Imagine it’s a Saturday and the spring semester is coming to a close. The flowers are in full bloom, as are the college parties, and finals are just around the corner. Everyone’s either outside enjoying the beautiful weather, cramming for exams, sobbing about their impending doom, or doing their best to pretend all of life is just a dream.
Rewind to mere two weekends back to Spring Weekend at Wheaton College, when we weren’t so stressed out about things. For the main event, we had Baauer come and DJ for us. Lights scrolled across the floor while the mass of people in the center jammed to the bass. Couples kissed, friends jumped up and down next to each other trying to guess what songs would be played, and strangers scorned each other’s unappealing dance moves.
A table off to the side held stacks of cheese and pepperoni pizzas, and another supported gallons of water in Gatorade coolers. A surprising remix of Pink Floyd’s “Another Brick In The Wall” blasted from the speakers. The guys on stage threw handfuls of glow necklaces into the pulsing crowd, which were snatched up instantly. Giant beach balls were kept in the air by hundreds of eager hands.
On my way back to the dorm with my roommate, we saw a drunk couple narrowly miss walking head-on into a tree. People also had seemed to forget how cold it was out, and were wearing t-shirts and shorts with no coats. A group of three girls in heels stood ominously close to the edge of the pond, while one peered into its polluted depths. Thankfully, one of the girls was sober enough to pull the peering one away from the edge, and back to their dorm. My roommate and I laughed nervously and moved along.
The events had started Friday on the main quad. There were food trucks with grilled cheese, tacos and Chinese food. A reggae band was jamming in a large indent in the field that we call The Dimple. The school had rented teacup rides and a swing ride so we could relive our childhoods, and students threw darts at a board covered with paint-filled balloons. It was like stepping back to a summer in which we begged our parents to buy us cotton candy.
On Saturday, I watched as a stand selling fresh-squeezed lemonade opened, and as soon as they did, an instant line sprung up. It wasn’t even that hot out because of the wind, but the lemonade was the perfect refresher. Students kicked off their shoes and knocked against each other in a giraffe-shaped bouncy house. At one point, the giraffe became flaccid and we felt bad for it.
For about two hours during all of this was the pond regatta. Student-run clubs and houses crafted their own boats for the event in which they would row, paddle or swim their way to the center of the pond, around a buoy, and back. The most notable crafts were a bathtub with floatation cubes on either side; a raft made entirely from water bottles and tape; and an air mattress. The paddles were also diverse. I saw metal shovels, brooms, a giant bamboo pole, traditional canoe paddles and bare hands. One poor soul had to drag his craft across swimming because it would not stay upright. At the end of the race, President Hanno—such a brave man—stood on a log raft and allowed himself to be rowed around the pond. He wore dress pants and waved a Wheaton flag in his hand. I’m sure that was the one of the best parts of the weekend.
