NC State begins a new academic year this week, so the city has endured a storm surge of unshaven, T-shirt wearing post-adolescent boys and doe-eyed, short-short wearing coeds in recent weeks. Naturally, I'm ambivalent. Traffic is getting worse (and not just volume... these teenage boys are just DUMB drivers, and I suspect the girls aren't much better). Bars will be even more full and noisy, food will be scarcer, diseases rampant, pedestrian accidents at all time highs...
The influx of students--some tens of thousands city-wide--changes the energy dynamic of the city quite profoundly. You can smell the hormones in the air--all that repressed sexual energy being released by huge crowds of horny teenagers. It motivates them. They all jump in their late-90's model Toyotas and Hondas and cruise downtown or to Glenwood, talking overly loud, in the hopes that SOMETHING will happen. There's hope and wonderment and palpable potential. If someone could harness that energy for good (and not eeevil), the world would be a different place.
All this energy comes with a tinge of saddness to someone like me. You realize quickly that all this is NOT FOR YOU. This energy that these kids are pouring out to each other... well, you are background. You're a tree. A parked car. Scenery. Stage work. Obstacle, perhaps? And in the process, they drown out the energy that may be coming to you from outside their youthful horde. They are a distraction and an attractive nuisance.
Prepare for the flood.
No comments:
Post a Comment