Cougars & Mustangs 

Boy, howdy! It’s time for a Cougs and Stangs Blast to the Past! First published Oct. 20, 1988.

Greetings, New Times readers! Cedric here! Remember when I was ranting and raving after my trip to Japan in April that Tonari no Totoro, as of yet unreleased in the United States, would one day be considered iconic and beloved the world over? I was told to lay off the snake oil, which I’d been hitting a bit hard, and more importantly, to get back on point as I needed to say something actually relevant to your lives. Well, it’s time to dust off the family recipe, as today I report live to you on the scene (somehow ... this is print, after all) from the Cal Poly School of Agriculture, where predictions are not only encouraged, but an essential part of none other than the burying of a time capsule!

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That’s right, friends. This taxpayer-approved building, a testament to confidence in Cal Poly’s ability to provide a real bangarang education, is the backdrop for a grand ceremony in which staff members and every campus club write out their guesses for the future of agriculture! Specifically, for 25 years into the future of agriculture.

I was going to set up a booth for real monetary bets on which predictions were the most accurate, but as I began putting it up, campus police believed it was one of my snake oil stands and chased me away. Luckily, I was granted permission to finish watching the ceremony. Here are some of the predictions we’ve heard so far! In 25 years, our world will have taken its natural course toward a greater health consciousness. For example, fat will be reduced in our meats, and all foods have higher nutrition value. The massive tobacco companies we saw at the time of this writing will have dissipated in the late 1990s. Increased awareness, scientific advancements, and legislation will have helped effectively tackle the ozone layer and greenhouse effect, but water conservation will remain a big issue. Water conservation, eh? Think we’ll ever run the risk of being able to walk across Laguna Lake? Hmm ... .

Anywho, I’m sure those of you who miss today’s ceremony will be very eager to hear more of these predictions. You’re in luck—highlights will be read aloud again on Nov. 8! That’s right: a mere 11 days and 25 years from now, in the dazzling, jetpack apocalypse of 2014. It’ll be here, in the Ag Courtyard, at 12:30 p.m., at the grand excavation of this very time capsule—and most importantly, the event will be free! Granted, you could probably save up a bit from now until then, but we know you’re not very good with money. It’s OK. We don’t judge. At that point in time, additional predictions will be made for the year 2039, and we can all laugh painfully at how naively optimistic we were. But we’ll have jetpacks, so we’ll be fine.

Intern Chris White-Sanborn dove deep into the archives for this one. Send collegiate news, preferably outdated, to [email protected].