Looks like I know what I'm doing this weekend...

[big daddy russ]

Mart/East Chambers Friday night in Conroe.

Liberty Hill/Needville Saturday afternoon in Bryan.

Auburn/Bama Saturday night on the couch... without the little lady. Saturday night's student bonfire.:D

[CenTexSports]

Wow, two really good offenses and a team that can't score on its scout team.

Mart has an outstanding wide receiver and they will score 30+.

Liberty Hill is the one team I have wanted to see all year to see how they are scoring all those points.

Alabama wouldn't score on SMU.

Have fun!

[LH Panther Mom]

We need to get together, Russ. :)

[big daddy russ]

Originally posted by LH Panther Mom
We need to get together, Russ. :)
Let's do it. I'll bring the champagne.

[big daddy russ]

...oh, for the game!!! We can do that too.

[BTEXDAD]

Originally posted by big daddy russ
Mart/East Chambers Friday night in Conroe.

Liberty Hill/Needville Saturday afternoon in Bryan.

Auburn/Bama Saturday night on the couch... without the little lady. Saturday night's student bonfire.:D

How's the student bonfire thing going? Haven't heard much about it this year. Pretty good turnouts?

[big daddy russ]

Originally posted by BTEXDAD
How's the student bonfire thing going? Haven't heard much about it this year. Pretty good turnouts?
About the same as last year, which surprises me (in a good way). I always figured student interest would wane with the off-campus bonfire, but it's held steady. Nowhere near what it used to be, but I guess that's expected.

I don't know if you're an ex-Aggie, but the worst thing that's ever happened to this campus was the cancellation of the bonfire. I'm not an Ag, but I know the campus well. "Howdy" isn't a tradition anymore, it's just a memory and a word. Passion for the football team dies every year, and it's not just from having a horrible team.

When you decide that your fear of others (lawsuits) determines your path as an individual, you lose your individuality. The bonfire was the epicenter of all of A&M's traditions. From the way I see things and the way I was raised, if I would've been one of the fallen from the bonfire tragedy or the family of one of the fallen it would've been a slap in the face to stop this tradition because of my death. I think it's a huge disrespect to the people that were passionate enough about this university to donate literally days at a time of their hard work to build it. Even legislators (Gov. Rick Perry, TAMU alumnus; Steve Ogden, TAMU graduate alumnus; etc.) have gotten involved, telling the audiences in speeches on campus that they can't wait for the day the bonfire returns. Sadly, their wait won't end until the day they become a part of this earth. When the administration fears lawsuits more than they fear the loss of self and the loss of their freedom to do whatever they want within the confines of the law, this is what you get. That's the price of A&M's soul.

A&M used to be among the most individual and special schools I had ever seen, but that line between them and the "norm" continues to dull every year. Apparently a university is only supposed to be a place of higher learning, not a place where young minds can grow in social settings as well as intellectual settings.

I'll take my education at Phoenix Online, and can I have fries with that?

Sorry, I'm off my soap box. I know you wanted a line and got a novel, but this burns me to no end. My school is Auburn, but I have a soft spot in my heart for the "family" atmosphere A&M USED to have. Looks like we'll be talking in past tense about that family atmosphere from here on out.

[District303aPastPlayer]

poor needville

[BTEXDAD]

to big daddy russ,
I'm not an ex aggie, but my son was a freshman in the corps the year that the accident happened. I went to one of the weekend "cuttings" with his corps group and their dads. They painted up army surplus helmets for dads to wear to be identified. I still have mine. ( I guess it was a hard hat more than anything).
Trees were cut down with axes and hauled by hand to road. It reminded me of the aggie joke where the aggie was hired to cut down trees and was real slow. When his supervisor went out to check why he wasn't cutting down more trees, supervisor started chainsaw and Aggie said, "what's that noise."
They did use chain saws to trim limbs off trees.

I remember thinking back then, "this is dangerous". There were groups cutting trees down and some were pretty close to each other. Some of the trees fell wrong direction and people had to get out of the way. I was never on site of the bonfire while they were building it though and was shocked when it happened.
I thought they would continue bonfire but let professionals build it, but that wouldn't have been quite the same either.

But on the traditions thing, it's hard for a school to grow as fast to be as big as A&M and still maintain all the traditions. You simply get too many people there who have no interest in them.