I would often wonder, during my time in that town, why, of all the subcultures in the United States that are feared and hated, of all the subcultures that are singled out as morally reprehensible or un-American or criminal, student culture is so pardoned. Illinois home owners propose ordinances against shared housing among immigrants, while their sons are at college sharing one-bedroom apartments with five other boys. Courts send black teenagers to jail for possession of marijuana, while white college kids are sentenced with community service for driving while intoxicated, a considerably more deadly offense. And Evangelicals editorialize about the sexual abominations of consenting adults, while very little is said about the plague of date rapes in college towns.

One reason for all this might involve the sign on Liberty Bank in downtown Iowa City that reads "Welcome Students!" Or perhaps it has more to do with the fact that those of us who own homes, and those of us who write laws, who demand ordinances from the city council, who lead congregations, see students not as Trojan soldiers hiding in the wooden horse of education, but as the quickly dying sparks of our former selves. And so we allow them their romp, believing that beer pong will lose its luster after four years and that these students will graduate, most likely, into a life of harmless drudgery, in which they will cease drinking loudly and begin drinking more quietly, quickly becoming the kind of thick, docile citizens the Midwest expects them to become.