sadly, not our cranes

We like to stay pretty competitive here at The Thrill, and a Blog Off is one way we can definitively prove that one of us is objectively a better blogger (dare we say, a better person). So we leave it to you, the reader, to decide in a blind taste test who is really better as we square off on various topics. Today is a Hot and Fresh competition between our new writers, Maria Peteet ’20 and Jess Karan ’21 about which part of our library-less campus is better: the Cranes or the Pit. What do they have to say?

Blogger A: 

Do you ever just look at a person, inanimate object, or in this case, landscape, and just think, “Me too, buddy”? That’s how I feel every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday morning when I sit in my 9:10 in second floor Lentz, overlooking our anonymous donor’s glorious pit. The dark, gloomy depths, the scattered debris, the overall depressing demeanor, it’s all just pretty relatable content. The New Apts used to be the armpit of campus, but fellas, there’s a new pit in town.

Say what you will about the height of the cranes rivaling that of Caples, but take a quick jaunt to the bottom of the pit, and boom, you’re that much closer to hell. Though, come to think of it, the pit is a hell of its very own, a hideous chasm in our beautiful hill. It’s not only a glaring reminder of what once was (rest in peace Olin, my sweet prince), but also a reminder of what will not be (at least not anytime soon).

The pit is due to leave us in the summer of 2020, but my hunch is that it will be around for much, much longer. Little do construction teams know, but they’ve opened a hellmouth, and it won’t be closed until a sacrifice is made. Personally, I think a campus safety vehicle might just do the trick. Once it’s over that fence, it’s out of our hands, another fantastic feature of the mighty pit.

In conclusion, I believe Mouse Rat said it best in their hit song “The Pit”: “I fell in the pit, you fell in the pit, we all were in the pit.” And until (theoretically) the summer of 2020, in the pit we all shall remain.

Blogger B:

It is said Graham Gund is a ghost who wishes to escape this realm but is trapped here. He wishes to place his living nothingness onto this campus. He has been able to suck through the smallest veins and thoroughfares of Ohio people from all over, young ones to live with him in his shining purgatory for a while, ever refreshing each year .The cranes are just the most recent and most well-designed addition to his plan. Even now the cranes inch closer to outnumbering counselors. They become our new way to keep going. Look up at the cranes and wonder about that great glass box in the sky!

Somewhere some person controls an arm broader than anything. Up there is a view, if only you could climb, could make an ascent from the empty pit up into that bright and vast sky, maybe something could be better. Maybe we could control something, or at least swing around, and around, and around. But we know we are unworthy of the cranes. They are so lofty, they are so shiny and new, and we know that they must leave because we are not good enough to make them stay.

The cranes are hope and hope is what Graham feeds on and what keeps us coming back to energize him with our youth. And we scream at the cranes in the night to please, please just let us in. But they are too high to ever hear us, too powerful, and we know who we are, that deep down somewhere, we are all Graham Gund.