Tomorrow begins the shitshow that is alumni weekend at
Providence College. Yes, the alumni
weekend. Legends return to their own
stomping grounds, months older and probably not yet wiser. Poor decisions will be made, cheap beers will
be consumed, old flames may reignite, and depression at the realization that
you are no longer in college will ensue.
This is the time where new alum will come back to campus to see how much
they have been missed by the juniors, sophomores and freshmen who are now
seniors, juniors and sophomores.
Normally, it is an ego thing for these new alum and they are not missed
all that much. I went through a similar
thing when I visited East Providence High one day when I was home for Christmas
break. In my mind, there was no way my
old high school could function without me being there. Chaos would be rampant in gym class, pandemonium
in the hallways, people getting mugged in the parking lot, all because I
graduated and wasn’t around anymore. It
was a hard pill to swallow, but I realized that places that you leave can still
survive without you, which brings me to returning to Providence College tomorrow. The real question concerning alumni weekend
is what can we expect? Well, let me tell
you.
The Old Watering Holes:
Bars kind of played a big role to PC students during our 4 years. There have been numerous changes to the bar
scene, mostly downgrades, which people coming back to Friartown need to be
aware of. First of all, McFadden’s is
gone. Looks like all those VIP Thursday
nights finally caught up to them. Sad to
see this place go as it was easily the classiest establishment that us Friars
frequented during our senior year. Next
change was the closing of 412. This one
hurt, but more so over the fact that their 5-Cheese pizza was fantastic. Seriously, even all those kids from New York
who would consistently complain about pizza in Rhode Island (I mean you Sean
Mottola) saying “This pizza sucks. It’s nothing
like New York Pizza” had to admit that 412 pizza was good. As for a bar, it was way too small, but it
was always nice to stumble into after Olds closed for the night.
The last, and most drastic, change that was made to the PC
bar scene was the blasphemy that was Clubbies, dear, sweet, lovely Clubbies,
changing owners and being rechristened to “Ava’s Wrath”. What?
1. Who the hell is Ava? 2. What
is her wrath all about? 3. Where does
she get off changing the name of an institution, no, a historic landmark like
Clubbies into Ava’s Wrath? It’s nonsense. I feel like if I had to tell people after Civ
on a Friday afternoon that I was going to Ava’s Wrath that night I would have
to kick my own ass. It doesn’t feel
right. When I think about PC bars I
think about 3 things: Awful beer, waiting for Eddie Money’s ‘Take Me Home
Tonight’ to play, and awful beer. Wrath
was never on my mind. This is a bad
decision on Ava’s part, and she should be worried about some drunk degenerate
alumnae who will take this information personally and cause property
damage. Besides that, I’m sure Old’s
still smells terribly, and other PC bars are just the same.
Campus: Class of
2012, we got boned. We had to deal with
goddamn PC Perk and its mediocre panini’s and poor excuses of Starbucks coffee for
the good majority of our 4 years as students.
We leave and all of a sudden Dunkin’ Donuts replaces PC Perk? Are you kidding me? I’m sure that all current students are thanking
Lady Luck for that change up. I am a
firm believer that the class of 2012 should all be given $25 gift cards to
Dunkin’ Donuts and/or Friar Lax Pinnies as a “thanks for putting up with that
PC Perk shit”. In addition to the change
to DD, I’m looking forward to seeing how crowded campus will look with that new
Civ building that is still under construction.
Did anyone else feel like that was a weird spot? Yeah, I thought so too. Besides that, I’m sure campus will look just
about the same, with a lot of bricks, dirty snow, and a nice touch of crushed Keystone
cans which is always a prominent feature in Friartown.
Can We Still Hang?: I’d
like to think that a lot of you are in the same boat as I am when it comes to
drinking capabilities in a post-PC life: we suck. I believe that upon entering school, St. Thomas
Aquinas gave us drinking powers that somehow made us survive our four years,
drinking the way that we did. The class
of 2012, at least, was made up of mostly degenerates who would be considered
alcoholics in any other setting. Along
these lines, on graduation day, Fr. Shanley took our drinking capabilities away
when we shook his hand up on stage while grabbing our diploma. This explains the all of a sudden harsh hangovers
and earlier pass-outs a mere few weeks after graduating. Although times have changed and some of us
can no longer go out on Tuesday nights to Whiskey’s just because we don’t have
to wake up before 11 a.m. anymore, I believe that this weekend will be a chance
for us real world people to redeem ourselves and drink like we were living in
McDermott, Guzman, McVinney and Ray (I’m still not counting you Dorr and
Fennel). I believe we can, in fact,
still hang and drink past parietals no problem, and still make the bad
decisions and foggy memories that made PC so much fun to being with. After all, we’re back in Friartown, what can
go wrong?
Last year during alumni weekend, my house on Pembroke hosted
a few alum from the early 90’s. Stuff
got real weird and before we knew it two guys named Primo and Casey stole a keg
from our neighbors while they were partying in their living room. Still trying to figure out how that went
down, but it did. Anyways, this weekend
gives us a chance to reunite and do stupid shit like this which we cannot
always do, or get away with, in the real world.
This is why I believe this weekend will be a blast. This being said, for anyone reading this, it’ll
be a pleasure to meet again. If you see
me at some bar on campus/off campus/anywhere, mention to be that you saw this
blog and that you would like to buy me a drink.
I’d gladly oblige.
Let’s get weird. Let’s
party like its 2012.
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