Tracy’s campus legends
Conversation 1:
“The Chapel”
Tracy: “Hey guys, have any of you heard any IU campus legends?”
Suzanne: “Um, yeah I’ve heard some but I can’t think of any right now”.
Mike: “There is one about the heating ducts that are underground. You can get to any part of campus in matter of seconds by walking underground in the man holes.”
Tracy: “I’ve never heard that one before, how do you know that?”
Mike: “I’ve heard it from some friends that when IU was built they made it so that getting to campus underground was shorter than walking it. This made it easy for them to get the installing of everything done quicker. I am not sure this is a legend though because it is true.”
Suzanne: “Yeah it is true, I’ve heard that before.”
Tracy: “How can you be so sure?”
Mike: “After we told one of my friends about it he went and found one of the construction sites on campus and crawled into one of the holes and found that it was a lot quicker getting to the different parts of campus underground. When he came back he had a burn scar to prove it. It wasn’t there before and some of my other friends waited until he was done.”
Ryan: “Oh!! Yeah!! I know one!! What about the chapel next to the Union?
Tracy: “What about it?”
Ryan: “Well the story that I heard is a person has to kiss his/her true love or the person they want to marry in the chapel at the twelve strokes of midnight in order for the dream to come true. It is really stupid and it doesn’t work.”
Tracy: “Why did you say it didn’t work?”
Ryan: “Well on Valentine’s Day of last year (2004), almost two years ago now, my ex-girlfriend took me out there as Valentine’s Day was coming to an end and told me the story. I then did what she said and like I said before it doesn’t work. As you notice I keep saying she’s my ex.”
Tracy: “Had you heard the story before?”
Ryan: “No, I don’t even go to IU but she heard the story from some of her friends and told me we had to do it, so I did.”
Tracy: “What year was she? Was she a freshman?”
Ryan: “No she was a junior.”
The conversations that took place were done in a work setting at a bank. We are normally busy so I had to sneak the conversation while everyone was standing around not doing much of anything. Suzanne, Mike and myself are all IU students, while Ryan is not but stories about the IU campus were still passed along to him through his girlfriend who was a student here. The conversation took place in the morning around 10:00 on Monday the 23rd at Monroe Bank on Kinsey Pike. When I asked if they had heard any IU legends, it struck up a conversation fast especially when one person started telling the stories they knew.
I found the story I was looking for, the one about the chapel and one that I had never heard before the one about the heating ducts. Ryan actually performed one of the legends and states that it is not true because his relationship with that girl is over. He kept saying that it wasn’t true like it was a waste of his time. He has become a part of IU history although he is not a student here. With Mike and his friends I just think it was something crazy they decided to in order to bring some fun to their lives as students and now one of the guys even has a scar to connect him to his story and every time he tells it he will show the scar that proves his bravery or stupidity along with his curiosity.