On campus there are four total parking lots, however students favor the one located behind the football field due to size, location, and the amount of students that you will find hanging out there after school is dismissed. This lot is known as the back parking lot. Walking through the parking lot after school you see things that you wouldn’t likely see in a normal parking lot. You can notice students hanging out and discussing how their day has went with some of their closest friends, the athletes playing catch and kicking soccer balls around, and the occasional freshman trying to catch a ride home because they think the bus is not cool to be seen on. In the back parking lot there are two entrances. One is located right beside the locker room and is the one students most commonly use. The second entrance is to the right of the Business and Technology (BT) building, and leads to the front of the field house. The second is rarely used due to the fact it is narrow and is hard for on coming cars to see you entering because the BT building blocks the view.
There are a lot of frustrating things when dealing with the back parking lot. One most common to drivers is when other students are standing in the middle of the aisles and are blocking traffic.
Senior Zach Thompson says, “My least favorite part of the back parking lot is the traffic and the people not moving out of the way. When they don’t move, I honk my horn for a long period of time until they get the point to move out of my way.”
There is only one wall that students park on in the back parking lot and even that wall not all students are allowed to park on. The brick wall that gates in the football stadium is known as “The Senior Wall.” Each year, the wall is taken over by a new class of seniors and is given to the next juniors the day after seniors graduate, but up until that day it is known as the senior wall. Traditionally underclassmen are not allowed to park on the senior wall. This is one of those privileges that come along with being a senior.
To different students, the senior wall means different things, for some students the senior wall means nothing and has no significance. For others, it’s somewhere they have waited three years to park their cars. However, some seniors claim a spot at the beginning of the year and claim it as theirs for the entire year, and they get mad if you park there. That’s not what the senior wall is meant to be about.
For senior Caressa Kuy the senior wall, “Is suppose to be a tradition, but if people are going to get upset about losing their ‘spot’ then it just loses its meaning. Any and every senior should be able to park there its first come first serve.”
For senior Toni Caronia “It reinforces the idea that we are seniors and it’s our last year here.”
Students everyday almost crash into other drivers, students and occasionally the light pole. This is from things such as students walking out in front of cars, other drivers speeding around trying to make a cool impression. In all honesty, the back parking lot is a total mess. With students not paying attention to what they are doing and almost getting hit by cars. You have the groups of people that like to stand out in the middle of the aisles and refuse to move causing traffic jams that are really avoidable, then you have the couple that act like they haven’t seen each other in forever, when in all reality it has been at the most an hour and a half, demonstrating their PDA for everyone to see.
The back parking lot is an awesome place to hang out if you are not a driver, someone trying to get home at a decent time after school is let out, or an athlete trying to make it to a sport practice on time.