Bringing The Union Back

http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20101213/NEWS01/12130316/1079

The University is working hard to bring the IMU back to it's former place at the heart of the campus and they've shown more intelligence than I thought they would have in crafting the plans:

1. A Bowling Alley: this is probably the most intelligent thing the University has done in years. It's non-alcoholic, something to do and since the nearest bowling alley is at the south end of town, it's perfectly located and will have next to no competition. Throw in a putt-putt golf course and the University might well be living up to all the promise of this edumacation thing they talk about.
   
2. A Bar: This one took me by surprise, as they've just wasted God knows how much money and paper producing yet another plan to tackle drinking culture on campus. A beer only bar would be nice- it's not all that uncommon, Wisconsin and Iowa State have bars in their Student Unions and once upon a time so did the IMU. Beer only… if it's not dirt-cheap students won't be able to afford gobs of it and keep the frosh out and you may yet have another surprisingly intelligent move on the part of the University. What's going on here?
   

It's time they put the pedal to the medal on this project though- and although it may not be all that relevant to today's students, as the article mentioned, alumni such as myself do have fond memories of the place. My favorite IMU memory: the bacon cheeseburgers from the Food Court in the basement. God, I miss those things… they were terrible. They came wrapped in the cheapest foil wrapper you can imagine and once you opened it- well, the entire burger just looked like it had been produced by a student working for minimum wage.

And yet, strangely, they were delicious. Does that make sense? Have you ever eaten something so bad that it was actually kind of good? I can't recall how many times I would go down there, get a bacon cheeseburger, the curly fries and a drink and go sit down, read a little and eat before my afternoon classes. Those damn bacon cheeseburgers were unremarkable in every sense of the word and would win no awards whatsoever. But they were delicious- and I miss them… in fact, just writing about this is making me hungry.

So hurry up and bring back the IMU!