Out of all of the events on campus this semester, the Campus Activities and Programs (CAP) Center hosts most of them. This Friday is the “Through the Decades” event, wherein the different decades leading up to the 2000’s will have different activities based on their respective time period (ex. 80’s dance party, 50’s era milkshakes, 70’s era disco ball plants). However, their tossed-out think tank notes that I dug up from the trash spoke of a few different “decades” that didn’t make the cut. Here are five decades that didn’t quite make the list, straight from the bison’s mouth.

1. The 1940s

This should be fairly obvious why. Our entrance into WWII took up the former half of the decade, but it would have been pretty neat if there was a little shooting range set up somewhere. We could take potshots at German crosses or test out heavy artillery on the squirrels. Goodness knows those fluffy-tailed rats have it coming.

2. The 2000s

What good came from the 2000s, I wonder? Apart from my birth, the Wii and the flip phone, I’m not too sure. The 2000s was the wild west of the internet days, and it coincided with the rise of reality TV (the only thing that rivals the satire section when it comes to raw authenticity). Clearly the event here was some failed “Survivor” clone that only got canned because it violated social distancing guidelines. 

3. The 1930s

The Great Depression happened. The only interesting thing that happened there was all of the mobster stuff going down, with bootlegging and the like. All I see in the notes underneath is: “No money, no excitement, nothing! Bread lines are so 2020!”

4. The 1860s

Yeah, this wasn’t going to make the cut anyways. While the fashion of the times was fairly limited to blue and grey (how drab!), the weaponry was fairly standard as well. You had guns, cannons, horses and you couldn’t just send a drone strike out like you can now. The closest thing to that would be air-balloon bombing. Plus, planes wouldn’t be a thing until 50 years later in World War I. The CAP Center was absolutely right in trashing this one.

Well, I hope this brief look into the CAP Center’s dustbin helped you to see what you were missing out on in terms of content. As for me, I’m going to celebrate in my own way: going to the 1860s. That’s right. I’m going back exactly 157 years to the Ford’s Theatre showing of “Our American Cousin” on April 14, 1865. I’m sure nothing will go wrong there.