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University Daily Kansan, November 6, 1981
Opinion
City opting for action
The dust is finally settling from the "cornfield mall" whirlwind—the turbulence that began in 1978, when a Cleveland developer proposed a mall monstrosity on Lawrence's southern edge.
With Tuesday night's City Commission decision to approve an amended version of a three-prong downtown development plan, the city finally has taken the big step of at least providing prospective developers some rough outlines of what will and will not be tolerated.
The plan, which now awaits only routine approval from the Lawrence-Douglas County Planning Commission, is a good one. It wisely eschews the big mall theory completely and takes careful consideration of citizen concerns.
This commission, and its predecessors, has reacted strongly to the angry din that says any kind of major mall would suck the economic life from an attractive, viable downtown. But it also recognizes the need for increased retail space, especially major department store space, in town to stop the outflow of local shopping dollars.
Something obviously has to be done. The three alternatives, as outlined by the city's consulting firm, provide workable options to interested companies and developers. Sooner or later, they should result in expanded, improved shopping downtown, not a destruction of that which already exists.
The alternatives, which include both
"cluster" development and additional free-standing department stores, acknowledgment that the city is better off placing fundamental limits, not making hard-line demands, as it courts interested parties.
Even more to this commission's credit is its response to the alarm expressed by the East Lawrence Neighborhood Association over the third alternative—the retail cluster option—because it would force the re-routing of traffic down Rhode Island Street.
Rather than continue with an option that might mean a sudden influx of downtown traffic down a residential street, the commission opted to adjust the traffic flow. The amended version calls for traffic to be re-routed down an alley between a closed New Hampshire Street and Rhode Island Street.
In addition, the commission adjusted the firm's proposal to include the possibility for public transportation, bicycle parking and some type of a much-needed grocery store in the downtown area.
Three years have passed since the red flag of excess development first flew above Lawrence. At times, it has seemed talk and hesitant consideration were the only result of local concern with the future of Lawrence's retail progress. The commission's move is something more. It's taken careful, well-executed action.
Valiant attempts to describe beauty of autumn in rain
New York Times Special Features
By CONSTANTINE PAPAS
NEW YORK - Every year at this time I sit through the night at my typewriter, first drinking coffee and later scotch, with the most profound intention of writing the definitive poem about autumn. I've been at this house all winter long, but it won't ready to announce the poem's completion.
Autumn is not a subject for everyone—"love," "death," and "spring" are generally recognized as being mother terms to chew—but the distinctive and easily recognizable follow.
Mostly, I see be-poets of autumn strolling in city parks, sauntering down country roads, lounging in the squares of small towns, standing at lookout points on the cliffs and in the gardens. And at Friendry's all over New England. And what saddens me is knowing that they haven't simply and innocently come out to look; each and every one of them harbors the notion that this year the season will exercise its magic and that they've locked-in their place in their skinned-souls.
They can be spotted by their ceremonial dress, which consists, for man and woman, of a faded cotton-filament shirt, a pair of thick-waisted tan corduroy socks, Argyle socks and an English tweed sport jacket. Also recognizable is the serious, knowing gaze of vegetarians in health food stores—a gaze not unlike that exchanged between vegetarians in health food stores.
All these would-be poets walk, climb, gaze and droll around in the season's favorite hawkins waiting for the right combination of words. These hawks could into something resembling a poetic thought.
Typically, the first literary foray the would-be poet makes is in the area of the superlative: beautiful, splendid, marvelous. However, recognizing these as mundane, the would-be begins to embellish; resplendent, quintessential, fouldooyant. Here, though, he remembers his ninth-grade English teacher's one-note song—"Be concrete!" and this one's not really concrete at first, then tends, at the end, toward the unusual: gold, yellow, orange, harvest, mauve, azure, aborn, ocher, charteuse. And if he runs out, he reasons that he can always stop at the art-supply store and borrow some names from the Grumbacher tubes.
Last of all comes the hardest part, the phrase. "Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness" sounds fine but seems familiar. A typical list might run from "light and reflection" to "stained glass gardens to nature's panoply of color." But after the poet strains for a while, the inevitable and dreadful always occur. Our would-be standing reverently beneath an imposing elm, deeply penetrates its rough exterior so as to enter into a state of grace with nature. Expectately he awaits the moment when the leaves will fall, the flowers届erversely to the surface, transforming the seen into the profoundly felt. But what he gets is, "What a beautiful tree!" And this end it. Despair in the afternoon.
Here our poet is left standing alone in the hands of a cruel mule. Rather ashamed, he continues walking along looking about, somewhat cynically now, all the while trying to stop "beautiful" "splendid" and "marvelous" from coming to mind.
My suggestion to all of you who resemble this fellow is: forget it. Autumn silences compliments, admonishes flattery, abhors forced conceals.
Autumn is a serious season—a season that surreptitiously, but nevertheless emphatically, reminds us that we are frail, vulnerable and older. The leaves we see fallen and falling are all too vivid as metaphors; their loveliness only makes them more arch. The chill wind that runs through to our chest on that first day, when we should have brought a warmer jacket but didn’t, is a mild rebuke to the illusion we nurtured about ourselves all summer. But the sore throat, the chin ache, the red knuckles, the chapped lips, the dry skin—all are autumn's way of reminding us to attend to our sensitive pink mortality. And, all of a sudden there is something unlovely about what we need to do to protect ourselves.
I once knew a woman who was a little like autumn. As you might guess, we didn't hit it off. I told her on a number of romantic occasions that she was lovely; flattered, as I imagined she was for a while, she finally took offense at my little pleasanties. She knew she was attractive, as autumn certainly does, and I guess she was disappointed that she hadn't been able to summon azure eyes and beneath her gently falling adurn hair lived a mind of winter.
(Constantine Papas is a first-year student at Brooklyn Law School.)
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Football fans dump on band, literally
The rough-and-ready young men hustle off the field and thousands of heads swivel north. Positioned in the end zone, the rhythm section waits and the drum majors are poised, ready to spring down the stadium stairs and strut onto the field.
It's a crisp Saturday in Memorial Stadium and the Marching Jayhawks are about to begin their traditional pre-game show. The signal is given and 1 the drumming drum roll brings. Double bass drums accompany the marching down the mountain of chairs, a stream of crumbs and blue gushing forth onto the artificial turf.
The less lethargic fans manage to stagger to their feet, clapping usually out of time, as the high-stopping "I'm a Jayhawk" precision drill is performed. Next, the Kansas sunflower, complete with sousaphue center, revolves around the low-d线 as the pom-pom girls are introduced.
Moving right along, the announcer requests everyone to rise and join in singing the national anthem, KU's alma mater and the Rock Chalk Benches in the field and over the sideline benches for the band.
After the team is welcomed with another lipp-splitting chorus of "I'm a Jayhawk," the musicians are dismissed to their seats. They have just expended more energy than many fighting Jayhawk bench warmers in an entire season, but not many of the socteurs notice.
The band members don't let the lack of recognition get them down, though. Their section is always, without a doubt, the most spirited and lively, with its eclectic mix and the score, a claim not many KU fans can make.
Not only do the Marching Jayhawks continue to give first-rate performances without benefit of positive reinforcement, but more often than not they carry on in the face of rude and abusive behavior. They also need a positive treatment that is undoubtedly discouraging and potentially hazardous to the musicians' health.
At the last home game, when the Big Blue hosted that Manhattan institution, I was concerned that some visiting anti-blu fan might attempt to trip our bandmen during the traditional pre-game stair run. My concern, it seems, was justified, but misdirected.
The band made it of out enemy territory, onto the field and completed its show without incident. It wann't until they were "safely" in their possession. You UU students and police that the trouble began.
CORAL BEACH
In short, the locals' behavior toward the band was gross. Just plain grass. At least the Wildcat cheering section let its band members know their efforts were appreciated. All the KU fans did was prove once again that the only thing they saw their ignorance is their own insensitivity.
Instead of being greeted with applause and cheers as they filed to their seats, band members were bombarded with fruit, vegetables and spices from blue-clad whisky-warmed spectators.
The Marching Jayhawks, out-maneuvering and out-playing any other band in the Big Eight, deserve better than they have gotten from the KU fans. Without them the pre-game show would be pretty boring. After all, when psyched up can you get by reading the words to the national anthem and the Crimson and the Blue on the scoreboard without music?
Besides getting the crowd "up" for the initial
kickoff, the band keeps them fired up, or at least tries to, through the entire game. The musical accents added to time outs, not to mention the spectacular halftime shows, are the foundation for the entire game atmosphere. Without the band KU football games would become a depressing show consisting of 22 crazed athletes smashing into one another on plastic grass.
The band members and their directors don't drill for hours every day, regardless of the weather, because they enjoy aching backs, bleeding lips and blistered feet. They do it because they are dedicated to giving their best shot on game day.
It is one thing for the fans to take the band's work for granted, but quite another for them to do. They've got a lot of time to do it.
When a fan decided he had had enough of his whiskey and Coke at the last game, other fans and KU police stood by and watched as he poured the drink down the bell of one of the University's sousaphones. Luckily, for the whiskey drinker, band members didn't catch him. If they had, anything short of castration would have been justified.
As it stands now, no severe damage has been done this season to KU musicians or their instruments. The whisky drenched sousaphne is colored a little different than the rest of the section, but at least the horn is still functional. Not much has been hurt, except the band's pride
But if the pattern of behavior displayed by KU fans persists, tragedy could occur at one of the two remaining home games. Only a band member could understand why Director Robert Foster and his students put up with this incarceration. Their sentiment cannot be put into words.
I only hope that the marching Jayahwills will keep marching on, in spite of the flying oranges and whiskey. Unlike the fighting Jayahwinks at Midtown, they have never had a losing season.
Pot Shots
But most likely this girl had brought it for show and tell in Abnormal Picklolaro. No
One day last week I witnessed the world's largest pickle on the floor of Wescoc Cafeteria. The green monster, shaped rather like a bowling pin, caught my eye in passing. It lay beneath a girl's chair—not moving. I ascertained no crooked burden. This pickle seemed proud. Perhaps it won first prize in County Court Fair. Of course it wanted it.
doubt she had placed it on the floor to avoid confusing it with her lunch.
But I reached out, prepared to run with it,
until I remembered the old purse-in-the-street trick. Someone had probably tied a string around my wrist so I grab it the darned thing was run from me.
I looked around. No one seemed to notice the pickle Then I thought it must have been on Candi Castellain. I could hear Alan Funt saying, "Let's see how well college students improvise in a picking situation"—and I vanished.
That evening at dinner, my roommate's girl spooped soup across the table in a sudden fit of laughter.
"Today," she said, "we this student trip over a pickle in Wescoe Cafeteria and drop his blood."
"The pickle?" I asked.
"Squashed," she said.
It was simply the Great Pickle, no strings attached. I thought it would be honesty if I bended Hendrick, his arm around Heller.
Repairs, modifications and computer problems have been responsible for several postponements of the second space shuttle mission. However, Columbia's near-perfect first flight and landing have inspired similar expectations for its most recent mission.
Should the second flight be just as successful as the first, the next questions concern whether the child will only with reading the shuttle for its third, fourth or fifth trips, but also with adoating
such efficiency in other areas of American life
Oh sure, you can find some used cars that still have a few good miles left on them, but nearly everyone knows not to expect the condition of a used car to equal that of a new car.
For instance, why can't automobiles be manufactured to withstand such wear and tear?
Apparently, one can expect this from reusable space shuttles. It would be, after all, a sorry set of passengers who are already out on the job and discovering they have a lemon on their hands.
The space shuttle is a recycling craze waiting to happen. Can you imagine what would happen to the American economy if people didn't have to junk their cars after 100,000 miles, or if refrigerators, televisions, typewriters and stores could last indefinitely with minor repairs and replacement of worn parts?
Surely it it's happened to you. You're walking across Wesco Beach on your way to your Sex Ed class and suddenly your companion screams, "We're all going to die!"
Simultaneously you're hoisted out of your Weejuns and ground into the pavement. A one-inch tree tread zigzags your body. As you lay sprawled on the concrete, victim of the storm or Giltome, you understand why your mother always told you to wear decent underwear.
The number of accidents caused by bicyclists has been on the rise of late. Those smug, holter-than-thou energy conservers that pedestrians DO have the right of way.
Another pedestrian hites the dust
Bicyclists forget so quickly what it is like to be a defenseless pedestrian with 30 pounds.
Heaven forbid that a more pedestrian should suggest that a bicyclist has injured his legs.
After all, bicyclists belong to the health-conscious, energy-conserving elite. And they are often the best way to stay active.
According to Section 11 of the KU parking regulations, "Bicycles are not to be ridden on
So stick that in your water bottle and suck on it.