BALLARO: Ode to Brower Commons

Food was an essential part of my college experience at Rutgers.

This article goes out to all the students who have ever needed a bite to eat on a Monday night, after cramming an essay in at Alexander Library on the College Avenue campus. This article also goes out to all the first-years, those who never had empty stomachs after the dining halls closed while living on campus.

Brower Commons on the College Avenue campus. I love you, but you just were not cutting it. Takeout, though, does still hold a small spot in my heart — or stomach, more appropriately.

The crinkling of plastic bags and styrofoam packaging sends me right back to long, overnight essay sessions for Expository Writing. And who could forget the twinkle in a first-year’s eye after his or her first crunch into a fried mac and cheese bite?

While most people will mention Bite Night on Mondays or wings/nugget night on Thursdays, the crown jewel was on Tuesdays, sandwich night. This was because the subs were big enough to last for two meals, making them ideal for long night cram sessions. Or just one if you are anything like me.

Do not get me wrong, the joyous sin of a chicken nugget covered in mashed potatoes and gravy is unforgettable. But the heart and soul of Brower Commons takeout are, to me, the subs.

I still remember the sandwich lines. You would fill out a paper slip with your order and wait in the basement of Brower Commons for your name to be called. If you were a pro, you would grab a fistful of slips and pre-fill them out to get a head start on the line.

God bless the dining hall workers who were assigned to takeout. And God bless how they could fit so much tuna into one sub. All of the Brower Commons workers were the real MVPs.

One memory, in particular, comes to mind of a fateful sub night back in my sophomore year. The takeout room was packed, and the line was overflowing out the door. It had been a half-hour, my sandwich was two orders from being called and I was ready to split. As I stood patiently in the corner, a couple was fornicating on the soda machine next to me. This was a fairly normal sight for takeout, so I disregarded it.

“Michelle.” Nothing. “Michelle,” the Brower Commons worker repeated, holding the sandwich. Crickets. “Michelle? MICHELLE. MICHELLE!” Commotion fills the room. Where is Michelle? The room is on the precipice of mob violence. The entire sandwich operation has come to a standstill.

Lo and behold, guess who pulls herself away from her love-making session on the Coca-Cola-branded soft drink dispenser next to me? Michelle. She grabs her sandwich and returns to her canoodling.

Now, I want you to look me dead in the eye, and tell me you think the boyfriend would have been ready for his order to be called next?

No. Had you assumed that, you must have thought we live in a world with a kind God.

“John?”

This couple had reckless abandon.

“JOHN.”

Michelle and John were nihilists. They were driving 120 mph toward the edge of a cliff with complete disregard for all around them.

“JOHN!”

There was nothing that could tear these two apart. Looking at it, maybe I am the cruel one for not understanding these star-crossed lovers. The way their hands flailed up and down over the soda machine's ice dispenser and Powerade lever looked like that scene out of Titanic with the car. Jack and Rose seemed to have nothing over John and Michelle.

My only wish is that you, reader, may be so lucky as to find your John or Michelle one day — the person that makes you think it is socially acceptable to not be prepared for when your sandwich order is called on the takeout line.

So, what is the point in all this reminiscing? Who is really to say?

Jokes aside, the college experience and education itself are more encompassing than just what we take away from the classroom.

The food was never particularly nutritional nor good, for that matter, at Brower Commons. It is kind of disgusting to remember the stuff we called “food,” which I thought was okay to put in my body during my undergraduate years.

In a way, I cherish how food brought me closer together with my peers at Rutgers. Things at Zoom University are so sterile and perfunctory. Despite being able to bring people from thousands of miles apart to the same classroom, I feel alone and distant.

The empty dining halls at Zoom University just leave something to be desired in my eyes. 

Anthony Ballaro is a School of Arts and Sciences senior majoring in classics and public health. His column, "Hindsight is 20/21," runs on alternate Thursdays.

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