Don't you have anything better to do with your time? Why do you want to sleep outside for the better part of a month? Why invest so much time and energy for marginally better seats to a two-hour basketball game? Why do you make such a sacrifice?
These are the questions every "hard-core" Cameron Crazy must answer to the masses of sane undergraduates who will enjoy hot showers, dry beds and all the creature comforts for the next week or two, and will still get the privilege of attending the big basketball games this spring. They will scoff as members of the top tents beat a path to the Student Infirmary. "Why do they do it?" the average student will ask.
And as of last week, I was asking these questions myself.
Despite being a two-year veteran of top-five tents, I had little motivation to camp out again this year. There are a lot of bad things associated with tenting at Duke. I have gotten sick both years: Bronchitis in 1999, a strange, whooping-cough type ailment in 1998. I have seen drunken line monitors forget to do checks, leaving campers overnight in subfreezing temperatures. I've struggled with "tent nazis" who constantly complain that we are not "hard core" enough. I've been so cold that I've wondered if I would ever regain feeling in my toes. I've observed a system that-no matter who is in charge-will inevitably be corrupt, as students will always think of creative ways to sit besides their peers who have sacrificed so much. I've been frustrated with "fans" who claim to be the biggest fans in the world who yet can't distinguish between Terrence Morris and Terrence Newby. And most of all, I'm sick of scheduling a month of my life around a man with a bright blue jacket and a bullhorn.
My mind was made up-I wasn't going to tent. When my friends dragged me out there last week, I didn't have the heart to say no at first-but I was convinced I would drop out at the earliest convenient excuse.
And then I spent a night in Krzyzewski-ville. Not one of those silly one person per tent situations, but a night when seven people per tent had to be there.
It was great to get back to the spirit of K-ville-hanging out with friends, simultaneously wishing there was a check and savoring the unbridled joy that permeates the tent city. I felt very close to my six tentmates-granted, you're going to feel very close to people when you fit seven bodies in a structure designed for four, but I digress.
K-ville is a strange phenomenon. Right now, when it's still just the hardest of the "hard-core" tenters, there is none of the animosity which defines the line later in the tenting period. When tent seven is in danger of missing a check, you don't hear cheering, only people scrambling to find the tent's representative. There is a tremendous sense of community out there.
"Building community" is all the rage these days. It can be used to justify a residential overhaul, a new curriculum and other such high-level gobbledygook. But if you want to really want to build community, take a look at the patch of grass in front of Cameron Indoor Stadium-the bonds that tie these citizens together are much stronger than any selective house or student organization I can remember.
And what is the price of joining this community? A few cold nights and wet feet. Hey, we all have to make sacrifices.
Norm Bradley is a Pratt junior and editorial page editor of The Chronicle.
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