Traditions make A&M what it is. Traditions change.

That said, If one reflects on the history of the Bonfire tradition, it is clear that it started not as a monumental burning of old growth logs, but as essentially a trash fire containing old pallets, demolished structures and an outhouse and grew into the undertaking it became prior to the accident. The symbolism was not changed.

While working on the bonfire starting in 64, every facet of the enterprise seemed dangerous and I was amazed that there were so few serious injuries. I realize that many now hold the revised tradition in great esteem, but I wonder if it is worth the lives or even limbs of college students to express a symbolic desire to beat the hell out of TU.

I question whether the tradition should return to it's origin as a trash fire or maybe be re-direct the human energy into some project that does less damage to the envionment and possibly even benefits people. Perhaps the many manhours expended on cutting, transporting and burning valuable timber could be redirected into a project like Habitat with Aggies building a huge number of homes in a new "Bonfire Build" traditon.

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you're about 20 years late with this idea...


but FWIW, I think the thousands of people on the lawn watching the houses burn would look bad for the University

I have no doubt that someone would have suggested something like this before. There are probably thousands of beneficial projects which could use the re-channeled energies of Aggies and result in more than a big fire.

The advantage of the big fire was that is was always redoable, and every class had a connection through a similar project.

If you build houses, 10-15 years down the road, you'll be building houses in Caldwell...then Dime Box...see?

Not to mention, you either have to get some students certified to run HVAC, and electrical, and plumbing...or contract it out... very few helping out would have more than 4 years experience, so you always get a "friday" project that somebody has to deal with for decades...

If you have different projects for different years, you lose the connection between classes. If one project is noticeably more difficult than another, you'll even get resentment, and students that feel like they missed out because of bad timing...

[This message has been edited by TexasRebel (edited 9/25/2009 11:20a).]

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Perhaps the many manhours expended on cutting, transporting and burning valuable timber could be redirected into a project like Habitat

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Aggies do plenty of service projects.

Bonfire is by Aggies and for Aggies.

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If you build houses, 10-15 years down the road, you'll be building houses in Caldwell...then Dime Box...see?

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I'll play devils advocate here. Over the last hundred or so years, the drives to cut have probably gotten longer and farther away from campus.

trees grow back

two of the major cut sites that I know of were the Texas World Speedway, and Hwy 47...

neither one was much of a drive from campus.

If nothing else, Bonfire also slowed the construction around here... to me, and many locals, that was a good thing...

[This message has been edited by TexasRebel (edited 9/25/2009 2:11p).]

Yeah, I wouldn't be seriously concerned about the Brazos Valley running out of trees.

building houses sucks... im not doing bonfire to be charitable, im doing it first and foremost to go have fun with friends... how about instead of having 80000 people wasting their time standing around watching people run into each other all saturday we all go work at soup kitchens