Friday, 14 September 2001
Where’s the Beef?
Joey becomes a grill-seeker after Kimball cuts on weekend brunch.

Friday, 21 September 2001
The Campus Reconnected
Joey celebrates the real benefit of construction's end.

Friday, 28 September 2001
God’s on Our Side
Joey explains why the Cross is a safe bet against Yale this weekend.

Friday, 5 October 2001
The Good Old Days
Joey waxes nostalgic, pining for the halcyon days of 2000.

Friday, 19 October 2001
Holy Cross: Gotta Love It
Joey reveals his love-hate relationship with Holy Cross.

Friday, 26 October 2001
Making Up the Grade
Joey investigates the History Dept.'s weird grading scale.

Friday, 2 November 2001
The Suite Life
Joey blames his laziness and other faults on environment.

Friday, 7 December 2001
Where the Heart Is
Joey will yearn for home especially hard this month.

Friday, 25 January 2002
Chill on the Hill
Joey is not the only one surprised when winter comes to Woo.

Friday, 1 March 2002
Living Dangerously
Joey reflects on the fragility of life while riding Red Cab.

Friday, 12 April 2002
The Naked Campus
Joey is frightened by the re-emergence of the female form this spring.

Friday, 19 April 2002
The Man, the Legend
Joey tells his life story, as if you cared.

Friday, 26 April 2002
Passing On
Joey says goodbye to Holy Cross campus life forever.

"I just think of the images I've seen on TV," said infrequent flyer Joey Brocklesby '03, "and now that it's Friday and I'm going on vacation, I'm scared. I mean, what if I never make it there? Now it's like I'm taking a chance. Like I might end up in the side of a building somewhere, just one more statistic in the flaming wreckage."

I didn't have any comforting words or assuaging clarifications for Joey, because this time he actually had a point. I know that my yearly trip to the Southwest will have a bit more apprehension than usual. All of us who are flying will eye our fellow passengers with a bit of suspicion, and thank God just a bit more after every successful landing. I told Joey that his nervousness was, unfortunately, quite normal. Air travel just won't be the same anymore.

"Who said a thing about airplanes?" he asked. "I'm taking a taxi to the bus station. It's those Red Cab drivers that I'm worried about!"

As you engage in Drunken Debauchery 2002, thirsty reader, ponder this disturbing fact: Red Cab is not the only entity in Worcester that is trying to kill us students. No! There is indeed a more sinister force at work in dear, beloved Woo -- and it doesn't even wear blue uniforms, like some evil forces around here which will remain nameless. The most dastardly force in all of Central Mass. is -- say it with me -- the Holy Cross administration, the leading and most pernicious agent in the ongoing conspiracy against Holy Cross students.

Ask yourself, persecuted reader, what your $100 room deposit supports. RAs who bust your extravagant and elegant receptions, shutting down a whole evening's fun for the sake of some ridiculous underage drinking law? Convenient parking spaces in front of Stein Hall which you are explicitly prohibited from using? That convenient connection between the upper and lower campuses, Smith Hall (hereinafter, the "Hall of Wizness"), which "conveniently" locks its doors on some evenings?

And these are just the ways in which the Administration aims to make student life difficult. They're outright malicious in some of their other initiatives. Consider, for example:

1. Kimball Mexican Food. As far as the school's inexplicable desire to kill its students goes, this is Exhibit A. We could go on forever about the sheer lethality of this so-called foodstuff, but because there may be children reading this newspaper, we will not elaborate further on this subject.

2. Dorm Door Handles. Perhaps there is no more annoying, no more frequent reminder to students of the Administration's true hatred of them than the "handles" on the doors of dorms from Mulledy to Carlin. What student has not struggled against these absurdly small pieces of curved metal? Attempting to open a dorm door while carrying a package is a monumental task that can result in severe injury to fingers.

It would be one thing if the entire campus were infested with these things. But it's only the dorms that have them. President McFarland and his cadre of padres aren't forced to strain their fingers every time they open the door. It is only us Hill-dwelling students who risk injury on the porch of Lehy or the bridge of Alumni.

Where is it written that the dorms cannot have proper door handles? Why was this rule enacted? How many students have been permanently maimed by these user-unfriendly strips of metal? This is truly one of the deadlier mysteries of Holy Cross.

3. O'Kane Elevator. The Administration's blatant disregard for student safety does not end at inducing manual stress; no, they go for the whole enchilada when it comes to the elevators on campus, notably the O'Kane lift. All of the campus elevators run at speeds that would make any self-respecting tortoise cry -- even the one on the new Hall of Wizness -- causing much wailing and gnashing of teeth among Religious Studies majors who arrive late to their 4th-floor seminar rooms.

Presumably the elevators were purposely made slow to encourage us Crusaders to complement our daily routine of hiking up and down the Hill by also hiking up and down the sagging staircases of Fenwick. If this is the case, then the Administration has vastly underestimated the laziness of the students that this school attracts. In reality, the mind-boggling sloth of the elevators only serves to make everybody wait longer, both in and out of the compartment.

Yet even among the inefficient elevators at this school, the O'Kane elevator takes the cake for sheer noxiousness. As of this writing it is more than a month overdue for inspection (according to the "30-day temporary certificate" posted in the car), turning each ride into a macabre game of Russian roulette in which the student-rider lacks the warm, safe feeling of knowing that his vertical conveyance was validated by the great Commonwealth of Massachusetts. Students of O'Kane and Fenwick, you take your lives into your own hands. Attend class at your own risk!

"Perhaps there's one thing good about the questionable safety of the elevator," opined Joey when asked about his experiences in O'Kane. "As a survivor of that thing, I guess now I feel a little better about taking a ride on a plane."

This article appeared in the 1 March 2002 edition of The Crusader, on pages 11 (front page of Features section) and 13. For reasons known only to Alicia Starkey, the editors changed the headline to "Bustin' Ballways at Holy Cross," with the more topical inside head of "Elevator Evils in O'Kane."