BackRoads Adventures: Home Sweet Home - Cullowhee, NC

40 things New WCU Alumni May Never Know.

 Its crazy to have talked to old friends recently and to have been to campus in the last few months and to realize how much has changed in ten years. It was almost surreal to walk through campus and realize that very little is the same as it was when we were there.  Things grow and change but some things are definitely worth remembering.

Those Students graduating from Western in the next few years will probably never know about.... 
 1. Late Night Huddle House Nights-  The days when Huddle House was part of the travel center, and actually was a 24 hour establishment.  I'm sure there were many 3am reasons why they started closing at midnight, but it was always nice to be able to get food anytime in Cullowhee and that really was the ONLY option at 3am. :)

2. Single Sex Dorms - The days of Helder and Leatherwood  are long gone, and Albright- Benton is now Co-ed, its crazy to think how hard girls had to work to get guys into Helder and how hard girls had to try to sneak out of Albright, Benton, and Leatherwood, that's just not the case anymore.

 3. All you Can Eat at Brown- The food at Brown was always debatable as far as whether it was good or not, depending on who you asked, but there was no doubt if you walked away hungry it was your own fault.   And soft serve ice cream!!!! Every once in a while it was worth the trek up the HILL unless you spent a lot of time with fraternity boys or athletes then it happened a lot more than every once in a while.

4. Pancake Night at Presby- The Presbyterian Student Center is not even on campus, in fact its a coffee house now, but the Pancake night during exam week always made heading back to Hunter library for a midnight cram session a little easier.

5. Downtown Cullowhee- The only place where you could get your hair cut, get a set of greek letters, a $.99 32 oz fountain drink, a muffin, A footlong, and cash out of the ATM, and now all of it is gone... :( Sad day

6. Off Campus Fraternity Houses-  KA,  Pikes, Pi Kapps, Theta Xi, Sig Eps, TKE, ..... 'Nuff Said :)

7. Sorority Life in Scott- 2nd floor Zeta, 3rd floor Alpha Gam , 4th floor DZ, 5th floor AZD, 6th floor Phi Mu, 7th Floor Alpha Chi, Having to fill the hall with non Greeks, Chapter Meetings in Scott Blue, Up and down the stairs during recruitment, a little friendly competition.


8. Cyber Cafe-  Smoothies, Sandwiches, and desktop computers hooked to the internet in 2002 it was THE PLACE :)

9. The Jug- Breaks my heart that the battle for the old mountain jug is no more. :(  Beat App week was always memorable, from tshirts, to taking the goal posts down.

10. Mail in the Dorms- Not having to go to the UC  to check your mail, when you actually got mail, not having to walk all the way back to the dorm if you forgot your key.

11. The Main Cross Walk- Having to actually pay attention when you walked through the middle of campus, because people driving through the middle of campus were not... And  the rumors that ran around  campus that if you got hit by a car at that crosswalk that your semester was paid for and you got As for the whole semester.

12.  When Off Campus Housing consisted of Summit and Forrest Hills- The days before University Suites, Rabbit Ridge, Catamout Peaks, and when the Summit wasn't even really anything special.

13. When there was tanning for $19 a month at the Travel Station- What we would all give to have unlimited tanning for $19 a month, but how many of us looked like we lived in the Bahamas in the middle of the winter because of it.

14. The days when FPAC was a Field to play in.- Playing Pickup Football or in the snow down behind Belk in the field before they built FPAC...

15.Mama G's-  MMMMMMMMM.... what i wouldnt give for a Momma G's Sandwich.

16. Sylva without fast food options- Fall of '02... lets see the options were... Colimas, Subway, Wendys, Taco Bell, and McDonalds, Burger King  We lived without Cookout, Sonic, Bojangles, Dunkin Doughnuts, & Dairy Queen.

17.  Brew Threw - Need a case of beer and don't want to get out of the car?  How about when Cullowhee was a dry town.

18. When Einsteins was Base Camp Cullowhee.- Where there once were canoes and Rock climbing equipment, there are now bagels and salads.

19. Beach Volleyball at Helder- early Fall afternoons, and warm spring days barefoot in the sand with friends or watching out the window when Fraternities had rush events.

20. Illusions- Karaoke and pool, Illusions was fun during "UP ALL NIGHT", and it was the closest thing to a dance club in Cullowhee, but it was not the place to have a sorority formal or a mixer ;)


21. Ordering Pizza from Papas or GJs because it was the only option.- OK so who even remembers GJs????   Dominos would deliver but when you had purchase orders from Res Life for Pizza, GJ's  is what you got :) But Papa's had some pretty stinkin' good Piggy Sticks there for a while :)

22. ZTA, TKE, Sig Eps, Pikes,Kappa Sig-  Its crazy how Greek organizations come and go ... Would have been so different without these organizations?

23. Who Bardo or Caruso or Tim Inman are- Bardo was Chancellor, Caruso loved us Greeks, and if you were Greek or lived in Harrill or were female and had your eyes open on campus you knew who Tim Inman was,  Just have to say .... it was a Phi Mu who finally stole his heart :)

24. When there wasnt a stop light at old settlement-being able to drive straight from Burger King to the front of campus without stopping or slowing down, yea that was probably the reason for the light 

25.WCU Anthem- this is how Power 90.5 rolled back then.... check it out .... "where there's more girls than dudes and everyone around here breaks the rules."
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cb2p5kBoRqo

26. When there wasn't a round a bout at the front of campus.-the  days when you had to drive down to HFR and actually make a left or a right.

27. Lunch at Subway-the option was there... but i don't know many people who actually took it .

28. Having to drive to Asheville if you needed anything from anywhere other than Walmart.- There was no Best Buy, Michael's, or Rack Room in Waynesville at the time and the Belk's was tiny, so if Walmart didnt have it ... to Asheville you went.

29. Eating upstairs at Dodson- Pencils in the ceiling, being able to look over the banister and see any one who walked in or who was walking across the UC Lawn, it was a great spot to gossip, spy and the smell of Sabarro usually wasn't too bad either.

30. EJ Whitmire Stadium with no visitor Stands- Didn't matter if you were a Bulldog, a Terrier, a Mountaineer, or a Palidain , we all sat on the same side.

31. When the Catamount's Home was not in the front of campus- Who remembers when the Catamount was up on the corner across from Dotson?

32. The old WCU sign at the front of campus- Western Carolina University ... No mistaking... That sign made an awesome place for a pledge class picture.

33. Nick and Nates, El Pac- All the fun we had at these places has shut them down :)

34.  When Cat Trans were short buses-  The cat trans these days are super nice air-conditioned buses driven by drivers with CDL licenses, but back in the early days of the Cat tran - we had an old run down Short school bus that was painted sparkly purple was lovingly coined the "Barney Bus" and was driven by students.

35. WCU Cribs- Who had the most decked out dorm room?  just make sure you that you hide all the illegial stuff so your RA doesnt see it on the campus station. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xh1bkWmf-M8 ( Crack me Up.... Check out this one i found on Youtube) .....

36. Goal Posts at the Old KA house.- Reminder of the best game ever.... and the long walk it took to get them up there :)

37. When it was allowed to hang banners from Catamount Gap and the bridge... well maybe not but we did it anyways.- YBS Loves you!!!!  Welcome Home Alumni Pledge Class Banners, Will you Marry Me?  Got something to say ... Just a sheet and some spray paint ... thats all you need.

38. Getting Stuck in stinky Elevators in Scott, Walker, and Harrill, (Ok Maybe they might still know about this one.)

39.  The Art Projects on Campus.-  Who remembers the steel ball of aluminum cans on the back side of  Stillwell.

40.  The Way Cullowhee was in the early 2000's- wouldn't have changed a thing.

Although so much has changed... I'm so proud to be a Catamount, and I  am so proud of how campus has grown and is still giving all its students an exceptional education and memories that they will cherish forever.  What are your favorite memories from WCU?

Nanny Adventures : Baking with a Three Year Old .

So Baking is always an adventure with me to begin with, mostly because I can be a little , but baking with a three year old assistant just adds more fun.  One of the things I love most about being a nanny is getting to spend individual time with each of the kiddos. So yesterday I took time with the older of the boys to bake a cake.  He was so excited when I told him I was going to let him take his nap later and he was going to get to help me bake a cake.  So we set out to bake a Lemon Pound Cake.

We talked about how important it is to wash our hands before we start baking and what we were going to make. Any fun activity can be a learning opportunity.  We talked about the shape of the butter and where butter comes from, try explaining to a 3 year old that butter comes from milk which comes from cows.... because apparently butter comes from the grocery store :) 

Let's just say I didn't even attempt to explain what crisco was or where it came from.... 

Thank goodness for my kitchen aid mixer because I was able to have my hands free to help in unwrapping the butter and he Crisco, and to catch the Crisco when it slipped out of his hands before it hit the floor.   Then we added the sugar, I apparently wasn't strong enough to open the lid, so He tried.  When he wasn't strong enough we tried the rubber glove approach and that worked.  Then he didn't understand why the one cup measuring cup would not fit in the sugar container so we ended up having to use a soup spoon to fill up the measuring cup ... we needed 3 cups of sugar so the Crisco and the butter were very blended by the time we added the sugar.

I added the eggs... just thought that was safer if we were going to give this cake to anyone... Lemon Pound cake with shell pieces doesn't sound too appetizing to me.

We added each egg one by one and watched it stir and mix.

Then we sifted the flower... This got a little messy ... We both looked a little like ghosts before we were done.

We added the flower a little bit at a time with a spoon and some milk.... I handled that as well as the flavorings... he was intrigued by the two sizes of  measuring spoons... :) and then we watched it mix and mix and mix. At this point it was nap time which meant I had an hour and 15 minutes to clean  up ... :) and it took almost the entire time.  He was so excited after nap time about taking out the cake.  We cut pieces for his family and my family and talked about sharing with others and how it makes them happy.