As I pulled my car over to the side of the road and watched the state trooper in my rearview mirror draw closer, my thoughts were far from thanks. In the seat beside me, my cousin groggily mumbled inquiring what was happening. “We got pulled over,” I answered. “That sucks.” Yup.
My dear cousin did not provide me with much solace. Instead, as the figure in my side-view grew bigger, I noticed another car awaiting the same chastisement as us. Later, as I sat in the DMV over break waiting to renew my license, I took small comfort in hoping the trooper who had pulled us would overcook his turkey. But the longer I sat (remember, I was in the DMV), I thought less about badges and birds, and more about that other car. What ill-fortuned event had brought them there? Did they too have a love-hate relationship with an officer of the law? What were they thankful for?
In a peculiar way, this reminded me a little of Blacksburg. With our sprawling campus and sizable student body, it’s easy for some students to feel like strangers. But as the semester’s end draws near, it seems appropriate then to ask those same questions of ourselves as a whole as we reflect on the semester.
Whether you’re a wide-eyed freshman, a sophomore like myself, caught off-guard by professors’ augmented expectations, or a graduating senior with a job and without a care, it’s been a crazy four months for the university community. Tragedy has struck us twice this semester with the Ford Hood shootings that Virginia Tech was tied to against its will, and we will continually pray for Heidi Childs, David Metzler and Morgan Harrington. Add in cuts in state funding and higher tuition, and the panic button starts looking friendly. Quite obviously, if we are figuratively sitting in that DMV office, we are facing more than just a speeding ticket.
Continuing along metaphorical lines, the Tech community, as with me individually, received help from those nearest by. Just as that officer may have given me some leeway, our community rallied time and again to support one another and remind us that we’ve faced down hardship before and we will do it again. In “Numerous violent incidents puzzle university community” (CT, Nov. 11), university news editor Philipp Kotlaba reminded us that according to actual data, Tech is as safe as the University of Virginia and the College of William & Mary. At Lane Stadium in honor of Morgan Harrington, 65,000 people participated in a moment of silence, and other students stressed the importance of remembering Tech’s seven Medal of Honor recipients in contrast to more infamous alumni. We do not run from our problems, we face up to them; we honor the loved ones who have left us, and we always remember the values the university stands for.
At last, when we sit down to think about that final question of what we are thankful for, the answer is clearly and inexorably tied to the last question. The harsh reality is, everyone goes through rough times — and that’s without being 137 years old like Tech is — and whether we like to admit it or not, we as individuals always need friends to remind us how to and why we should give thanks. The Tech community, being nothing more than a collection of individual peoplw gathered in the common goal of higher learning, is bound by the same rule. If Tech were to have a Hokie Thanksgiving dinner for all the alumni and students around the world, even without knowing everyone, we would all be thankful for everyone seated around the table. In the end, that’s really all that matters. Just as our family is what we are most thankful for at home, our Hokie family is the most important aspect of the Tech community, and it is for our Hokie family that we are all most thankful.
Finally, in the off-chance that the trooper who pulled me this summer sees this column, have a merry Christmas, officer.