The front entrance to the Reitz Union swims in your vision as heat waves radiate off the light gray moonscape. “What better treat for a sweltering afternoon than an extra large frozen yogurt?” you think to yourself. What better time than now? Who more deserving than you, out of breath and minutes from heatstroke? A tepid bead of sweat leaves your scalp and wanders down your forehead. It nearly freezes solid when you break the airtight seal on the union doors and are blasted with chilled air. The delicate scent of Wendy’s fries begs you to keep walking, but you marshal your thoughts and step into the elevator. It gently pings and sends you downward.
A waft of freshly baked Subway bread hits you square in the nose, but you’ve already fought temptation. You know what you need. But as you approach what was once a Freshens, panic strikes. You see wood paneling. Touch screen displays. A line of students stretches out of the door where the Reitz P.O.D. was once a ghost town. Your heart nearly beats out of your chest. When you look to discover what replaced your beloved but somewhat run-down froyo dispensary, the words printed in bold on the sign read:
DARTS AND LAURELS
It’s been a busy week in the news. Let’s start with what everyone is really wondering about: UF’s new graduation-ceremony procedures.
In case you haven’t yet heard or read the digital screams from your classmates posting to their Facebook feeds, UF is eliminating the individual mentions from the graduation ceremony. Instead, the degrees will be doled out in a lump sum, with every undergraduate getting their degree at the same time.
We can understand the frustration. Some of you have dreamt about that day for years. We, too, have dreamt of sitting in a black gown for several hours in the O’Connell Center sandwiched between two people we don’t know. We really don’t want to be there for the commencement address, UF President Kent Fuchs’ speech or any of the inspiring, heartwarming ceremonial parts of a graduation ceremony. What we want most is to drag our family members out to Gainesville to listen to someone dispassionately read the names of a few thousand strangers off of index cards. The moment of pure joy when they call out our name will make it all worth it. If you couldn’t tell we were being sarcastic, a dart to you.
A dart to whoever decided to change the ceremony. You upset a lot of students. To all the students whose names won’t get read, we can’t fix things for you. But we can give you this bright shiny laurel to make up for it.
It saddens us to write that renowned actor Burt Reynolds died Thursday. He was 82. He never took himself too seriously, and in his memoir said he was more interested in having a good time than challenging himself as an actor. In his long career, he held many roles, but none we appreciate more than that of Nate Scarborough in “The Longest Yard” (2005). He somehow made an Adam Sandler movie about prison football more enjoyable. That takes skill. A laurel to Reynolds for his service.
A dart to Adam Sandler for good measure.
In more uplifting news, an Indian physician, Dr. Mohamad Chisti, found a creative and affordable solution for treating pneumonia by fashioning a respirator out of shampoo bottles. Pneumonia kills about one in five children under 5 in developing countries, but in Chisti’s hospital where the respirator has been deployed, infant deaths from pneumonia have dropped by 75 percent. There are not enough laurels in the world for Chisti and his lifesaving work.
Finally and most importantly, Tim Tebow, Gainesville’s most beloved man, was in town Thursday to pack boxes with food for a Food4Kids charity event. He doesn’t seem to ever stop doing heartwarming things, does he? We saved one last laurel just for him.
