For me, the 2017 homecoming season has reached its conclusion. Samesies for several other schools that celebrated their homecoming this past weekend, like Howard, Hampton and our homecoming co-defendants at Morehouse, Spelman College. Lots of other schools will be celebrating into the next few weeks as we all reminisce on days yonder or, for current students, try to figure out how to finesse your way into turning in a late paper. Do dogs still eat homework?
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Well, there is one tradition that all HBCU homecoming participants know too well: homecoming withdrawal. Everybody hates leaving. Shit, we all hate the winding down of the tailgate, since it means that Sunday is approaching, which for most of us means weโll be heading back to our regularly scheduled programming. As the sun starts to fall, the urgency for hugs, laughs and shooting game thatโs failed for 20 years starts to set in. Why homecoming isnโt a biannual thing is beyond me.
Well, part of the homecoming withdrawal process is the utterance of any number of the 10 phrases below. If you went to an HBCU homecoming, youโve heard or said at least one, if not all 10, because youโre part of the Talented Tenth and there are levels to this shit.
We ALL lose friends out there during tailgate. Itโs tradition. Some dude you rolled in with got separated from the group, and you donโt find him until too much later, sitting alone on a curb crying because heโs beyond drunk and canโt find his friends. Or that woman you came with who found a dude she always wanted to talk to and stayed at his tent THE WHOLE DAY. Or ...
You: What happened, bruh? Where were you?
Him: Man ... XYZ trippinโ. We got into it about me going to hang with my boys and it turned into a seven-hour argument.
You: Break up now.
Pretty self-explanatory.
True story: All they really have to do is go to school, stay on effective birth control and enjoy the shit out of the four years. Oversimplification when black college means financial-aid-office shenanigans and that life can life the fuck out of you? Yes. Yes, it is. But can it be that it was all so simple then? Yes. Yes, it can be.
Homecoming is a time to see people whom most of us havenโt seen in a year. Some variation of this convo is destined to happen. Not about you. Iโm talking about somebody else.
But remember, kiddies, weโre all somebody else to somebody else.
I know, pookie. I know.
Of course you didnโt. Nobody did. They werenโt when you knew them.
Also self-explanatory.
Embellishment mine.
Or was that just me?
If that was you, you are an idiot.
Because of course we are.
Straight From
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