I've had my entire life - to return to when one phase of your life ends and you're not quite sure what's next on deck.

In a way, then, I feel bad for those who don't go away for college (a rite of passage, by the way, that is almost exclusive to upper-crust Americans. Our lot, as it turns out, is a pretty dandy one). I feel bad for them because (for me, anyway) it's taken pretty much the full three years I've been away to begin to understand what home really means. 

Now I know - no, I take that back, for I don't "know" much of anything - rather, I realize home is that one place where I can breathe, knowing that my own peace is tied to the ebb and flow of that place I know best; where each day I pass the sidewalks and schools that have been the sites for my best days and my most wretched nights; that one place in the world that runs at the same speed that I do, not too fast like it does in New York or with too many jerky stops and starts like they have in California; the only place where I feel that the things and the people there need me, and would remember me fondly if I never returned.

What scares me most, then, about being done with school is navigating this difficult dilemma about making a new home. Eager to move to a new corner of America that has a fresh look and runs at a different speed, I'm still worried that I'll land in a place where the clocks have eagerly ticked their pulses of time for years and could continue to do so without me. After all, relocating to a new place and setting down roots there will determine the first thing I see every morning when I wake up, what sights will please and trouble me on a daily basis, what the air will smell like when I step outside after an unsettling argument, where I'll return after vacations and funerals and weddings - in short, where I'll do a large measure of my living and dying.

I should stop here to mention that I owe some portion of that last section to my main man Richard Ford (though which part is anybody's guess). And I should also mention that I have a point here, and it's to warn people, I think. Don't mindlessly pick your post-college vocation based solely on the highest bidder or the best "nightlife." Because it's right about now that some of the choices we make actually start to matter, for better or for worse, and finding a place you can call home seems to be a pretty critical one.

By the way: For those of you fearing from the tenor of this piece that my work here is done, don't worry. My agent is working on a deal whereby I'd write a series of "Clark from Down Under" pieces next semester from Sydney. My era of self-importance continues.