Here's To You, Matthew Vassar!

Happy Founder's Day! Today is the day when all Vassarians come together in all their inebriated glory to celebrate the founder of their beloved school, the most honorable Matthew Vassar. And if all has gone according to plan, I have successfully made the trek back to Poughkeepsie so that I, too, might celebrate this man and all that he knew and loved.


Matthew Vassar was a brewer by trade, and any self-respecting Vassar student will proudly tell you that Main building was designed with exceptionally wide halls so that, in case the school failed, Mr. Vassar could convert it easily into a brewery. This cunning and ingenious forethought was -- and continues to be -- an inspiration to all of us; his legacy lives on each and every day through the age-old college traditions of mildly responsible consumption and all out binge drinking alike.


Fortunately, his school was a success. And so once a year, as the sun rises over the quad and the warm spring weather descends once more from its hibernation hole in the Catskill mountains or somewhere, Vassar students, alums, faculty and friends take a day to honor their founder and all that he was able to accomplish. And how better to celebrate the man than by driving a giant beer truck onto Balentine Field and spending the day playing, dancing and enjoying the company of friends, all with a plastic mug of suds clasped faithfully in our inebriated fists.

Here's to you, Matthew Vassar. May your soul rest blissfully, and may our intoxicated--wait, no; -ing, intoxicating--laughter show our deep appreciation for all that you have done.