Yearbooks have always been time capsules designed to forever link us to those warm and fuzzy, sugar-on-top memories we’ve experienced throughout our time in school, right? Blah! I hope you’ve caught my subtle attempts at sarcasm, and I pray you read on with a sense of humor and an open mind.

To this rapscallion, yearbooks will forever be as arbitrary as that $300 faux ruby-encrusted class ring that you “just had to have” in high school. Don’t lie, you know what I’m talking about: that tacky gold band with the raised lettering reminding you that you were a Cardinal and you graduated in 2001. Remember that gem? Great investment, right?

How about that “sweet” teal-and-gold letterman’s jacket with your name neatly stitched over two crossed tennis racquets? I’m sure you pull that relic out every time you have a big date or a funeral to attend.

High school memorabilia is quickly abandoned the moment you move into your college dorm. So imagine my surprise when I found out that Guilford College still offered a yearbook. I honestly thought yearbooks in college had been retired alongside the AMC Pacer and Leif Garrett’s career.

The Guilford yearbook is promoted as being free, but really you’ve already paid the cash. Relax, my conspiracy mongers; this isn’t some well-hidden secret. Just speak with Adrienne Craig, Director of Student Activities, and she’ll break it down like a science.

The $30,000 budget to produce the yearbook is accumulated from the activity fees paid by traditional students – and only traditional students – hence the reason continuing education students cannot be included in the publication, but that is a whole other rant.

CCE students wishing to voice concern on this matter should feel free to contact CCE/SGA President Lakecia Boyd at [email protected] .

The major question is whether to have a yearbook or not, and I have the answer. Yes and No. Frustrating, aren’t I? Let me to explain.

For me, the answer is no. Guilford College should sack the yearbook and use the money left over for student’s needs and not frivolous social reminders. Every student could benefit from an increased budget for printing supplies in the computer lab and extra shelf space for real books like A Confederacy of Dunces or On the Road.

However, if you’re one of the many who can’t let go of the past or if you’re a future scrap-booker, the answer could be yes. I can’t make that call for you, but I pray to every God, Jehovah and Big Boy burger that you decide not to become a scrap-booker, or worse yet, a Yuppie. Yikes!

So many of the students in favor of this book have regurgitated the same phrase again and again about how it captures the best times of their lives. Allow me to figuratively break wind on your clich symphony.

Do you honestly think college is the best time of your life? This is college, and it is meant for you to continue through growing pains and make grievous errors like, “She’s my high school sweetheart, she lives in Vermont and we’re going to last!” to the cringing, “How can one little pill mess me up?” to my personal favorite, “He looked like John Mayer and said he loved me, so how could he take my virginity and cheat on me with my R.A.?”

By nature, we’re idiots and need time to shake it out of our system. That is what college is about. It is the journey after college that begins the best times of our lives, and they aren’t supposed to end if we do it right.

So, a yearbook in college? I’d rather live in the now and rock in the future, but for all of you “I’m the clown who came to town to sign your annual upside down” fans, rest assured that the ’04-’05 version of The Quaker will arrive this semester, and the ’05-’06 will be issued next Fall.

To each his own, I suppose; so Godspeed and don’t forget to read some real books.