A Journal of Humor and Verbal Anarchy

 

bye bye

Every chance Ezra gets now, since the weather's improving, he works on his sign. It's coming along beautifully, shaping up to be a first rate, a truly remarkable sign. In a week or two, he'll drag it out to 79 East or 96 South and test it out roadside. The thing is so big , whenever Ezra takes it anywhere, he looks like, well , you know, JC, dragging his cross up to Calvary.

Ezra's sign measures six feet tall, six feet wide and is painted with big red letters. When mounted, the Ithaca side reads -

GOOD BYE STUDENTS!

. The side visible for a few seconds in rearview mirrors reads -

GOOD RIDDANCE

.

Does Ezra echo the sentiments of most Ithacans? He hopes not.

Ezra would like to feel that his contempt for THE STUDENTS is more original, more deeply felt, more profound. Sure, many Ithacans hate THE STUDENTS because they're rude, noisy, obnoxious. They party constantly, play their stereos loud, trash their apartments; haven't learned to drive stick shift or automatic, or park parallel or even head in yet. Certainly they don't know how to clean up after themselves. You know, the usual stuff. Generational friction combined with their sense of being transients and our sense that this is our home translates into CONFLICT.

Ezra hates THE STUDENTS because they think they're junior Masters of the Universe.

They get that from their parents. At that age, their parents were convinced that THEY too were junior Masters of the Universe . Many of them attended Cornell or places like Sarah Lawrence. In most cases, the parents graduated with a degree in social and intellectual superiority; went on to fill slots at Enron, or at the head of bustling factories along the New Jersey Thruway producing garbage bag ties.

Cornell is a kind of factory itself, cranking out young Masters of the Universe, SOCIALLY USEFUL PEOPLE, folks with a destiny in the business or scientific cosmos. CU imbues its students with this sense of destiny, an awareness of one's place in the scheme of things. In short, it teaches them to look down on other people.

Literally and figuratively.

Now, you may have noticed that Ezra has allowed IC to wriggle off the hook of condemnation. Ithaca College seems to Ezra to be a more down to earth school; the cloud cover doesn't quite obscure the peaks . Anyway, students at IC occasionally do learn useful things. They don't dally for four years studying Sanskrit Punctuation or translating Sumerian grocery lists. It's true. Cornell is a Research University and IC is simply another diploma mill. If you study about diseases like gingivitis in iguanas, you might think that you're a Master of the Universe.

Cornell, Ezra is told, used to indoctrinate students not to fraternize with the natives. Everything was provided for them on campus or in Collegetown, so students didn't have to descend to the lower depths except for an occasional meal out. For decades, Cornell was a self-sustained and self-sustaining universe. The manor house up on the hill. We're talking plantation system now. Old massa. Cotton fields down below. Sorry. Miss Scarlett, you' brakes ain't ready yet. Well, Mista' Butler, suh, wold yuh like a coke wi' dat.

You get the picture. Now, Cornell trains its students how to takeover Ithaca. How to threaten small businesses using the right of eminent domain so Cornell can build hotels and office complexes downtown. How to set up a lot of tables on the Commons to demonstrate how caring, how socially and environmentally conscious Cornell students really are. How they just care so much about the community. Or how to infiltrate Common Council so THEY, the students, get to decide whether or not Plain Street needs a new traffic light. Maybe Ithacans will conclude that they preferred the old, aloof and disdaining, Cornell instead. Stay up on the f---king hill, will you? Just let the cash trickle down.

Ezra's actually met a few Cornell students that he likes. A few, mind you. He just can't stand the scene itself. Ezra drives a mile out of his way to avoid Cornell. He can't remember the last time he was on campus. Maybe before they built Sage Chapel. He's not sure. Maybe old Ezra Cornell was still strutting around, who knows?

He doesn't think that most Ithacans are all that honest about how they feel about Cornell. All smiles when they take the credit cards, then it's all nasty faces behind THE STUDENTS backs.

Ezra wants to be more up front, in their faces, confrontational, down and dirty. That's why he's going to drag his sign up to Rt. 79 one of these fine days Before all THE STUDENTS leave town.
Comments invited at: ezrakidder@gmail.com - Peace, Ezra at 5:44 AM