The many positive, hopeful thoughts expressed by Joseph Montes in his Monday (SN 8/29) column are, sadly, lost by the same problematic mindset that so often stands in the way of community progress. By speaking of East Lansing, as he does, as one of students and "old people," he reveals that trap in his thinking. East Lansing is a community of all people.
Less than 48 hours after too many students propped each other up as they staggered either to the next party or home along Albert Avenue (I was there, I saw), a kid no older than six was playing on his scooter. Is this first-grader among the "old people" trying to block student fun?
Montes says the change has to come "at the top with ordinance-making that considers students needs." Again, he has missed the point. A better beginning toward change is for students to remember they are part of a larger community - a community that has school children living on the same streets as the hardiest party goers, and adults who in this 24/7 world might have to wake up to go to work while some students are trudging bleary-eyed toward home.
Nobody who owns a house in East Lansing has to live here. We can all afford a house somewhere else. We choose to live here because it is a college community. We enjoy and take advantage of the university amenities, and are willing to overlook many of the inconveniences.
We draw the line, as students should, at overwhelming noise at 4 a.m.; trash in streets, sidewalks, and lawns; drunken belligerence and rudeness; and routine, random, alcohol-soaked vandalism.
Montes says East Lansing will be tested in March during the NCAA tournament. In fact, it is tested every weekend and all too often it ends up failing. Residents don't care if students party so long as the Western Hemisphere isn't expected to participate in the hops-drenched frivolities. Party as if you owned the house and your children were in the bedrooms.
We are all neighbors, it is only fitting we should all respect each other and treat each other as neighbors. And, while I'm not sure Athens during the summer is the best test of student/community comity, there is another summer place that exhibits the same friendly openness between students and community. It is, in fact, East Lansing.
For the students in summer school and year-round residents both, East Lansing in the summer is a comfortable, not-pressured, pleasant place where all enjoy concerts, plays, warm summer evenings and strolling along Albert Avenue shaded by the trees and the moonlight. Try it next year. Better yet, try to make it that way all year long.
John Lindstrom
MSU alumnus
