Everything New is Old Again

This story occurred while I was in New Mexico for vacation. It regards the new dorm at New Mexico Highlands University, where I spent my first two years of college.

A decrepit dorm is nothing new for them (although it is a twist to have something like this happen in a brand new building). The old dorm which this replaced was where I lived, and it did everything but fall down around our ears. The elevators repeatedly broke down. (Why anyone would try using them in the first place, considering what some of the boys did in them regularly, is beyond me. I used the stairs.) The fire alarms went off at least once a month, usually in the middle of the night (although they had help for most of those instances). Then, when it rained, the roof leaked -- and the walls. That's the only explanation I can imagine for how my room flooded when it was on the sixth floor of a nine story building. I knew a student there who had been an electrician working on the dorm when it was constructed (he was what they called a "non-traditional student", getting his degree later in life). Knowing how it was constructed, he once said he was surprised the building had lasted that long (about 30 years, by the time I moved into it).

Now it sounds as if the school is starting over. I'm glad I'm not there.