EDITORIAL: "The Trouble With Toast"

They were confiscatingThey were confiscatingtoast at Franklin FieldThey were confiscatingtoast at Franklin Fieldon Saturday. We haveThey were confiscatingtoast at Franklin Fieldon Saturday. We haveabsolutely, positivelyThey were confiscatingtoast at Franklin Fieldon Saturday. We haveabsolutely, positivelyno idea why. But weThey were confiscatingtoast at Franklin Fieldon Saturday. We haveabsolutely, positivelyno idea why. But wewant our toast back.They were confiscatingtoast at Franklin Fieldon Saturday. We haveabsolutely, positivelyno idea why. But wewant our toast back.__________________________ "Here's a toast, to dear old Penn," goes the final line. Ha, ha! Get it? "Here's a toast" -- throw toast? Oh, we're wacky. But this age-old tradition has been featured on admissions videos and regarded with awe by other tradition-starved Ivies. But so much for tradition. For some inexplicable reason, Franklin Field's private security force decided to confiscate bags of toast from spectators at Saturday's football game. It appears that the Frank Rizzo-wannabes would like to prevent individuals from monopolizing toast. Of course, this is ludicrous. We have yet to see anyone try to lob a Hefty bag of toast off the upper deck. Furthermore, it is rather difficult for one person to send dozens of pieces of toast hurtling through the stratosphere all at once. Most of us only have two hands. And if someone continues to hurl bread after the word "toast," they look pretty stupid. The way it generally works is that one person in a given group carries the toast and distributes it to other people. By the time toast is thrown, only a social outcast will still hold a full bag of toast. But despite there being no obvious reason why bags of toast should be considered contraband, we have some other questions about the new policy. First of all, toast is a type of food. Guards allow people to bring beverages and snacks -- even whole picnic lunches -- into Franklin Field all the time. So why not bags of toast? How do the guards tell the difference between the type of toast one eats, and the type of toast one throws? How can you discriminate against one form of food and not another? To illustrate this point at the next game, fans might start demonstrating that any type of food can be both the eating type and the throwing type. Unfortunately, this is dangerous and could cause injuries. Several years ago, controversy erupted when people threw frozen bagels at the football game, leaving big black-and-blue bagel bruises on people below. The whole tradition apparently hails from "The Rocky Horror Picture Show," but we're glad no one dresses up like transvestite transsexuals for Saturday games. At Syracuse University, spectators at basketball games once tried throwing oranges, but that hurt the players. At Memphis State, someone who apparently wanted to start a new tradition got in some trouble after he tried throwing a knife about a decade ago. We like our toast tradition just the way it is. Guards at the game Saturday offered no consistent explanation of why bags of toast were not permitted. One pointed to a three-year old policy, but could not point to it in writing. Another also failed to demonstrate a written edict, but was somewhat more convincing because he said the policy was five years old. ?And, evidently, hasn't been enforced since the last time the football team was doing this well. To the best of our knowledge, there is no sign hanging in Franklin Field that prohibits bags of toast. This is disturbing. Guards at the gate simply took the toast without asking patrons to leave it behind. Guards inside Franklin Field took the toast without giving patrons a chance to remove it, after the guards at the gate failed to notice the bags or describe the stepped-up enforcement effort. Okay, so it's only toast. But it's our toast, and anyone who tries to confiscate private property -- without any warning and without citing a well-publicized policy -- has some explaining to do. Technically, at least, we think it's grounds for a class-action lawsuit to recover our stale bread. We certainly hope no one destroyed it. Admittedly, we were surprised to learn that the security guards at the football game had little better to do than confiscate toast. This, of course, leads us to question why there are always so many Spectraguards at Quaker games, especially in the stands where no one is sitting. Funny how while some collect toast, others just seem to "loaf" around. We can explain why there should be toast at Franklin Field. Perhaps the University could explain why we need so many Spectraguards. ?And why we shouldn't throw them off the upper deck.