Author: pablofromtexas

In Aggieland, there’s a tunnel that connects West Campus Garage to Kyle Field. It takes about 3 minutes to walk through the thing and you’ll often see chalk drawings all over the walls inside the tunnel. They mainly advertise clubs, groups, and many other campaigns that are taking place on campus. But sometimes you’ll be lucky enough to find some really interesting artwork.

I was lucky on 28th of August. I saw a boy and his tiger taking a nap right there in the tunnel.

You ought to know this, but if you don’t, that’s Calvin and Hobbes. They’re comic strip characters created by Bill Watterson. And it’s the greatest comic strip to ever exist. We are lucky to be alive during a time where we can read Calvin and Hobbes. If you’ve never read a Calvin and Hobbes strip, there’s always one posted in the Basement level of the YMCA building.

I’ll tell you something: Once, in middle school, I walked into my social studies class and found a great big hardback book in the metal basket under the seat. Some unfortunate student had forgotten it there, so I picked it up. It was from the library; a collection of Calvin and Hobbes comic strips, like an anthology. I read it, and I couldn’t put it down. So I kept it. To whomever checked out the book and “lost” it, I am so very kinda sorry. And thanks for giving me the chance to read this amazing work of art.

We were supposed to talk about mammals today and the first thought that came to mind was the exotic. Then I scrolled through the camera roll on my iPhone and found that image from the tunnel. Calvin and Hobbes are just two comic strip characters. Hobbes is a (stuffed) tiger. Calvin is boy. They’re both fake. Parts of the imagination. But you can’t tell me they aren’t mammals:

A warm-blooded vertebrate animal of a class that is distinguished by the possession of hair or fur, females that secrete milk for the nourishment of the young, and (typically) the birth of live young. (Oxford English Dictionary)

That’s philosophy of language for you, à la Bertrand Russell. In fact, Calvin and Hobbes are named after philosphers: John Calvin and Thomas Hobbes, respectively.

Welcome to Construction, pardon the A&M!!

There is a particular bird indigenous to urban areas with rapidly growing populations and that is the crane. College Station is one of those areas and cranes are always flying in the sky somewhere over Aggieland.

Here I have captured two cranes that hang prominently in the morning sky. Their existence there is ephemeral — they may not be there next month, or even next week. Their presence may be needed elsewhere, perhaps moving further southwest down University Drive.

Here, on a cloudy morning, two cranes float somewhere along Wellborn Road. There’s just no escaping these birds, one day they’re on one corner of a popular intersection, and the next they’re off down the road by some corner that will soon be the home of thousands of students.

Aggieland is a bustling and growing place. New buildings and apartments are popping up all over the place. Aggieland may never see the end of construction and development, for better or worse.

There is no lack of records describing all the buildings that have once stood over Aggieland. As you walk across Academic Plaza, you can encounter various grassmarkers with plaques that look like headstones. They will list the name of a former building, how long it stood, and the cause of its destruction. Some by razing, others by fire.

Before the beautiful and famous Academic Building stood Old Main, and before Central Campus Garage stood the old A&M Creamery. The Houston Chronicle called said this change made A&M “a little less agricultural.”

I wonder what A&M will look like in a 100 years. And I wonder if those cranes will still be around then.