Let's GO....HOKIES!!!!!

Today, in case you've been living under a rock, is the return to classes for the Hokie Nation at Virginia Tech.

In thinking about this post, I admit I've struggled. The mix of emotions I feel about Tech is very mixed indeed. I graduated in '98 and love my alma mater. When I went to school I wasn't a "typical" Hokie. I didn't belong to a frat or play sports. I was a certified hippie. The great thing about Tech is that if you didn't fit the mold there was a mold you would fit. While cliche, it's true...VA Tech student body is a family.

When the shootings happened, like everyone else, I was shocked. Blacksburg is nothing but a bucolic, slow paced, college town. Not a place for a massacre.

When Dateline showed the stories of the victims, I readiy admit I cried like someone from my own family was killed. I can't explain it. I didn't know anybody that was killed or injured, and I really haven't been back to campus since I graduated. I just felt a void like so many others did and still do.

However, I want today to be about the awesome things at Tech. I want to remember sitting on the War Memorial overlooking the Drillfield at night, watching The Kind at South Main Street Cafe, grooving to Rubicon Crossing at Champs, doing beer bongs with buddies before football games in my room at Pritchard, being the last class that roomed in Major Williams residence hall, floating down the New River in a rented tube with your beer tube beside you, eating wings on Sundays at Sharkey's, and finally, being one of thousands of rabid Hokie fans shaking the hell out of their keys during a "key play" at Lane Stadium (pre-expansion).

I love Virginia Tech! God bless the families directly affected by the senseless tragedy and the overall student body, past and present.

Let's GO.....HOKIES!!!!