by Walker Hawkins
Our new Sunday columnist isWalker Hawkins, who’ll be joining us every other Sunday. He’s responsible for the following:
Dear Ma and Pa,
Well, its four weeks into the semester and I can definitely say that I’ve never been so home sick in my life. Penn is so different from anything in Texas and I just feel really out of place; like a Dodge in a parking lot full of Chevys and Fords (Dodges are for queers). Anyways, I’m not really sure how to explain my situation to you without giving you some examples of what has happened to me over the past few weeks so you can know what I’ve been going through while I’ve been away from home.
The first time I felt out of place at Penn was during New Student Orientation. Everyone in my hall wanted to get together and do something, so someone in the hall suggested that we watch a movie. Some girl in my hall, who I think might have a medical condition because she’s always squinting and she only eats rice, decided we should watch some movie called “Brokeback Mountain”. I was pretty sure Pa had said that we weren’t allowed to watch it, but since I’m in college I decided to take a chance. At first, it seemed like my kind of movie, there was some sheep herding and drinking and lots of denim, but all of a sudden the two cowboys started trying to pro-create. I didn’t bother me too much at first because I was pretty sure the blond one was a woman, but then I realized they were both men. I couldn’t believe it, I was so disgusted that I actually vomited on one of my hall mates. It was all in her hair, but she said it would be alright because she has this device called a shampoo (I’m still not actually sure what it is, but I’m pretty sure it’s battery powered). In the end, I went back to my room and read the Gospel of Luke (they’re no queers in there!)
But wait, there’s more. Did you know that there are people that don’t believe in the Lord, Our Savior? And I’m not just talking about Catholics. There’s one group called the Jues(?) and another called the Mooslems(?). The Jues seem pretty similar to us except they do some things that seem a little odd (and when I say odd, I don’t mean like cousin Frank after he hit his head, but I mean odd like when we caught Joey having sex with Becky (I didn’t know you could do that to a cow)). First, I’m pretty sure that all Jues suffer from pre-mature baldness. They all wear these little hats to cover up their bald spots, but they always try to match them with their hair color, but it’s so obvious what they’re trying to do. As for the Mooslems, they’re also pretty chill (sorry about that, I heard a black guy speaking today and now I can’t get that word out of my head), but they speak and write this language that is really weird (I think they call it cursive).
There are some other things that happened to me as well, but I think you get the point. Seriously, it’s like that time we decided to stop at Whole Foods because Grandpa needed to use the bathroom and now Beth-Anne is addicted to granola. I can’t wait to see you guys during Thanksgiving (can you believe they don’t consider gravy a condiment here?), I hope everything is going better for you down there. Keep in touch.
Love,
Strom
P.S. Tell Katie I love her, she’s the best cousin/girlfriend anyone could ask for.