Welcome back, pirates

The calendar says Parents Weekend. Nobody on this campus has called it that in years.

It started as a mishearing — Filomena, at a party loud enough to lose a word in, said she wanted to get these parents out of here, and her friend Carmelo heard pirates. The name stuck because it is also true: students here like their parents coming, and they also spend one weekend a year watching their own shore handed back to them by people who booked the good tables six months out. The Student Association runs the whole thing — not Athletics — and Sandy dresses for it, eye patch and all. We sell the game tickets. That is our part of it.