WHERE HOMECOMING BEGAN. Northern Illinois is the first major college to have its 100th annual homecoming football game and related parties. These coincide with DeKalb's centennial. In honor of the occasion, the Northern Star offered a number of retro front pages this week (all .pdf in excess of 1 Mb): Monday, the 1942 stylesheet (despite wartime allocations, there was paper for a college newspaper), Tuesday, the 1954 stylesheet, Wednesday, the 1960 stylesheet, Thursday, the 1972 stylesheet, and Friday, the 1984 stylesheet (still in use when I arrived.)

The restaurant district was full of people this evening, and the reviewing stand in place for tomorrow's parade (once again, the Illinois Economic Association conference is the same weekend). Perhaps there are a few students loosening up their parents. Let me say a few words in defense of the 18-year-old drinking age: my sister and I were able to kick back with our parents at Paisan's after more than a few Badger games well before junior or senior year, and it did all of us some good, and they would drop us off before they headed home.