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Opinion
The Battalion Wednesday, Nov. 2, 1988
St
Please, don’t say the ‘H’ word
Mail Call
Complaints. They’re almost all we get
here at The Battalion and it’s pretty
much all we do, too.
A previous editor once made a form
letter for Battalion readers. All you had
to do was check the appropriate box for
your complaint. It covered quite a few of
them, too. One of the all-time great
complaints for The Battalion, and one
of my personal favorites, is what is
known as “The Howdy Letter.”
Steve
Masters
Columnist
H ead Yell Leader Steve Keathley’s
shoulder.
Aggie Band wrongly accused
I EDITOR:
So you reply, “But those are just iso
lated incidents. People can be different
and still get along — greeting people
here is a tradition because we’re all Ag
gies, not strangers. Yell leaders know
the risks when they run for the position.
Besides, his injury was just a fluke.”
In response to The Battalion editorial of Oct. 25, there are a few clarification
I wish to make.
The Howdy Letter does have a stan
dard form and usually goes something
like this: “People just don’t say ‘howdy’
anymore. Blah, blah, blah. We always
used to say ‘howdy.’ Blah, blah, blah.
Come on Ags, let’s keep up this great
tradition.”
Let’s hold the phone for a minute. Is
it that great of a tradition? Come on.
For most of us city slickers, it’s just not
comfortable even saying the word. I’ve
lived in Texas for 16 years, but I’ve
never thought of “howdy” as a greeting.
I suppose it had its place here at A&M
back when it stood for Ancient and
Moldy, but we’re now the seventh larg
est university in the nation and Texas is
no longer the rural, agrarian, pre-Civil
War society it once was.
If you listen to people who say the
“H” word, you’ll find it’s usually mu
tated into “Hahdee.” This is a linguistic
rebellion by your body. It’s kind of like
saying “Gig them.” It just doesn’t flow.
Personally, I don’t feel comfortable
mentally saying the “H” word. Howdy is
a word I’ve always associated with peo
ple who didn’t know that the proper
way to greet someone is a simple “Hi.” It
can set off any number of side effects,
like rashes or push-ups.
Now we even have the Memorial Stu
dent Center Traditions Council bribing
students to say the “H” word. You can
win dinners, T-shirts and night club
passes. And some lucky person is going
to walk away with a 12th Man towel au
tographed by none other than every
body’s hero and moral role model Jackie
Sherrill. That in itself is enough to untie
my tongue.
Why couldn’t those old Ancient &
Moldy founding fathers have thought
up another greeting? Because they were
from rural areas. And they were here a
long time ago. Maybe because they
wanted to laugh at us from the grave.
But it’s probably because they couldn’t
think of anything better.
Now you say, “Oh, but it’s not the
word. It’s the friendliness that goes
along with it.”
Yeah. We have an extremely friendly
campus. We never find ourselves di
vided between Greek and non-Greek,
Corps and non-Corps, the Chicken and
Dudclley’s, males and females. ... In
fact since January, there have been 94
new cases opened at the Brazos County
Rape Crisis Center because guys were
more than friendly with women. And
College Station and University police
were scheduled to hold a lineup to at
tempt to identify the friendly individual
who is charged with several counts in
cluding, in non-legal terms, being overly
friendly to a student in lack Creek Park.
We have an excellent example of
friendliness following football victories
— freshmen chase, tackle and carry yell
leaders to the Fish Pond, where they
throw them in. After the Tech game
they were so friendly they separated
Here we go again. I hope I’m not the
first to tell you that tradition does not
mean set in stone. If you can’t adapt to
and even possibly (gasp!) accept new
ideas, you don’t really belong in college.
And I like to think I know a lot of peo
ple, but (gasp again!) to think there’s not
a stranger among the over 39,000 stu
dents here is just a bit idealistic, even for
me. The old story about helping other
Ags with a flat tire kind of scares me
sometimes. Some Aggies I’ve met I still
wouldn’t trust if my car was broken
down beside the road.
First, the Aggie Band holds no “grudge” against the MOB.
Second, until it was brought out in your newspaper, current band members
knew virtually nothing of the incident involving the MOB and the Corps ofCadei
in 1973.
Third, the Aggie Band, contrary to your article, is a part of the A&M studem
body and also “enjoys the refreshing change the MOB adds to a half time show.'
Several members of the band, including myself, have commented that if we
were not in the Aggie Band, the MOB would be the only other Southwest
Conference band we’d consider joining. The MOB, although it is on the other ei*
of the spectrum from our band, is unique, entertaining and able to hold the
audiences’ attention throughout the halftime.
Simply put, we respect your right to express your opinion, but not yourrighti
wrongly express ours.
Allan Hess
Aggie Band commander
MOB ‘a breath of fresh air’
Personally, I really don’t want to see
the campus turn into New York City
with everyone ignoring each other as if
they were in an elevator. But with al
most 40,000 people, love and sunshine
everywhere is just not realistic.
The next time you’re walking around
campus after dark with no light in sight
and you hear what sounds like a faster
version of the Ross Volunteers march,
I’m sure the first thing that will pop into
your mind will be, “Wow. What a
friendly campus this is. I wonder if
they’ll say ‘howdy’ back. And gee, maybe
Santa will bring me that GI Joe with the
Rung Fu grip this year.”
Maybe if we quit fooling ourselves
into believing this school was just so
darn friendly, people would be more
careful. But let’s not use it as an excuse
for a stupid greeting.
Steve Masters is a senior journalism
major, senior staff writer and a colum
nist for The Battalion.
EDITOR:
If you were not at the Rice game, you missed out on probably the BEST
halftime show to come to Texas A&M in a long time.
I love the Aggie band, but after three years of military drills (with their slow
march, lines, angles and music), it was like a breath of f resh air to see the Rice banc
performing.
The happy, amusing, halftime show really made you want to sing along with
the popular tunes of the 1960s and just laugh at the comical overtones. This
talented bunch of funny people along with an excellent band coordinator need to
be congratulated on the outstanding show they put on. I have never seen the fans
clap and cheer for an outside band like that.
I still believe the Fighting Texas Aggie Band is the greatest, but in all the years
that I have played in marching bands (and I have gone to hundreds of football
games), I still believe that the Rice show was the BEST.
Lori Ann Borroni ’89
Nebr;
Texa:
1973 display embarrassing
EDITOR.
I too am one for letting go of grudges and I have begun again to see the humor
in the antics of the Rice MOB. But every account I have read of what happened in
Houston in 1973 leaves out the real reason Aggies felt insulted and outraged by
their behavior.
And the winner is
Bush!
Why did George Bush win? That’s
right, did win as in past tense.
The election is just days away, but it’s
already over, decided by a mysterious
entity known as “Conventional Wis
dom.” Conventional Wisdom is the gen
eral consensus of ideas that belong to
the political watching community (re
porters, consultants and political com
mentators). Conventional Wisdom (CW)
has been wrong many times before, but
with the quickness with which the elec
tion will be upon us and the accuracy of
modern polling techniques, the election
has been decided. Bush was the victor.
,
Timm
Doolen
Columnist
paigning, but it also says something
about the voter’s ideas of the redeeming
qualities of the candidates.
George Bush won because his mes
sage appealed more to the average
mainstream voter. He’s tough on crime,
for a strong defense and against a tax
hike. Dukakis has somewhat similar
views on these issues, but Bush has suc
cessfully convinced us otherwise.
Dukakis had a chance, months ago,
but George Bush successfully painted
Dukakis as a liberal in the mind of the
average voter. Dukakis finally admitted
that he is a liberal, and that’s something
the average voter just doesn’t want to
vote for.
Ronald Reagan has done many good
things for our country. When Ronald
Reagan came into office, we had dou
ble-digit inflation, high unemployment
and a bleak economic outlook. With a
few magic elves, like David Stockman,
Reagan helped bring our economy back
into prosperous shape. A little tighten
ing of the M-l money supply here, a cut
in the discount interest rates there, and
we were smack dab in the middle of a
recession. But when we emerged from
that recession, we were economically
stronger than we had been in years.
George Will, a respected columnist,
has said that no matter who wins, we are
electing an immediate lame-duck Presi
dent. With George Bush as the Chief
Executive, and the Democrats control
ling Congress, Will’s not too far off. CW
says that George Bush may have one of
the shortest honeymoons as president in
this century. He will not be able to con
trol Congress. In fact, Congress might
control him. And that will be a harsh
blow to the momentum of the Reagan
Revolution.
On the reviewing stand during the march-in to downtown Houston, as an
honored guest of Texas A&M, was a former student and Corps member who had
recently been released from a Vietnamese POW camp. This man, who had
[ suf fered much in the service of his country, had to be witness to a bunch of anti
military, pseudo-intellectuals, goose-stepping up and down the football field
dressed in Nazi uniforms while making noises representing the Aggie WarHyram
I The references to Reveille, or the fact that Marvin Zindler, the man who dosed the
Chicken Ranch, was a featured twirler might have been viewed as a “harmless
prank,” but those of us who were there will remember that soldier and how
I embarrassed we were for him to see his university and his country insulted by a
hosting school.
Brenda Severs
I Staff Assistant, TAMU Food Services
MOB spits in A&M’s face
Yet Bush still has four to eight years
to prove himself. I have confidence that
he will be a fine leader and a strong
president. As Bush wins the vote in
1988, the year that peace broke out, he
can continue the push towards world
peace and prosperity.
Dukakis should have realized that we
Americans are a conservative lot. Not in
the sense that George Bush or Pat Rob
ertson is conservative, but we tend to
take few chances when things are run
ning smoothly. Our country has been
running smoothly, in fact very well, over
the past eight years and we wouldn’t
mind it staying that way. Whatever small
part George Bush had in the last two ad
ministrations, we nevertheless see him
as a symbol of the Reagan Revolution.
And Bush is the man chosen to carry the
torch for the next four (or eight) years.
As it is now, unemployment and in
flation are at their lowest in more than a
decade. Trade deficits are decreasing,
however slowly, and our overall econ
omy is doing great. We average voters
realize this, that we are better off than
we were eight years ago, and we would
like to continue in that direction.
Bush has won, but unfortunately the
Constitution dictates that we must have
an election. We’ll be lucky if a majority
of the eligible voters actually vote, as few
people are genuinely interested in this
campaign. We’ve seen declining voting
rates for decades and this could be the
worst yet, but more about that at an
other time.
Reagan’s past catapulted George
Bush into the future. However, al
though Bush won, and probably by an
electoral college landslide, he didn’t
have the same mandate from the people
Reagan had when he came into office in
1980. Much of the Conventional Wis
dom is saying that George Bush swayed
many of his voters because he wasn’t
Dukakis, not because he was the over
whelming people’s choice.
The race is over, and it will probably
go down in history books in trivial man
ner. History is not kind to un-dynamic
presidents and 100 years from now,
Americans may likely remember the
next president as we now remember
James Garfield or Grover Cleveland.
So vote for whomever you want on
Tuesday, but I warn you, Bush will win.
Me? I’m voting for Ron Paul.
Despite what the Democrats claim,
This says something about the effec
tive n e s s of Bush’s negative cam-
Timm Doolen is a sophomore com
puter science major and columnist for
The Battalion.
EDITOR:
How dare you? Your Oct. 25 editorial is obviously written out of ignorance
because all the facts were not presented.
As you presented in your editorial, I suppose that you were also between the
ages of three and seven in 1973. I was 1 1. Also, I was there. At Rice Stadium, I saw
my grandfather, Class of ’36, along with other Aggies, restrained from entering
the field by yell leaders, the Corps’ of f icers of the day and police officers as the
Rice band stepped off in a mock block formation to an out-of-tune “Aggie War
Hymn,” and made their attack on Reveille III who had just died.
Are you also ignorant of the 1983 game, at Rice Stadium, in which the Aggie
Band’s halftime performance was devastated by whistles blown from the sideline
by ... . Guess who? I never will forget the look on the head drum major’s face as he
looked toward the sideline in disbelief, then slowly stopped his disarrayed
colleagues and marched them from the field.
Or, perhaps in 1980 when the Rice Band spelled out IRAN on Kyle Field. If
you recall, the United states was involved in a crisis concerning hostages in Iran.
All these times, I was there. Were you?
On Oct. 22, 1988, to the ignorance of the A&M student body, the Rice band
struck again. Only at A&M would the Rice band command the audience to say the
pledge in the same show with rubber chickens and sexist innuendos. Knowing the
reputation of the Rice band, I knew they were laughing amongst themselves as all
Aggies stood in unison to say the Pledge of Allegiance.
Your article discusses how the student body “appreciates the refreshing change
the MOB adds to a half time show, as evidenced by its reaciton following the MOB’s
performance Saturday.” Once again your ignorance shows. Some said Saturday
that they enjoyed the Rice band’s free spirit. I remind all Aggies that the Rice
band’s f reedom of expression was made possible by all Aggies who have defended j
the ideals of this country. In return, the Rice band spits in our face.
The performances of the Rice band differs dramatically between Kyle Field |
and Rice Stadium. Before making any judgements, I challenge each Aggie to
experience a Rice band performance in Rice Stadium for themselves.
Mike Rice ’84
Graduate student
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