OccuFry

A recent tweet asked whether it was worse that a very simple and very harmless college prank was pulled or that it made the front page, above the fold headline in the local newspaper.

I think they're both equally great.

With the amount of damage that's likely done across the country by college pranks, it's nice to see something that really didn't cause any problems other than wasting a few minutes of time talking about whether "they" were really planning on removing a sculpture from campus. It's unfortunate that a previous prank included painting the sculpture, which did require some cost to fix.

I remember when the fries showed up on campus. Several of us wondered what they were thinking. We thought about creating a large cardboard french fry container to put around it, but someone else beat us to it. It was fun to see students build a huge snow hamburger next to the fries last year. Things like this get the museum director and art faculty all excited, because whenever anyone even talks about a piece of art, whether positively or negatively, they feel like they have contributed to society by starting the conversation.

Harmless pranks and common experiences create a sense of community on a college campus. Interesting local news in the local newspaper also creates a sense of community. I subscribe to the local paper, in spite of the looks I get from people when I explain that I, a person under 60 years old, choose to actually pay for someone to deliver a physical paper to my house, because of the tangible connection to the community.

I skip past most of the stories on foreign wars and the like, since I get my fill of that kind of news through Facebook, Twitter, and other online sources. I love the letters to the editor. I was intrigued by a random picture of my neighbor changing a light bulb in front of his house for no real reason. (There was a reason to change the bulb, I'm sure, just not much of a reason to put the picture in the paper.) I enjoy learning about some of the local lore, having not grown up here locally, yet having lived in Logan for longer than I've lived anywhere else.

Simple things make a community. Not just one simple thing but many. One big thing has the potential to bring people together, but it takes the simple things to keep it going. So what communities are you a part of and how do you know you are?

<Photo by Jennifer Meyers/Herald Journal>