Hey freshies, it’s me, Nate. I went to school here for the past few years, but now I don’t because, well, life reasons. So it goes, tempus fugit, c’est la vie, if you catch my drift.
I lived in the old Dickinson Community housing projects then moved Downtown back before all those yuppie SUNY kids took over the barrio. My apartment was the one across from the head shops on Court Street with the windows. My roommate still lives there, you should go say hi and ask him about blue whales.
I’m writing because I have to, because that’s what Pipe Dreamers do before they move back in with their parents after graduation. Pipe Dream, you see, is a student newspaper that encourages critical thinking and long term unemployment. This is pretty much what I did here for my résumé and other reasons.
What did you guys do in high school? No actually shut up, it doesn’t matter. You’re in college now, it’s time to have the times you’ll never remember with the friends you’ll never forget, Seniors 2010-09 #noregrets.
I do, if you will allow me a serious turn, suggest drinking at college. It’s pretty much the only time Americans are allowed to have fun, what with Obamacare. Thomas and Martin’s is a reliably pleasant State Street establishment where everybody knows your name. Fraternities also offer guests punch and Keystone Lite, as well as institutionalized, University-sanctioned harassment for only a low-low annual shipping and handling fee.
Speaking of great value, I’m also told that I’ve received a top notch, prime public edumacation as a SUNY Binghamton customer, at rock bottom prices that will not be undersold! I’m told that Binghamton University’s like off-brand Cornell, which is pretty cool except tuition keeps increasing because we keep forgetting to tell Cuomo that we’re supposed to be No. 3 out-of-state cheapness for public universities in America.
I think I got my money’s worth here. I did and wrote great stuff about many of the wonderful things Binghamton University offers to participating users during the last 4.09 years that I’ve been here. I’m going to miss almost all of them and regret few of them except for maybe this column probably. I really could have done a fuck of lot worse.
As my esteemed yogic colleagues Jordan Rabinowitz and Adam Rosenbloom were fond of telling me, “Nate, you’re at the crossroads of the fork stuck in the road of your destiny as a Facebook Generation netizen trying to shoot for the moon because if not you’ll land amongst the stars.” I think they were right.
What I’m trying to say is that I came, I saw and I left. And hopefully even with a degree in the science of politics if I managed to pass summer Spanish, with 23 percent more wisdom and 125 percent more chins to show for it.
Thanks for coming in Binghamton, I hardly knew thee.
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Also, before I go, I need to thank a few more parties for coming in. Mom and Dad, your inexplicable patience and back-bending support has kept me off the breadlines for almost 22 years running. Raising me was a Sisyphean task I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy.
Maggie and Jack, you guys were obviously better siblings and children than I was, but you were both pretty nice about it and didn’t rub it in more than you had to. Bopper, you’re handsome. Grandma, you’re cute as a mouse.
Jaffe, I owe you more than anyone other than my Mom and Dad I think. I really, really couldn’t have done it without you. In fact, I almost didn’t do it even with you.
And to Pipe Dreamers past, present and future, I love pretty much all of you, with some exceptions. This is a great thing that we do here when we don’t cock it up, and I’m proud to have been a part of Binghamton’s most worthwhile tradition.
— Nate Fleming will hopefully graduate, in this economy. He was the 2011-2012 Editor-in-Chief of Pipe Dream.