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About Oregon daily emerald. (Eugene, Or.) 1920-2012 | View Entire Issue (Jan. 31, 1994)
And now a word from our sponsor Ah spring break That annual period ol rebirth so long considered a sacred ritual a chance to relocate drinking partying and neg lecting classes on our campuses to drinking partying and neglecting classes in wanner climates me simplest ot pleasures But m case you haven't noticed, this beloved respite from the collegiate grind has been tainted It has gone the way ol Christmas, the Fourth ot July and the Super Bowl, becoming unmercifully shamelessly commercial You can t just escape and do your own thing anymore Most ot what you went to escape from is right there wait ing for you over/ealous sales pitches, endless pandering, corporate pressure For example the hotel I stayed at in Clearwater Fla . a couple years back showcased beer-sponsored swimming contests tor vacationing students (the maiority ot whom, last I heard were underage) Now. I've got nothing against sipping a brew in the shallow end ot a nicely heat ed kidney-shaped swimming pool But it used to be we students had to find ways to drink on our own. all the while hiding from hotel folks intent on avoiding damaged property No more Goodbye, fastidious, bash-busting hotel manageis and the thrill of the chase Hello. “Chug A Beer. Swim a Lap" night It's worse than buying pumpkins in July or marshmal low [aster eggs in December Nowadays MTV hits the airwaves with a series of spring break-related bacchanals in eaily February and winds things down sometime around Labor Day For weeks on end. perky VJs put off their inevitable futures as Time-Life records salespeople, stalking Florida beaches tor vacationing students to inter view You know. |ust your typical college kids — guys w 11 u vt* Wdiiucicu m iiuiii uif :>ci ui me ouiuiica lummcr cial and women showcasing the latest in dental floss apparel You see them on campus all the time It it wasn't spring break, it would be another occasion nr hnlidav II there's money to be made it'll be soon sored ( Coming up next on MTV — It's the annual Arbor Day Wet Shrub Wearing Contest1") But I do not blame big business tor trying to squeeze Generation Xers out ot Mom and Dad s dough (It’s certainly not our own money We wandering souls of X can’t even attord our own name, let alone reasonably priced $9 Fort Lauderdale shot glasses ) All this commercialization upset me initially, but then I said to myself "Hey. there s free beer. iihinnilnnr hiLmic ifohiiirhani miontw I rtin not into this Heck, I like volleyball as much as the next guy ’ Why complain? So corporate America is infatuated with our attention and our patronage Fine Let them come Wine us dine us We ll eat their food drink their beer and saunter around in our wet T-Shirts It's either exploit or be exploited so go on and horde freebies while you can, or one of these years you'll gradu ate and wish you had See you at the MTV Arbor Day compound ■ Connell Barrett. The Insider. Bowling Green State U. ft a rvoMt sunny sf 4*4 rMdart, 13% My (800)6U-VIEWSext63 12 * 1'- MilK4/ifU* Von Deserve a Break Today: Just don't make It your leg Life is short. X.u.ition li.ml. \t le.ist (his is \vh:1t .1 "lowing ihiiiiIki ol lolle^e students li.txe t.iken lo he.ill. Xml to the slopes, .m .mil mount.tins. hot' them. the ide.il \ .te.it ion i^oes .iho\e .mil !>e\oml |iis( spending .1 week imilei the sun (or under t In inllneni e). SPRING BREAK '34 Whether you call them dare devils, thrill seekers or extreme athletes, one thing is certain They won’t he calling you. Instead, the\ II lie miles away, rat ing down a mountain, navi gating under a giant sail or \u miming M) feet under the sea, exploring the ocean floor. I his sprint; Break, Brian Smith, a tumor at Cornell l'., will rent a sailboat out of (Coconut Cirove, Fla., anil sail to Paradise Island solo " I here is such a sense of free dom heme out alone on the o|>en mean," he sa\s “It’s so lilierat mg I here's nothing for miles. That's ins idea of spring Break getting away from all the Busy hustle of school." For Mike (iueriera, a senior at the l of Colorado, Denver, the ideal sprint; Break is a little tilt fercnt 1 .ike Smith, he pets the hell out of Dodge, hut he prefers being above sea level. Ciucricra often spends his breaks extreme skiing, last t ear at Crested Butte, Colo. “ I'hat’s the most hard-core ski ing I had done, ever. I hiked past the lift for 20 minutes, to about 11,000 feet, sidestepping up a hill. It’s ustialh very tight, flanked by roe ks and trees It's tight lumping turns that you have to do or get hurt .” The l>est part - " I he comhma tion of incredible speed and knowing that you have to make these turns that you’ve picked out for yourself,” he says For f hssa Randall, a senior at the C. of North Carolina, spring break is often s[*ent climbing up a mountain instead of coming down. Randall, an avid hiker and soccer player, flew to New Mexico tor break two vears ago to climb at Cochin Mesa. “It’s a challenge to be on a sheer wall,” Randall says “First, lust to stay there, and then to go up the face, even it you don't .top out the climb. I’d rather he out side in nature and not with hordes of people, doing some thing athletic instead of |ust sit ting around.” Randall says her onlv Intel with the s|»ort is the difficult) of tak mg photographs while trying to climb. And the results aren’t so good either. "When urn get tour [photos) back all you have are these /’Mgr butt shots." And then there’s the rush of being airborne of falling 10,000 feet to your spring break destination, as students from Syracuse l . and Cornell l do through l inger Lakes Skydiving in New York. W In would students opt tor a parachute and goggles over swim trunks or a bikini? “You’re seeing skydiving more and more, m movies and on television and more and more people sav, 'lee/. I’d really like to trv that some time,’" says John King, who owns and operates Finger I .ikes MAM HTSTHOai COllFGlAT£ 'iMIS Tf{ Skydiving. Anil tor some believe it or not — it's .1 wax to 5 fill tl 11 a graduation requirement “A few tears hack, a group of stu dents were one pins cd credit short of graduating, and so du \ showed up here, took a pimp and had me fill out some forms.” I he students made the jump success fully, and got their diplomas. Of course, skydiving isn’t tool proof. “There is always .1 possi hilitv of severe injurx and death with skydiving,” King s.ns, “hut that’s part of the attraction " But you don’t have to pimp out of an airplane to fear tor \our safety. Hie beauty of an extreme s|>orts break is found m the 111am ways you can endanger yourself Like, sav. heading south of the border to catch some waves Mike Phares, surf club presi dent at Pepperdmc l , recalls some unexpectedly ham spring break moments in B.i|a. Mexico "We’ve gotten caught h\ fed eralcs for sleeping on the l»each, anil we had to pax them off," Phares saxs “We had one gux go over the falls on the waxes and »c thought he cracked his head o|K-n ." Of course, you can always look death and dismemberment in the face right in the good ole l S of V, lighting approximate)) one zillion of vour spring break col leagues for tree giveaways in Daytona. But keep m mind the words of Willy l.ornan in l)eaib oj a Salesman: “The world is an oys ter. But don’t crack it open on a mattress." Ora beach blanket. 0 Il\ Biijn S.iIsIk t”. / be Cornell I hilly Sim, ( orncll l . JUWUrr/HMMIT 1M4