We're Sportsmen Through and Through

One of the downsides to living in a college town, and especially living close to the bars, is the drunks. The weekend typically begins on Wednesday night, and the bars close at 3; the least of it is the noise as people stagger back to their apartments or dorms, sometimes laughing uproariously, sometimes screaming abuse at each other. But the true surprises come on the morning after. For example:

I took this picture half a block from my apartment on a Sunday morning. You'll see that not only did the celebrants try to pull the bike rack and the bikes fastened to it onto the sidewalk (if not the street), they ripped up a shrub or two by the roots. Just good clean fun. It's why I bring my bicycle indoors at night on the weekends.

Then, this morning, I saw this.

It's not the first time that these air conditioning units have been pulled off their bases; it's almost routine. Once two adjacent ones were moved. I'm not sure, but I think I might have been awakened by the noise made by the vandals last night. I should be more alert; maybe I could have gotten a picture of them in the act.

Some people my age might blame this sort of thing on the decline of corporal punishment or the removal of state-sanctioned prayer from public schools. That's nonsense. College students have always been destructive in their cups. For example: when he was in college, a friend of the (future) reformer Martin Luther was killed in a student brawl. Ah, the Age of Faith! They don't make students like that any more.

WEEKEND UPDATE: When I got home from work on Friday afternoon, the air conditioning unit had been set back up on its base. When I woke up Saturday morning, the old IU Spirit had been at work again.