(urth) Short story 2: The Case of the Vanishing ghost

[Jeff Wilson]

On 3/24/2012 8:20 AM, Marc Aramini wrote:
> Once more note on this story that is probably obvious but worth mention.  I think I misascribed the magazine of publication to University of Texas, The Commentator was from Wolfe's Texas A + M, which was not only an agricultural but military school.
>
> Thus, the effete ghost is a jibe at the rival Texas school, the University of Texas, and the ghost will be scared by possible threats of draft and the military presence of Texas A + M.  This is the underlying didactic message: UT is probably composed of pansies compared to the manly nature of Texas A + M.

Some background from a fellow Ag:

A&M was a land grant college, and gets its letters from that act's 
imperative to promulgate the useful arts of agriculture and mechanology. 
As the first university established in Texas it considers itself to be 
THE university of Texas. The later-established outfit in Austin was 
otherwise inclined. Out of mock-resentment, it is referrd to as "Texas 
University" and abbreviated , "t.u." This has metonymized  the students 
of "t u" as "tea sippers", who sit in parlors and slurp their tea with 
extended pinky fingers whilst the A&M cadets are marching, drilling and 
engineering. I don't know how accurate this is for that school in 
particular.

The boots mentioned would be the cavalry boots worn by senior cadets. 
Dropping out in his junior year, Mr Wolfe never got to wear  them.

-- 
Jeff Wilson - jwilson at clueland.com
Computational Intelligence Laboratory - Texas A&M Texarkana
< http://www.tamut.edu/CIL >