The Tree Committee is probably the only thing I actually did as SGA senior secretary. Fattell and I got assigned to building the cardboard trees for the homecoming dance that fall, and boy was it ever a pain. It was a bunch of hot glue and black cardboard all put together in what we hoped was a tree-like fashion. Once we had constructed the behemoths, we had to construct clusters of balloons to tape to the branches; balancing these creations was no small task. One of the trees was so unstable that the canopy was taken off the trunk and converted into a bush. The night of the dance, I aggressively pointed out our handiwork to those in my party, but no one seemed to care. I always thought those sorts of decorations were pointless, especially since the school pays hundreds of dollars for these pieces of cardboard. Wouldn't it be easier to just bring in some real trees in pots or something?

Next, we had to work on the senior homecoming float. It started out as a volcano, then switched to a pyramid. I think it was some recreation of Pompeii or something. Anyway, Fattell and I volunteered to build palm trees for the project, since we were now experts in that field. We used one of those wide rolls of brown paper to create the bark for the trees. Now, I suspect that most people know that the spikes of palm tree bark points upward. Unfortunately, such logical thinking could not be expected from our female counterparts on the SGA. They insisted that the bark point downward, so that’s how we made them. I’m sure that in the stupidity of the homecoming parade, no one noticed, but it’s the principle of the thing that bothers me. A Roman volcano/Egyptian pyramid theme never made me happy regardless, so I was happy when the whole thing was over.