COLUMN: In praise of a Penn tradition

From Jeremy Reiss', "Vegas, Baby," Fall '00 From Jeremy Reiss', "Vegas, Baby," Fall '00Graduating seniors, you'll appreciate this story. About a year ago, I was working on a 15-page History paper until very late at night. When it got to a certain point -- my watch read 5 a.m. -- I decided enough was enough. Instead of proofreading and making sure the paper was as good as it could be, I packed it in and struggled toward bed. It was Hey Day, a rising Penn senior's rite of passage, and nothing was going to stop me. This Friday, members of the Class of 2001 will experience the same feeling of styrofoam debauchery. Like many traditions we follow in college, few of us really know why, how or when the idea for Hey Day came about. For the record, in 1916, Class Day -- which began in 1865 to supplement Penn's final graduation exercises -- was merged with Straw Hat Day, on which juniors donned straw "skimmer" hats. Hey Day was started in 1931 as an outgrowth of the two events. The procession from the Junior Balcony in the Quadrangle to College Hall began in 1949. Each successive class participates without questioning the origins of the hats, the canes and the red T-shirts. Without inhibitions, we open our mouths and take a bite because those who came before us did, and because it is as much a part of our Penn identity as our diploma. Try explaining to students from another university why you get up on this particular day and become inebriated by noon, and they might ask why any other Friday wouldn't suffice. Explain the styrofoam hat thing and they'd probably think you're part of some weird Ivy League cult. But inside the world of Penn, as at any other school, we can equate our lives -- as my friend put it -- with the land of make-believe. We pretend that things like Hey Day, the Econ Scream, throwing toast at football games and senior screamers are the most important activities in the world, even though the outside world may not understand. It doesn't matter how strange we appear, because we are all doing it together. We're certainly not the only school where milestones are celebrated with unique traditions that build unity. Slope Day, during which students of all class levels gather on a hill -- prepared with beverages of all types -- is Cornell University's annual day of collective imbibement. At Syracuse, of-age students gather as early as 8 a.m. in a campus bar to drink 8-ounce beers -- called splits -- to celebrate the end of the year. And if throwing toast sounds kind of hokey, think about the importance some schools place on pranks like stealing the opponent's mascot. An analogy can even be made to other, more mainstream traditions. Many on this campus, for instance, have celebrated Easter or Passover -- or both -- over the past week. We carry out the rituals we've grown accustomed to, though some do so more strictly than others. To an outside observer with no knowledge of either holiday, practices like hunting for Easter eggs, eating bitter herbs and refraining from bread products might very well seem ludicrous. But to followers of the respective religions, each is a meaningful tradition to be taken seriously. As a Jew, I know the history behind many of the rituals we follow on Passover. But do we know for sure that all of those events -- for instance, the parting of the Red Sea -- actually happened the way we've been told? Do the rituals serve any substantive purpose except for instilling a sense of identity? Those are questions I'm not sure the most Orthodox observers could answer. But it is that sense of identity that draws me in. The idea that Passover brings my family together and give us a reason to celebrate our heritage is the most important reason I keep many of the traditions. And traditions like Hey Day have a similar effect. Just as life as a Jew, a Christian, a Muslim or a Hindu isn't complete without gathering together periodically with family and friends to commemorate our uniqueness, life as a Penn student isn't complete without the march to the president's office on Hey Day. No matter what our diplomas say, your Penn experience isn't complete without biting a friend's hat. And it isn't complete without throwing toast down from the stands at least once. As it turns out, I ended up doing pretty well on that History paper, but maybe I could have done a little better. Years from now, though, I won't care, I won't remember and I doubt I'll save a copy. But I'll still keep that disgusting, half-eaten styrofoam hat in a safe place. That's not leaving my sight.