If near-graduates are worried about missing Shippensburg, the one thing that won’t keep them here is the classic “Ship smell” that wafts into open windows on breezy spring days.

I woke up the other night to the intense smell of poop. My first thought was that a dog pooped in my room, but I do not have any pets at school. I briefly thought it was me, but I have a few years before I run into that problem.

Then, for the longest time, I was

convinced that at some point during the day I had found poop and stuck it in my teal book bag. I mentally retraced my steps trying to think back to when I would have scooped up that treasure — would I have gotten poop after Dr. Drager’s class, or maybe during one of my interviews? If I hadn’t been half-asleep I would have gotten out of bed and searched my teal book bag for the lumpy, brown culprits.

The smell was, of course, fresh cow manure, which periodically manages to infiltrate my apartment, even though I live downtown. So I sprayed some air freshener and went back to bed, still feeling like my face was pressed into a cow patty — a heavily perfumed cow patty.

I do not remember that “Ship smell” on my visits to SU, but I do remember my first few nights in my freshman dorm room — fifth floor of McLean Hall (now “old” McLean). The odor was especially strong because of a cow pasture’s proximity to campus and since we were on the fifth floor, there was very little to obstruct the smell of cow manure wafting on the winds and through our window.

It was always so blistering hot in our dorm room, so our options were to shut the windows and roast or keep them open. Each night my roommate and I would sit on our beds and discuss what to do, but we always made the same decision — to throw open the windows and catch the slight breezes, which unfortunately carried with them a smell just as suffocating as the heat.

With the new, air-conditioned dorms being built, I am not sure how people have recently had the pleasure of trying to sleep in an oven-baked cow patty, but I am sure graduating seniors have similar memories. So if anyone is feeling overly sentimental about leaving Shippensburg, wait for a strong breeze on these spring days and hold on to your graduation caps as you run for the car.

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