By: Annie Dineen

As APs and finals come to a close and seniors head off to their internships, this leaves a lot of vacancies in the senior parking lot. Well, that is until juniors ride in sporting their very own senior lot parking pass on their rear view mirror, gifted to them by a friendly 12^th grader. The events described above are annual occurrences and we have seen it all before. What is new this year is the construction happening on the eastern wall of the building- or what I assume to be eastern based off of my little knowledge on the school’s orientation compared to the Taconic State Parkway (it’s not an exact science but ask Waze if you feel so obligated and send a letter to the editor… oh wait a minute…).

            If you couldn’t tell by the clanging and banging accompanied by the clouds of dust, there is construction being done near the senior lot and many of the parking spaces have been taken by the workers and machinery. There were many times this year I have walked in the building and heard “Hey you parked in my spot!” followed by “Well that’s because so and so parked in my spot!” and on and on. Finding a different spot to park in wasn’t an issue until the majority of the senior class returned for all in-person instruction a few weeks ago. Mr. Goldberg has since relocated a few seniors to the small outlet in the staff parking lot adjacent to the grass field. It is uncertain whether the walk from that lot is longer than the walk from the normal senior lot, or if relocating brought different inconveniences. Ziad Chalabi, a senior who was “banished” to the alternate lot stated “No” when asked if the switch brought him any trouble.

            In the beginning of this school year, I wrote about the handful of car accidents that occurred within the first few days back to school and I am here to report that there have been more. My personal hypothesis for the causation of the issue is that the Coronavirus pandemic permitted the completion of drivers Ed for many of our seniors. Still, there should be no excuses when the parking lot is full of brand-new models with built in back-up cameras. Unfortunately, the race to beat the buses trumps all safety precautions in the eyes of our future graduates.

            I may have tired the subject of the parking lot, and for that I apologize. But I wish good luck to all of the juniors as they navigate the treacherous senior lot.