Editor’s Note: For now over 75 years, The Baylor Line has been publishing vivid storytelling from across the Baylor Family. I don’t think our archives full of deep, inspirational features should live solely on shelves, so we are bringing them back to life in BL Classics. This November 1972 Classic takes the reader down the winding Baylor line, where every student finds their place when waiting for football tickets.
The station wagon door slammed one last time. Kisses were thrown. Dust settled, and I was alone.
But not for long.
Moments later I found my place at Baylor — a place I could call my own, a place I could stand on my own two feet. Though I hadn’t yet an I.D. or a G.P.A., a jersey or a major, I was accepted.
Walking timidly toward that first knotted string of people I had no idea what a big part of my life lines would soon become. I took my place, waited, and bought my beanie.
Since that memorable August day I’ve found a line for every occasion, a myriad of lines in which I can wait. Whatever fits my current fancy — be it chicken-fried or chopped, spiral or looseleaf— it’s available if only I will grasp my I.D. tightly in one hand, my Lariat in the other, and take my place in line.
Although some of my friends seem able to find their way through lines without Lariats, they all agree the I.D. is an absolute necessity for effective line-standing. These plastic coated identification cards are among our most prized possessions here at Baylor. The incoming freshman soon learns that it’s like an American Express card — you “don’t leave home without if.” Since the installation last spring of a Vali-Dine system, I.D.s are inserted into computer terminals which quickly relate the appropriate information. The small machines reveal in seconds if the I.D. is valid, if the student has passed through the line before, if bookstore credit is good, if health, recreation and activity fees are paid, and sometimes if I laundered the card the night before.
The updated I.D. system has accelerated service and provided more efficient controls on the use of campus facilities, but it has put a damper on the “progressive dinners” in which some of Baylor’s less saintly students indulged. These dinners took place (from what I hear) most frequently on steak night in the dorm cafeterias. Bands of hungry students would rove from one cafeteria to another, heaping their plates with steak and the coveted fruit salad. In those days I.D. numbers were merely checked off lists and multi-meal steak eaters were rarely apprehended.
While they may be moving faster, the Baylor lines are still growing longer every day. As I’m now in my third year of collegiate line-standing, I’ve found there are certain bits of etiquette and principles of success that can be applied in order to make the total line experience more enjoyable. With the collaboration of some fellow liners I’ve compiled a list:
• Observe approved coiling patterns while in line.
• Never enter any line in Pat Neff ten minutes before noon.
• Never enter the bookstore during Parent’s Weekend or during the first three weeks of the term.
• Leave the car running during church and exit morning services lickity-split in order to avoid lunch rush.
• Never enter a line behind anyone who looks as though he or she may have friends on the way.
In retrospect I can see that my hours in line, like those with Beowulf, have been an important part of my college education— the kind they call “well- rounded.” I’ve learned patience and endurance, perfected small-talk techniques and book-balancing, and know how many stripes there are in the wallpaper in Collins. As I prepare to leave Baylor and join the impersonal grocery store and bank lines of life, I feel a little sentimental. But who knows, maybe someday, somehow, through and around every crowd there’ll be a Baylor lining.
That Good Old Baylor Line
(adapted for line-standing)
That good old Baylor Line!
That good old Baylor Line!
For football tickets, lunch or Sing
We always stand in line,
We fling our sleeping bogs right down,
By Waco Hall recline,
And there we stay ‘till they’re sold out—
That good old Baylor Line!
That good old Baylor Line!
That good old Baylor Line!
We wait for showers down the hall
And khaki skirts to dry.
Our dates they wait for us downstairs.
Were never there in time;
But let them wait— they always do—
That good old Baylor Line!
That good old Baylor Line!
That good old Baylor Line!
In years to come the line will be
Of kids of yours and mine.
We’ll tell them of the good old days And sadly we will pine
And wish that once again we all
Stood in the Baylor Line!
That good old Baylor Line!
That good old Baylor Line!
We’ll wait until we grow too old
And stars no longer shine.
We never push or shove at all
Except when pressed for time,
And through the Pearly Gates there’ll be
That good old Baylor Line!
