Senior hall ripe with tradition - including bad behavior

By Dennis Meredith

A mosh pit without music?  Some twisted war-zone where you have to watch out for incoming water grenades and sticky soda land mines?

At the center of FHS is senior hall — a simple hallway lined with shabby-looking, lockers. It’s a place as steeped in tradition as it is in generation upon generation of soda stains, not to mention the mold that grows in lockers on old sandwiches and gym shorts.

The tradition of senior hall begins anew every year, as any underclassmen hapless enough to receive one of these prized lockers is summarily booted out.  One of the newly christened seniors then descends to claim what they demand is rightfully theirs. Why is senior hall such a prized piece of real-estate? Is it simply, as one senior put it, that “the seniors had these lockers when we were sophomores and juniors, and now we should have them?” Are we better off from this blind obedience to ritual?

The most respectable answer that a senior gives for their locker tyranny is a simple desire to be near their friends and have some social time in between classes. You have to respect that.  Everyone needs a place where they can hang out with their friends.

Luckily for everyone, this happens to be right in the middle of the busiest hallway in the whole school. 

Every one of us has experienced a trip down senior hall right as lunch gets over. This journey is like a flu epidemic — try as you might, you just can’t avoid it.  The average time to get through this little hall of horrors is about three minutes, during which a unique social bonding can occur. This is the only place in FHS where half the school attempts to squeeze through a narrow passage made almost impassable by social gatherings that extend well into the flow of traffic.  This is where people get up close and personal and not in a good way — pushing, pulling, grabbing and shoving in every direction.

These gatherings could include an in-hall football game, where some of the players have decided that the passers-by are the opposing team. If you’re having a great day, you might be slammed into a locker next to someone with black eye-liner and a spiked collar who threatens to destroy you with their “vampire power.” Trust me. It happens.

And then there’s the smell. Please, bathing is not optional.  Soap and shampoo are your friends — not just when your in the mood, but every day. Deodorant is not an oppressive tool of our capitalistic society.  Smelling bad is not a right, it’s not a privilege — it’s offensive.  Enough said. 

Traditions die hard. The problems of senior hall may never disappear, but with a little common sense everyone can help make things better. Have a little common sense.  If the traffic is moving really slowly, don’t start pushing, find another time to talk. 

Behave yourself.

And get out of the way.

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