Thursday afternoon I received a text, "Do you want to paint the fence tonight?" I respond with a simple "Yes :-D", knowing this is one of the things I have wanted to do since I visited CMU almost four years ago.
Perhaps I should back up a little... Back before Carnegie Institute of Technology and Mellon Institue of Industrial Research merged to form Carnegie Mellon University, Carnegie Institue was an all male school. Neighboring girl's school Margaret Morrison was separated from Carnegie Institute by a valley, spanned by a bridge. The men quickly realized this was the optimal spot to meet up with the women of Maggie Mo. The valley was later filled in, and is now occupied by a grassy area known as The Cut. When this happened, the administration placed a fence where the bridge used to stand, to symbolize the meeting place that was removed. At this time the students saw no use to the fence, so eventually the administration decided to tear down the fence. On the eve of the demolition, a fraternity painted the fence, advertising a party. After the party was a huge success, the administration decided not to tear down the fence and an amazing college tradition was formed.
The important thing to understand about the fence is that there are rules; such as, spray paint can not be used to paint the fence, or else the school will consider this vandalism and prosecute the offender. Other, more common rules include the fact that the fence must be painted after midnight and finished before dawn, that when the fence is painted it must be painted in its entirety, and probably most important, if you wish to hold the fence and keep someone else from painting over your work, you and one other peer must camp out and not leave the gravel area surrounding the fence. If less than two people are holding the fence, another group can come in and take control of the fence, holding it until they wish to paint it that night. People are serious about this. When I first visited CMU, a fraternity had tents and a propane grill set up so that they could hold dearly on to their advertisement!
So now that the history lesson is over, back to the story. After confirming with Ashley, one of the girls that lives in the house, that I was going to help paint we discussed a few details and plans were set. I worked through the day, coding furiously, preparing for a meeting with a professor the following morning. As the clock struck about 7:30pm I headed over to Laura's house for a movie night with various grad students and interns. We drank a little, ate a little, and started watching a very good (but quite depressing) animated film called Waltz with Bashir. By the time the movie was over, it was about 11pm, and it was time to head back and start making preparations. I got to the house, munched on some food, and the group of seven of us prepared for our treck to the fence.
It was decided that we were going to paint an American Flag in celebration of the 4th of July. After arriving at the fence, Ashley and I soon figured out the best plan of action and we split up the brushes and colors and got to work. We were painting like nobody's business! After about 45 minutes, the white group finished our last stripe, so we cleaned some brushes and started helping with the red. After about another 45 minutes red and blue were finished and it was time to let things dry before doing touchup and putting the 50 "stars" (handprints) on each side. So of course, the most logical thing to do was to play frisbee for half an hour. Soon enough, everyone's hands were covered in white paint and we were leaving our personal marks on the fence.
The next morning I took a long way around to work so that I could see the fence. It looked great (although if you just look at one of the posts it bears a striking resemblance to something out of The Cat and The Hat, with its wonky red and white stripes). This was tons of fun, and the type of activity that really brings people together, not to mention one more big check off my list of things I want to do before I die.
