Articles to Webitize

Some Students at LSC not just 'high on life'
By Caleb Byerly
Critic Staff

Lyndon State College's official motto says, “Experience Makes the Education”. But some students have incorporated this motto to include using illegal drugs such as cocaine.

After interviewing three students who were eager to disclose their drug use, under the condition of anonymity for obvious legal reasons, more than 20 different kinds of illegal drugs (including LSD, cocaine and heroin) were identified by the students as being used on either a regular basis or on an experimental basis.

A senior, nicknamed “Dr. Mario” for this story, proudly listed the numerous prescription drugs he enjoyed that would put a pharmacist to shame, including such as powerful painkillers Vicodin, Percocet, and Oxycontin.

“I do acid, shrooms (psychedelic mushrooms), coke, ecstasy, pills.” Dr. Mario said, laughing. “You'd better put a star in your notes next to that one.”

Although there was a long list of prescription drugs, Dr. Mario asserts that the hallucinogenic drug LSD was his preferred method of getting high.

“I do it for the learning experience.” Dr. Mario said. “I get to see the world from a new point of view. It's by far my drug of choice.”

Another student, a sophomore, nicknamed “Smokey McCloud” for the interview, described his drug use as recreational and dismissed the dangers involved with drug use.

“There are a ton of things that kill your brain cells.” McCloud said. “As long as you stay in control, you're okay.”

Another sophomore, nicknamed “Lisa Lush”, talked about doing drugs such as coke, mushrooms and ecstasy as recreation and during parties. While acknowledging the harmful effects these drugs have on the body, Lisa did not see any reason to quit.

“I just do it for fun.” Lush said. “If it gets out of control, I'll stop.”

The belief that a drug user is in control of the drug is very naïve, according to Public Safety Director George Hacking, who has seen the devastating effects of drug abuse first hand.

“Some people don't know if they will become addicted.” Hacking said. “It's naïve to think a person can control a drug. It controls the person.”

The students that were interviewed all admitted to going to their classes under the influence of an illegal substance at least once. English professor Alan Boye is not unfamiliar with this fact.

“There have been numerous occasions where someone seems inebriated and reeks of alcohol.” Boye said. “I have asked them to leave the class.”

Boye annually conducts a casual survey among his students in order to find out what types of drugs that are brought onto the LSC campus.

“I am always shocked by the number of drugs on campus.” Boye said. “I've found as an educator, it's much harder to learn and retain what you've learned when you're stoned.”

None of the students interviewed for this story expressed any desire to stop using illegal drugs in the near future, though two did say they intended to quit eventually.



To: The Critic
Series: Moments Like This
Author: Trish Pennypacker
Title: It Seems Like Yesterday
Date: March 2, 2007



It Seems Like Yesterday



Driving by the old house yesterday, the ghosts of my childhood taunted me. The driveway was plowed and children were building a snowman in the backyard. I watched the children heave and push as they rolled their bodies over wet mounds of snow. I would believe that only a few years had passed since I ran through the halls of the spacious house, skated on the frozen pond in the backyard, and climbed through the rafters of the barn, but the crooked, aged branches of the crabapple tree on the front lawn, told me otherwise.
I was eight years old when Dad brought the crabapple tree home from a local nursery. I was playing in the kitchen with my younger sisters when Mom started laughing in protest. Dad caught her in his arms, blindfolded her, and began twirling her dizzy. Curiously, we followed them onto the lawn, where Dad had the tree and a shovel waiting. When the blindfold was removed, Mom saw the skinny, budded red branches of the tree, and hugged and kissed Dad. She danced as she walked with my father across the lawn, trying to decide the best placement for the tiny tree. I didn't understand her excitement, until I tasted crab-apple jelly.
Only two years after Mom had planted her tree, she was able to make a couple of pints of crabapple jelly. As the years progressed, the jelly-jars began to fill the basement pantry.
My sisters and I eagerly offered to pick the tiny red fruit, in anticipation of the jelly. We were only allowed to pick the fruit that we could reach from the ground, tip-toes were allowed, climbing the tree was not. Mom taught us to twist and pluck gently, removing the crabapples without hurting the tree. We filled our buckets with the smooth, round fruit.
Before simmering the crabapples in a large stainless steel pot, Mom would sift through the twigs, leaves and bugs. As the fruit simmered, the house filled with a sweet, tempting aroma. “Don't touch the hot jars,” Mom would say as she lined them to cool, on rows of white linen. “Listen. Make sure they pop,” she'd say as we peered through the rose colored jars, the sunlight sifting through the glasses, casting a pink glow on our curious faces. “If they don't pop, that means they didn't seal. I'll have to reprocess them in hot water or they will not last.” We laughed as the Pop! Pop! Ping! filled the air.
The best part came when we were finally allowed to taste the jelly. Mom would open a pint. Ping! The seal popped. Our mouths watered as she scooped into the jar, and spread the thick, sweet goop over crunchy, brown slices of toast. Next to maple syrup and strawberry-rhubarb jam, crabapple jelly was my favorite topping.
That was years ago. Now, I long for the taste of Mom's crabapple jelly as I spread store-bought jelly onto my toast. Sometimes I purchase homemade crab-apple jelly during the summer at local farmer's markets or I make my own strawberry jam. This is better than the store-bought jelly, but it holds no comparison to the jelly that my mother made from the crab-apples.

Driving by the old house yesterday, I noticed that much is the same. The house has been re-sided in the same yellow, the barn repainted in the same red. The same colored white curtains hang from my former bedroom window and a tabby cat, much-like my childhood tabby cat, sat on the same stone stoop where my cat used to bask in the sun.
However, the ancient cedar tree that had loomed above the house, its branches startling me during the dark night as it scratched the window pane, has been cut down; a brown cargo van, parked in the driveway, replaces my father's blue pickup; the hammock is gone from the white birch trees, and our name is no longer scrawled on the side of an old, metal mailbox: an unknown name is engraved into the homestead sign that is mounted above the snow bank. These differences sadden me, but the greatness of the old crab-apple tree, with its bare solemn branches, saddens me the most.
Who would have thought that time would move so swiftly?
When we drive by the house, on our way to Littleton, my children sigh melodramatically, “We know, Mom. That's where you grew up.” They tire of hearing me reminisce, but I keep reminding them that I was a child once too, as if to tell myself that it wasn't too long ago. My children know nothing of the ghosts that lie within the old yellow house on the edge of Route 18. They are too busy creating their own ghosts to understand.