By Andrea Henthorn, fourth-year English major

I know what you’re thinking: what’s a bell like me, doing in a place like this? I never thought I’d be here either, for the second year in a row listening to Tommy Trojan talk about himself all day long. I get it Tommy, you need to let off some steam before they wrap you all over in duct tape.

Yet here I am again. One week until the big crosstown showdown, and I’m just waiting for my chance to get back to my real home at the Rose Bowl. It’s a lot of strain on my old brass being passed back and forth like this. I am pushing 80 years old, you know. It’s getting kind of tricky for a bell my age to go back and forth across the City of Angels, especially in this traffic.

I suppose I have made longer trips before, back when I spent my days atop the engine of the Southern Pacific Railroad. I even went outside of California for that one: Louisiana, Texas, New Mexico, and of course back home to Los Angeles.

I’ve had quite a few adventures, even after I settled down in Westwood. I remember the day like it was yesterday, back in 1939 when the Alumni Association gave me to the UCLA student body. That first year, the Bruins won the big rivalry game, but back then, they would let me watch every home game with the students. Every game, every touchdown, you could hear me ringing out.

The Bruins always knew how to treat me. The Rally Committee kept me safe, always guarding me by the end zone during game time. You might be wondering: what does a bell have to be worried about? I thought the same thing, until the kidnapping, that is.

Yep, kidnapping, plain and simple. Those Trojans didn’t even need a horse to fool the Bruins on that one, when those USC fraternity boys dressed up in blue and gold and offered to sit with the truck I was waiting on, stole the keys, and kept me in total isolation for the next year.

As you can imagine, things escalated quickly. First they hid me in the fraternity basement, then I went from the Hollywood Hills, to Santa Ana, and was even hidden under a haystack for a while. They posted a ransom picture of me in the Daily Trojan, and that’s when the pranking really came to a head: Tommy Trojan was mysteriously painted blue, and “USC” was burned into the lawn next to Janss steps. The big guys in charge eventually threatened to cancel game day if the shenanigans didn’t stop.

A peace treaty between the two student governments was the only real option.  In 1942 they agreed I would go to the rivalry game winner and spend the year with them, and the Trojans paid the Bruins for their half of little old me.

You didn’t think that stopped the pranking though, did you?

It only took a few more years to start that up again. Bruins loaded up a helicopter with manure and flew over USC so they could dump it on my old pal Tommy. They didn’t quite make the target, but nonetheless USC was not happy. That’s when they decided to release the crimson and gold painted crickets into the libraries. Rumor has it you can still find some stuck in between the pages of old books.

I sympathize with those crickets: ‘SC paints me crimson too every time they win (which is one too many times, if you’re asking me). I always thought Bruin blue complemented my bell curves better, though.

At the end of the day, I’m Bruin born and bred, and I love to look up from my spot in front of the student section and have my ringing drowned out by the Eight-Clap, the fight song and the roaring crowds behind me. When I see that sea of blue and gold, I wonder if another Nobel laureate, or Academy Award winner, or sports legend is in that crowd. Because like Coach Wooden once told me: “Be true to yourself. Make each day your masterpiece.”

Which brings me back to now, listening to Tommy ramble on for the second year in a row as I count down the days until the Bruins storm the Coliseum and bring me back to my true home in the Morgan Center so I can wear blue again.

Red was never really my color, anyway.