What about Bob? 75th and (Thank God) Final Column!

Author: Bob Wainwright

Well, they say all good things must come to an end. Now, if only that were the case with my column. The "good" part, I mean. Because this is the last one. I'm stopping on number 75, the diamond anniversary. And it's a good thing too, because I'm plumb out of ideas. I've been writing these things since freshman year, back when Clinton was President and our national crisis of the moment wasn't SARS, it was Y2K.
I went through some of my early columns and I found I was talking about things like falling through the ceiling in Battell on a Saturday night and filling out my Census 2000 form. I didn't think they were very funny.
Looking over the columns from sophomore year, I noticed that the level of humor was a little more high brow. In September, I seemed to be particularly proud of myself after rhyming Al Gore's campaign running mate with a Coors Light campaign slogan. The rhyme consisted of"Lieberman" and "Hey Beer Man!" In hindsight, I don't really know what to say about that. In November, I devoted half of a column to not being able to ask for Grey Poupon at Fire and Ice, for fear that the waiter would think I was joking. There's nothing I love more than mustard, but my companion was eating while I waited, so I thought it best to ketch up. I also talked about naming my dog, "Peeve," just so I could introduce him as my pet Peeve. And in the beginning of the tennis season, following a long weekend trip to Bates, I wrote my finest column at the time - devoted solely to male flatulence in a cramped van.
Junior year, my first column began, "The school year is upon us, and we all know what that means: three months of beautiful warm weather, lazy afternoons lying on the beach, and vegemite in the cafeteria." I was in Australia. I was also being obnoxious. Even while abroad, I was determined to keep "What About Bob" from going down under.
Which brings me to an important point. Some people have asked me how I got this column in the first place. Did I try out? No. Did I convince an editor they needed a humor column? No. What I did was I applied to be features editor freshman year. And then, when I got the position, I gave myself my own column. It's a good life strategy: put yourself in a position where you can do what you want. It's how Tori Spelling got a starring role on 90210 and Britney Spears got her own movie. It's even how Bush ended up in the oval office.... Who am I kidding? I own Crossroads.
While in Australia, I wrote five columns in all, explaining the culture as best I could. In one instance, I described sneezing inside a Range Rover in the outback, followed by an attempt to wipe off the snot by turning on the windshield wipers. I also described bursting into tears when my sky diving tandem instructor told me the chute wasn't opening, only to feel kind of stupid for the four minutes it took us to float gently to the ground.
Once back on my home turf of Middlebury for the rest of my junior year, the ideas started coming again as "What About Bob" broadened its demographic by including such topics as bringing a pet monkey to Angela's, a drunken giraffe in a social house, Osama bin Laden receiving a Massachusetts driver's license, and a piece of wood sitting on my desk that I called "my writer's block."
It was during that time that I also wrote my fiftieth column, which began something like this: "Who could have known back in January of 2000 that my first column, an article that was only read by three people to my knowledge, would eventually grow into a features' fixture with a weekly readership of almost twice that original number? I sure didn't."
Before I knew it, senior year was upon me, and in an effort to make sure "What About Bob" didn't get bumped by a growing number of features columns, I took a page from my own book and applied to be features editor once again. More importantly, the column changed in two ways. 1) It became more focused and opinionated. For instance, in October, I described noticing "Columbus = Genocide" scribbled on a sidewalk in Michigan. It affected me deeply, so I informed the artist that Columbus was born in Genoa, not Genocide.
The second way the column changed was that it shrank, thereby becoming an actual column. To usher in this new format, I wrote a "What About Bob" on brevity, which stated important facts such as... The shortest inaugural address was a mere 135 words, given by George Washington, while the longest was 9,000, given by William Henry Harrison. Of course, Harrison caught pneumonia and died a month later, thereby proving brevity's best.
Since then, I've written 14 more columns, all of which (if you really care) can be downloaded. The address is http://homepage.mac.com/rwainwri/whataboutbob. "What About Bob" on the World Wide WAB. There's something else you should know too. For anyone who's ever wondered how to make a good joke, my advice is to always keep your eyes and ears open and to seek out the ironies in life. They're there, you just have to find them. Don't believe me? Check out the article on "Bowling for Columbine" to the right. And when you've done that, just take a glance at the name of the person whose quote has been highlighted. And there you go - a joke waiting to be made.
And with that, let me just say that I've had a great time the past four years writing for The Campus. The friends I've made here I will cherish always. And to everyone who's ever written me or just told me about a certain column, you always made my day. I never know who's reading these things, but there is nothing I love more in life than making someone laugh.