Spring Break
Oxford summers cast college town in different light
Elizabeth Miller
Issue date: 8/28/07 Section: OpEd Page
Last May, I was less than enthusiastic about spending my summer in Oxford. After all, I thought, what could Oxford offer apart from Miami? Cornfields? Like many students, I assumed that the university made this town. We put Oxford on the map. We bring in the commerce, we populate the streets. During the summer, I expected Oxford to be a vacant ghost town with rolling tumbleweed and eerie silences along High Street, like a scene out of a bad western drama. I couldn't have been more wrong.
Oxford is a thriving community when the students aren't here. I fell in love with small town life. Every Thursday night in the summer there are outdoor concerts uptown. Families, children and grandparents bring their blankets and folding chairs and pack the park. Middle school and high school kids are free to roam the uptown streets, because it's a place where neighbors know each other (and yes, I mean that in the most cliché, Midwest small-town sense of the phrase). For us Miami students, this isn't the uptown Thursday night that we know.
Summer Saturday mornings bring a charming farmer's market uptown, too. The local stands are full of fresh produce, handcrafted jewelry, artwork, and if you catch it on a good day, even a bongo drum band. I fell in love with the homemade cranberry muffins that the older ladies sold under their tents. Every day the uptown fountains were crowded with splashing toddlers, with all the moms huddled nearby catching up on the week's gossip. During the weeknights, I would take long bike rides out into the Oxford countryside. I learned to appreciate those cornfields that I used to ridicule.
I had mixed emotions on move-in day when I saw SUVs full of dressers, boxes and Lacoste clothes clogging the city that had been so quiet all summer. Don't get me wrong, Miami. I love, too. You're just, well, different. And Oxford is different when you're here. You may give me everything I've ever wanted in a college. That ideal college experience-or whatever they call it in the brochures. Football on the quads, a thriving nightlife, and hot guys-I mean, good academics. But the town of Oxford in the summer is a place where I can walk uptown in my old overalls, and not get looked at twice. A place where life is a little quieter, and a little more genuine. A place where contentment is found on porch swings and big back yards. That's the Oxford I now know and love.
Of course, I gladly welcomed back the students for the beginning of school. But I have a new perspective of the time that I spend in Oxford. I'm here for four years, just momentarily making Miami and Oxford my home. These people, the townies-a questionably endearing term-they really live here. This is their permanent home. As students, we need to remember that they were here first-they'll be here when we leave. This isn't their four year temporary life, this is their home. I wish every Miami student could see the Oxford that I saw this summer. To truly know Oxford is to respect and appreciate the community that graciously hosts us-all 15,000 of us.
Oxford is a thriving community when the students aren't here. I fell in love with small town life. Every Thursday night in the summer there are outdoor concerts uptown. Families, children and grandparents bring their blankets and folding chairs and pack the park. Middle school and high school kids are free to roam the uptown streets, because it's a place where neighbors know each other (and yes, I mean that in the most cliché, Midwest small-town sense of the phrase). For us Miami students, this isn't the uptown Thursday night that we know.
Summer Saturday mornings bring a charming farmer's market uptown, too. The local stands are full of fresh produce, handcrafted jewelry, artwork, and if you catch it on a good day, even a bongo drum band. I fell in love with the homemade cranberry muffins that the older ladies sold under their tents. Every day the uptown fountains were crowded with splashing toddlers, with all the moms huddled nearby catching up on the week's gossip. During the weeknights, I would take long bike rides out into the Oxford countryside. I learned to appreciate those cornfields that I used to ridicule.
I had mixed emotions on move-in day when I saw SUVs full of dressers, boxes and Lacoste clothes clogging the city that had been so quiet all summer. Don't get me wrong, Miami. I love, too. You're just, well, different. And Oxford is different when you're here. You may give me everything I've ever wanted in a college. That ideal college experience-or whatever they call it in the brochures. Football on the quads, a thriving nightlife, and hot guys-I mean, good academics. But the town of Oxford in the summer is a place where I can walk uptown in my old overalls, and not get looked at twice. A place where life is a little quieter, and a little more genuine. A place where contentment is found on porch swings and big back yards. That's the Oxford I now know and love.
Of course, I gladly welcomed back the students for the beginning of school. But I have a new perspective of the time that I spend in Oxford. I'm here for four years, just momentarily making Miami and Oxford my home. These people, the townies-a questionably endearing term-they really live here. This is their permanent home. As students, we need to remember that they were here first-they'll be here when we leave. This isn't their four year temporary life, this is their home. I wish every Miami student could see the Oxford that I saw this summer. To truly know Oxford is to respect and appreciate the community that graciously hosts us-all 15,000 of us.
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