When students saw the email this morning that read “Due to an impending winter storm, all campuses of Fordham University are closed on Monday, Feb. 3,” they did not fret over their missed classes or schoolwork to be completed; they made their way outside to Edward’s Parade to spend a day in the freshly-fallen snow.
From snow forts to snow angels to snowmen to snowball fights, students shoveled, packed and threw the snow everywhere to create their own winter wonderland.
One particular group of sophomores took the opportunity to build an igloo in the center of the field.
Laren O’Neill, FCRH ’16, who is experienced in the engineering behind igloos, convinced her friends Bobby Wurtz, FCRH ’16, and Juliette Arcodia, FCRH ’16, to construct their winter building. Beginning at 2:00 p.m., they had been building their snow structure for at least three hours.
“I woke up, and there was snow on the ground. I wanted to build an igloo,” O’Neill said.
Though their biggest obstacle was not the engineering difficulties of building the dome-like structure, it was the other students, nearly 100, that decided to attack the fort with snowballs. At 5:00 p.m. they hoped to be finished soon: “Well if we stopped being under attack hopefully a half-an-hour,” O’Neill said.
Besides the igloo, games of tackle football and massive snowball fights broke out among hordes of at least a hundred students. Cries to join in the battle echoed the singing of songs such as, “I’ll Make a Man Out of You” and the Fordham Fight Song. As students charged each other armed to the brim with tightly packed snowballs, others dragged their “injured” comrades who had been bombarded with snow or slipped on the field of battle.
Friend fought against friend, brother against brother, and sister against sister as they fought for their honor on the snow-drenched tundra. One girl shouted at her friend, “This is for liking Katy Perry!” as she hurled a snowball right at her friend’s face.
As the sun began to set, Eddie’s remained peppered with forts, snowmen, snow angels, and one lone igloo, the signs of a fun, wintry Monday for Fordham students.
Richard Bordelon is Opinion Editor at The Fordham Ram. You can follow him on Twitter at https://twitter.com/rickybordelon
