A&M administrators have stalled since the beginning. Much of the postponement is easily understandable.
How could the administrators allow Bonfire to come back after it fell? It wasn't their place to. They weren't the heart and soul of it. They didn't build it, even if some of them participated in the past. They were out of touch and negligent in many ways, mostly absorbed in the huge benefits to alumn sentiment and contribution and income from the influx of visitors when it burned. How then could they give the go-ahead for a project that was poorly supervised and, in the end, did not fit into "Vision 20/20"?
The administrators stalled year after year. For the first few years it was self-evident. How can such a dangerous project be easily reembarked upon? The most effective ploy though was to simply say that on-campus Bonfire will not be considered until litigation ceases. Slick. As A&M skirted any responsibility, callously and evasively avoiding its role in the tragedy, a decade was whiled away. In the meantime most of the families of the victims were denied closure and the sense of "Aggie family" that only the ignorant (unwilling to investigate accountability) and the local media perpetuated.
I'm talking about a Bonfire that ignored expert advice contribution in construction from profesors like Hirsch. So how can we go from what could've been and should've been to an oppressively supervised on-campus Bonfire where "building" it means watching it be built by professsional non-students and the scope of cut involvement is questionable.
Many of us were so dyed-in-wool hardcore Bonfire builders that after the collapse, we were shell-shocked; some of us couldn't think of much of another solution than to dive right back in and wonder when we would build Bonfire again, and then made it happen. How else could we recover from the tragedy? Not making Bonfire happen from our own will would've made the tragedy that much more senseless to us.
I agree with pretty much everything you say Howdy101. This Bonfire, the student Bonfire, is as real as it will ever get. As I've said, it is just as significant in origin, susceptibility to failure, and collective passions as the "real deal". I was proud about the way Moses carried on with determination and dedication to safety and education of participants. A&M killed us for it. We were so much a threat to them they made Moses co-ed freshman.
In part through us, this off-campus Bonfire breathed again and it will without us. All I wish is that the methods of building it don't get carbon-copied over and over until the original intent is faded and unrecognizeable, and mishap becomes again probable.
While some trends, like all logs seated on the ground and leaning inward will go a long way in the right way, others, like the greypots insisting on calling themselves redpots indicate an insecurity with doing it independently, as though they need to have others identify them with the "official" Bonfire. That's not admirable. We all know what happened to the official Bonfire. Napoleon brought back the title of emperor and brought ruin to France. You don't have to revive a title. Do right by actively making it so.
I didn't mean to go on so long, but the cold front has finally made it Bonfire weather, and with it being this time of year, right now, I'm rowdy, and sorrowful.
Ya'll are making the real Bonfire. Pray for the fallen, their families and the injured's hearts to mend, and build the hell.
