Wasteful Traditions

A recent article in the Philadelphia Inquirer criticized a long time tradition at my alma mater, specifically the fans throwing of toast onto the football field at the end of the third quarter of football games at Franklin Field. When the traditional school song "Drink a Highball" is sung, fans hurl these tasty projectiles on cue when the line "Here’s a toast to dear old Penn" is sung (Get it, toast? Aren't Ivy League kids clever?) - supplanting an older tradition many years back when apparently alcohol was downed.

In any case, some are blasting the tradition as being wasteful, and it's not hard to see why. The article cites that it's about $500 worth of bread which is wasted, but the monetary value isn't as relevant as the contention that there are urban poor west of campus and north of campus who clearly could use the bread more than the turf could. The tradition could be construed as a bunch of privileged and spoiled Ivy League kids rubbing their wastefulness in the shadow of urban decay while food stamp families struggle to ends meet. The author of the article goes on to discuss alternatives to the current tradition, such as making each home game a food drive.

All fair points, but the reality is that traditional celebrations, by nature, aren't usually intended to have a greater good besides commemorating itself. It's sort of like trying to put a dollar figure on aesthetics - you can't. I was recently in Chicago and saw two beautiful fountains - but on another hand could be seen as a terrible waste of water and electricity. On the tradition front, we kill millions of trees each year to celebrate Christmas with what some argue is a pagan ritual having nothing to do with the birth of Christ. Millions of eggs are wasted by colored eggs during Easter which are discarded instead of eaten. In the fall, valuable arable land which could have been used for greater edibles production is wasted on pumpkin planting and harvesting, most of which aren't turned into foodstuffs, but are carved up into jack-o-lanterns. How about giving flowers instead of plants? How about wasteful paper products like greeting cards and valentines which are quickly thrown away. Are we really going to base the legitimacy of traditions on whether they're earth friendly or sustainable?

That's not to say that this shouldn't be part of the equation. If there's a more redemptive and less wasteful way to celebrate which maintains the spirit of the celebratory tradition, I'm all for exploring it. If our basketball team doesn't get back to respectability, I might support throwing toast on the floor of the Palestra as well.