published in The Maryville Daily Forum, March 2004

They told me about the World’s Shortest Parade my freshman year. Of course, it was my, ehm, colorful features editor on the Missourian who told me about it, so my incredulity sensors went off.

But, there it was – a flood of green water and a raft of jubilant students. There are certificates and everything. People all around the globe know about this. Seriously.

Let me say this: I don’t get parades. Don’t get ’em. There’s a lot of standing – usually in inhospitable climates – a lot of craning o’ the necks, a lot of pomp. A LOT of pomp. I went to Kansas City’s big St. Patrick’s Day parade last year in a fit of adopted nationalism, and the best view I had was of the pink-haired parade viewers with the oh-so-subtle messages pinned to their jackets.

But sometimes we have silly traditions just so we can proudly tell far-off friends about this crazy parade that shrinks by an inch every year and the cement truck of green water. Or about the vicious football battles over … a stick. Or that nostalgic time that occurs each fall when some enterprising soul tosses a box of laundry detergent in the Administration Building fountain and it explodes in spring breeze bubbles. Ah, college.

It’s a blast to go through old yearbooks and the wonderful histories of Northwest Missouri State University like Behind the Birches and Towers of the Northwest and read about how these venerated traditions began.

For instance, did you know that Walkout Day (the Friday before Homecoming) was started by two literary societies on campus? They were called – and I’m not kidding – the Eurekans and the Philomatheans. They were a highly organized bunch, as one might expect of something called the Philomatheans. They dutifully showed up for their 8 a.m. classes, when suddenly, a bugle sounded and 208 students (out of 300 enrolled, such is the power of literary societies in 1915) abruptly left. They marched past the President’s Residence, singing the school songs and shouting school yells. Unfortunately, President Ira Richardson thought the throng of students looked like an insurrection, so he let them have it. But soon he saw the humor in it all and sanctioned the rebellion.

I mean, this is a great story in many ways – take, for instance, the bugle – but the funniest part to me is where they all showed up for their 8 a.m. classes. On Walkout Day! Hilarious.

Would the founders of Walkout Day recognize today’s incarnation? Doesn’t matter, really. Traditions carry meaning only as long as we allow them to, and certain Northwest traditions show no signs of fading away. The key, I think, is to remember where traditions come from – and, by extension, where we come from.

College is always a blend of old and new, of stately and silly, of traditions and transitions. Our centennial year is around the corner – our chance to look back and look ahead at the same time. And, just like St. Patrick’s Day, it might leave us a little cross-eyed.