15 September 2000
Automotive Lebensraum
JB vs. parking lot expansion.

22 September 2000
Football Returns to HC
JB vs. the Harvard Crimson.

29 September 2000
West of the Hudson
JB vs. people from 'flyover territory.'

6 October 2000
Americans Under Attack
JB vs. hurtful stereotypes.

27 October 2000
The Silverware Bandit
JB vs. law and order, Kimball-style.

3 November 2000
ITS Alive
JB vs. the college's Napster policy.

10 November 2000
Hail to the Chief
JB vs. Gore vs. Bush vs. Nader.

17 November 2000
Complaints, Complaints
JB vs. student government.

2 February 2001
The Semester Ahead
JB vs. anticipated 'senior nostalgia.'

16 February 2001
Unequal Equivalency
JB vs. Crossroads' capitalist pigs.

23 February 2001
Xcess of Xtreme
JB vs. the WWF's Vince McMahon.

2 March 2001
The Eve of Spring Break
JB vs. brainwashing cults.

30 March 2001
Losing the Lottery
JB vs. on-campus housing selection.

30 March 2001
The Greatest Rivalry Ever
JB vs. Major League Baseball.

6 April 2001
Door-to-Door Campaigning
JB vs. campus elections '01.

27 April 2001
Crunch Time
JB vs. the Soggies.

4 May 2001
Crusade for a Better Paper
MB vs. Brocklesby's evil plan.

Courageous and noble was our man Joey, the cream of the aught-three class, the honorary mayor of Loyola Dorm, the epitome of Holy Cross class and grace. Such a great man was he, that he took his tests without complaint; that he faced his aggressors without fear; that he went to his classes without doing the reading. Truly this man was the king of kings. Or the jack of clubs.

Hideous and tragic was the injustice he suffered, in quiet anonymity, on the night of Wednesday the 28th. There are those who have had their lives swept away in natural disaster -- this was worse. There are those who have passed away due to unpreventable diseases -- this was worse. There are those who have found true love and lost it -- this is much, much worse.

Joey, the ever-expectant incoming junior, was denied his hopes, his dreams, his future. They told him that he had placed too low in the lottery. They told him that they couldn't give him anything, that he'd have to settle for what he has right now.

"The omens were there the whole time," a shell-shocked sophomore told me when I interviewed him yesterday. "I don't know how I missed them. Clear signs, obvious pointers, all saying 'Joey, you're not getting anything, and that's that.' How could I have missed them, how could I have been so blind?"

What signs, I asked him.

"Well, the first one was when we got back from Spring Break -- when I first started talking to my friends about how we would enter the lottery. They had just introduced the free newspapers, you know, in the dorm entryways. That was my sign. They didn't put any newspapers in Loyola. It was like they were saying to me: 'hey, Brocklesby, you don't want to read the news anyway. You're not getting any good news this year.' I mean, how much clearer of a signal can you get?"

I had received the same signal, I told him. They hadn't put newspapers in my dorm either. "Right, so this shouldn't be a surprise to you. You've been getting the bad-news-for-Joey signal for just as long as I have."

Then came the SGA Election, bearer of a sure portent of doom. As expected, the Nader-LaDuke ticket failed to qualify for the ballot, despite the numerous campaign signs in windows around the campus. Joey, for whom Green is so much more than just a dye that he puts in his beer, saw the message immediately: "Both parties are banding together to conspire against me," he said.

His suspicions were raised even higher when Ralph was locked out of the Crossroads debate. The failure of his attempt to launch a write-in campaign for Nader, or possibly for Grandpa Munster, only cemented his opinion: it's a conspiracy.

"Last but not least," he told me, "My Spanish workbook disappeared a couple of days ago. Now that is always a bad sign. I lost my Spanish workbook last semester, too, and I finished the semester with only a C+ in the class. Obviously, the loss of the workbook leveled a hex on me that supernaturally brought down my grade. Curse the luck, of losing it again this semester."

Sure, luck, I said. Running a few numbers through my calculator, I computed that the missing book was probably the result either of dastardly college banditry (4% chance), exaggerated college pranksterism (3% chance), or drunken college disorganization (93% chance). Joey did not seem interested in my findings.

"But anyway ... did you know that the Bookstore doesn't sell textbooks anymore?" Suffice to say, another omen.

"Then came the lottery drawing," he said. "I was certain we'd win. We would come out on top and the four of us would laugh it up and rub it in everyone else's faces."

That's impossible, I told him. You're incoming juniors.

"Yes, we know that now," he said, annoyed. "But we were so young and innocent then, thinking that we'd win the lottery if we pooled together our fund and spent a good fifty dollars on it."

You didn't try to bribe Res Life, did you, Joey? I was surprised that even our hero, man of action that he is, would have come up with such an ambitious plan.

"Res Life?" he asked me.

Yes, I told him. The guys with ties who denied you your suite.

"What suite?" he asked, bewildered. "Me and Wayne-O are staying in Loyola next year. I'm talking Lottery. Can I interest you in an outdated Mass. Cash ticket?"

This article ran in the 30 March 2001 edition of The Crusader, on page 15 (fifth page of Features section), below the strange "Comments on the Passing Parade" nameplate with a truck on it.