Sayonara Students
Townies Briefly Reclaim Boone Before Tourist Onslaught

By Jeff Eason

As I stand here today, looking out at the capped and gowned class of 2005, I can only smile and feel grateful that in a matter of days all of you Appalachian State students will have moved on to plague other places. Hard as it may be for you to imagine, Boone will survive without you for a little while. We—and by we, I mean us townies who live here year-round—will have to make do without your death-defying feats of careless driving while you talk on your cell phones. We will manage to stay interested in life without the benefit of your endless narcissistic discussions about your latest piercings and tattoos. And we will get through the day without hearing you say the word “like” seven times every sentence.

It will be hard. We’ll have to make some sacrifices. But to paraphrase the immortal words of disco diva Gloria Gaynor, “we will survive.”

Obviously the beer sellers and tanning bed operators of Boone will take a hit at the cash register while the esteemed scholars of ASU take a well-deserved break from their studies. The merchants of tongue studs and fifty-dollar flip-flops will just have to tighten their belts until the fall semester rolls around.

In return for these sacrifices, we citizens of Boone will enjoy the privilege of making the three-mile round-trip trek to our public library in less than two hours. And there might even be a parking space waiting for us when we get there!

We will be able to buy our groceries without waiting in line behind a student searching for his debit card to make a three dollar purchase (It’s called cash and I shouldn’t be made to feel like an old geezer for explaining the concept to you).

And we will be able to eat in local restaurants without continually hearing one-half of an overly loud and insipid cell phone conversation.

I know, I know. Right about now you’re probably thinking, “That’s, like, harsh, dude. Why is this guy so down on ASU students?”

I’m not, really. The truth is there are plenty of Appalachian students who are conscientious enough to make their home-away-from-home a better place. This spring semester I witnessed a group of ASU students in the Teaching Fellows Program work with OASIS to teach local elementary kids about personal safety. I saw ACT (Appalachian and the Community Together) in action as the organization sent teams of college kids to help area non-profits during I Have A Dream Week. I saw women from the university stage a most stirring production of The Vagina Monologues to raise money for the local women’s shelter.

When my grandmother was in hospice care, a group of students from ASU’s Order of the Black and Gold came to her house and sang gospel music to her because she was too sick to attend church. No version of “Amazing Grace” will ever sound as sweet to me as the one by those students who sang for her that day.

But sometimes I get the feeling that for every one student who works to make Boone a better place, there are two more who just don’t care. They consider college some sort of four-year summer camp with kegs of beer and no proper adult supervision.

Here’s the thing. Just like your parents and your teachers and the Army recruiters on TV, I want you to be all you can be.

Get involved. Last fall, organizers and volunteers from the local Democratic and Republican headquarters practically had to beg ASU students to vote in one of the most important elections in our country’s history.

Stand for something. Despite what you may have heard, there is still a war going on in Iraq. You, as college students, owe it to the men and women of the US armed forces (many of them your age) to stand up on campus and be heard on whether you support or oppose the war. It’s one thing to talk about it in political science class. It’s quite another thing to send care packages to our troops or to write to your representatives in Washington to express your feelings on the subject.

Speak out. Here at The Mountain Times we get about a half dozen letters to the editor each week. Regular letter writers include Charlotte Garrison, Craig Dudley, Ernest Eppley and John Paul Brown. Although I may not always agree with what they have to say, I never doubt the sincerity of their convictions or that they are writing with concern about our community, our country and our future. And I know for a fact that at least three of them are at least 50 years of age. That they should care more about the future than ASU students less than half their age is a dispiriting sign of the times.

So compose a letter to the editor, even if it is only to complain about this week’s Sweet Tea with Lemon column.

In conclusion, I know that for many of you, Boone will only be your home for four years. If you do something to leave Boone a better place than when you arrived, believe me when I say that you will have the undying gratitude of all us townies.

Now have a great summer.