Letter From the Founders Upon Graduation

Published May 8, 2007

Editing The Water Tower has been a fitful, yet fruitful undertaking. We waged a multifaceted battle on both lofty and lowly level—fighting censorship and financial shortcomings on the one hand and our own urges to produce run-on sentences, nonsensical clichés, and incomprehensibly esoteric language on the other— all to the clamoring background noise of drinking invitations, computer malfunctions, and shirked schoolwork.

When the first issue of The Water Tower hit the stands we lurked shamefully around the library, watching the stands and willing people to pick it up. We grimaced in agony when a potential reader stopped to look, and then kept walking, and we smiled sheepishly when someone actually picked it up and at least looked at the pictures.

Somehow, we attracted brilliant and insightful writers and artists, a few readers, and even an advertisement or two. Our insomnia increased as the standards rose with each issue printed. It is debatable if the emails sent out to the staff at 2 am increased our credibility or detracted from it, but they continued to show up at the weekly meetings in growing numbers.

Maybe naively, we undertook the challenge of fitting a print media to our specific generation; addressing our supposed apathy and finding that, not surprisingly, our peers do have real ideas, smart opinions, and a desire to think forwardly about the world we inhabit.

We finally have a printer who appreciates us (for our money at least, if not for our wit) and a dazzling staff of writers and artists to keep The Water Tower going into the unfathomable future.

Maybe our grades are not so hot and our friendships a bit neglected, but The Water Tower is like any addiction, and it will be a difficult withdrawal.

Yours Truly,

Hazel Ryerson and Elias Altman

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