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Local Culture and College Culture Essay example

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Local Culture and College Culture

As the door swings open, five young males stroll into the restaurant displaying earrings, dreadlocks, and counterculture clothing, which causes several dozen flannel-clad, middle-aged men to turn their heads. The young men, all Goshen College students, sit down at a table in the corner and smile to themselves while the other customers continue to stare and chuckle at them for a few minutes. After the smirking waitress comes and kindly takes their orders, the guys recline in their seats and gaze out the window at the dawning sunlight, glad to be back for another quality breakfast at Southern Style.

This scene has become routine for a group of five guys that wake up at …show more content…

Another one of the diner's especially meaningful highlights for the group is "the great country-elevator music playing in the background," according to Joel.

Joel also says that a favorite Southern Style activity for the students is "watching the old guys" who constitute the rest of the restaurant's clientele. The vast majority of these customers are male construction workers nearing retirement. Bob, a local drywall worker, has been coming to Southern Style every day for about fourteen years to hang out with his other Southern Style friends before work to "drink coffee and shoot the shit." One thick-mustached man, who protected his identity by giving the false name "Fred," beats out Bob as the longest-standing Southern Style connoisseur, since he has made the restaurant visits part of his "everyday routine" for the last 25 years.

The GC students agree that they enjoy studying the fashion styles of the other customers while trying to identify the restaurant's regulars. Ryan states, "The styles of Southern Style show a slice of society that I don’t get to see often at college. Here, you’ve got ponytails, plaid, and a couple of guys who look like Jerry Garcia or Fidel Castro. You don’t get that at GC.” The middle-aged Southern Style customers express equivalent interest in the college students' equally unorthodox fashion senses. Bob recalls one frigid Friday morning that he and his friends began "freaking out" when they

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