#69: Paint Beta Bridge

This morning was rather chilly and blustery, and I woke up ridiculously early as I always do in anticipation of exams, but as usual I don’t even spend half of the time studying. It reminded me of the morning I woke up at like 6 am on an exam day because Colin Hood guilted me into helping him paint Beta Bridge for his Stud-Co campaign. Now of course he’s too busy to sometimes even acknowledge some of the little people he may have used in his agitated month of political agenda (echem Heather :D), but second year he was milking us for the use of “our” Lambeth apartment in advertising his name from the windows, Profile-Pantsing us, or working the crowd at frat events.

But I didn’t want to disappoint my new friend. Like I said I woke up at 6 and trekked out into the freezing weather to paint his name on the bridge with some of his friends. It was cool I guess, and it was neat to watch the sun come up! I voted in that student election (#65: Vote in the UVa student elections), and he won the Stud Co president position after all :D

            Fun facts about Beta Bridge: shortly after we arrived first year, the weight of the overlying layers of paint accumulated over about thirteen years began to just peel off of the bridge because of the immense weight. It was estimated to be about three inches thick and the two slabs that construction workers had to help peel off weighed around one THOUSAND pounds! This was the second time it had been removed since the tradition really picked up in 1978. What began as graffiti over the RR bridge near the corner was encouraged at Rugby instead for safety reasons, and I think it’s a large part of why there isn’t so much graffiti around Grounds. It’s beautiful. I wish they had analyzed the layers; that’s a great historical preservation of student life right there in one bridge. This year the Beta fraternity is finally moving back to their house on Rugby next to the bridge… I wonder how that will change the culture of Rugby with DU gone.

Thx DU. (for everything).

“A painting is a symbol for the universe. Inside it, each piece relates to the other. Each piece is only answerable to the rest of that little world. So, probably in the total universe, there is that kind of total harmony, but we get only little tastes of it.” - Corita Kent