The Mystery of the Green Bags

It's been an annual tradition as long as I’ve been working downtown. Ever year in mid and late May the sidewalks of Charlotte Avenue are swarmed with college age kids carrying green bags. Now, I’m not talking about a shopping bag. I’m talking about luggage for a long weekend. Judging from the way they’re all bent over the bags are heavy too.

It’s quite a sight every morning as I walk up from the parking lot to the office. Dozens of them running up the hill at high speed with heavy loads on their back. This happens daily for 2-3 weeks and there’s always a lot of speculation in the office about it. The most credible rumor is that they are college kids training to sell books door to door over the summer while on summer break. They apparently work for a publisher downtown who has them come here to train, and tells them to always run. This explains why they're always bent over. The bag is full of books. My guess is Lifeway.

It’s also funny that I call them college kids now. When I started working downtown ten years ago they were peers that weren’t lucky enough to have graduated yet, now they’re just annoying kids. Knucklehead isn't the only one feeling old. (But I'm not as old as he is.)