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Do you remember when a noun ceased to be simply a "person, place or
thing"? It may be that my vision is skewed by a myopic view of my own
generation, but I feel like it was some time in the mid 1980s that we
began to learn that a noun was a "person, place, thing or idea."
And it was a good thing too, because "gladpad" may be the first word
that may be all four at any given time.
Alpha Chapter (1995) - My first shade of
independence. The room where GladPad was written. The first
GladPad was in Greencastle, Indiana in Lucy Rowland Hall, on the 2nd
floor, room 222. On the windowsill in there, you may find those seven
letters carved into the wood.
Beta Chapter (1996) - This room, on the first floor
of Lucy Rowland, room 129, was perhaps the finest room that North Quad
had to offer. Two conjoined chambers with our own private bathroom,
there were three of us in there. Hung from the vast network of water
pipes that excavated our ceiling was a sign that read: Welcome to the
Glad Pad where it's easy being green.
Gamma Chapter (1997) - I moved in to the great Rector
Hall during my Junior year of college. By then the concept of GladPad
was maturing, a placard sat nicely on the door identifying it as such.
Delta Chapter (1998) - Delta, the mathematical symbol
of change. These were the days of the "Portable GladPad" as it was
written on the inside of my guitar case that followed me around Europe
that Spring. This was the first time that I had charted a trip and
traveled alone, playing the guitar for lunch money from Cannes to
Copenhagen.
Epsilon Chapter (1998) - This was the year when
GladPad came to full fruition. I had secured one of the most
sought-after rooms in Rector Hall. A quaint single room with a palatial
balcony overlooking the grassy quad, it had a pleasant view of
the setting sun every evening over the Union Building. It was during
this year that the Legion of GladPadiators (TM) was born and a large
sign hung proudly from the balcony. After being reprimanded by the
North Quad Administrative office for the sign, the student body asked
that the sign remain, promising that none of them would hang anything
from their rooms.
DePauw University is an insanely
Greek school, with nearly 90% of the students living in the one of the
dozens of sorority and fraternity houses.
Before Greek Rush that Fall, as was common practice, the
fraternities and sororities had begun advertising and getting their new
slogans out there. And GladPad was right on their tail. GladPadiator
versions of each of their slogans and advertisements were posted around
campus, often much to the chagrin of your more hardcore fratties. With
the resounding message that GladPad had "all the homoerotica of the
real thing with none of the stress and costs," the Residence Hall
Association took matters into their own hands and GladPad was included
in the Rush
festivities that year. After Rush, the front page of the DePauw,
the university newspaper, broadcast the
"unfortunate"
truth.
In the same issue, the
winner of
the best room on campus was announced. GladPad had changed the
culture of the university forever, kinda.
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