SEEING SOMEONE GET “TAPPED” IN BROAD DAYLIGHT.

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That crisp autumn afternoon, or maybe it was a muggy spring day. You saw it – a whisper ripple through the quad, eyes turning, a hushed reverence. Someone, often a senior, sometimes a junior, singled out. A hand on a shoulder, a quiet word, a subtle nod. The "tap." Suddenly, they were part of something else, an invisible thread pulled tighter in the fabric of campus.

For those of us who walked these hallowed grounds, the spectacle of a daylight tapping was more than just an event; it was a living, breathing tradition, often shrouded in a mix of awe and skepticism. It was a fragment of the hidden culture that thrived beneath the surface of lectures and libraries. Did you find it thrilling, a testament to an enduring mystique, or did you roll your eyes, seeing it as an outdated echo of exclusivity, perhaps even anachronistic?

These moments, whether celebrated or scrutinized, are undeniably part of our shared institutional experience. They prompt us to consider the narratives we inherit and the ones we create, the tension between legacy and progress. They speak to the allure of belonging, the power of secret histories, and the complex relationship we have with the places that shaped our intellectual and social landscapes. What did that tap mean to you, then? What does it mean now, looking back?

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