This is your captain speaking. We hope you enjoy your venture on the Nitchampburg. We left the Frankfort airport on time, and crossed the Atlantic with no problem, but we are still severl hours behind schedule. We had hoped to land at the Lakehurst Naval Air Station as originall planned, and as was unsuccessfully attempted on May 6, 1937 by our predecessor,The Hindenburg. For safety of our passengers, however we have been diverted to a university tailgate area carrying our namesake, Nitchampburg. We have been told that one other craft, belonging to the local university and to two undisclosed other owners, has landing priority at Nitchampburg field. If need be, then, we'll pass over Nitchenburg field and make our landing at a recently closed golf course adjacent to that campus. Our craft is precisely the same length as was the Hindenburg - 803.8 feet - but approximately 200 of our passengers (all former faculty members) have already bailed out.Thus, with the reduced passenger load, our craft is much lighter than was the Hindenburg, and we anticipate no undue difficulty in making our landing. Our companion, but smaller, craft - the Graf Zeppelin - has been given permission to land in Starkville or Oxford, both of which we understand to be much safer than Nitchenburg. Why our craft was diverted to Nitchampburg, I can't explain - but I'm scared s#**les*. We are about to make our approach. We are circling the field now. To your left you will see a large dome. For some reason we've been advised to avoid that dome like the plague, so I'll circle the field one more time. It'll take only a few minutes. Meanwhile, ladies and gentlemen, so that you will have a better picture of what is happening on the ground, let me give you some observations:
If we are able to successfully land this craft, you will be right in the midst of a very sad civil strife unprecedented in the halls of academe. The local university consists of a large number of productive and loyal faculty members. They are, however, encountering regular hostile fire from anti- faculty troops who claim that the only way to save the university is for those productive and loyal faculty members to hit the road. These same anti- faculty troops are highly supportive of maintaining the status quo in Nitchampburg - and they believe that the current university administration is hunky dorey. Thus, the anti- faculty troops are, for the most part, pro- administration boosters. They publish anti- faculty letters in the newspapers from time to time, and they bottom troll on a message board devoted to open and responsible communication. The anti- faculty bashers do not seem to understand that a university consists of its faculty and its student body. The buildings and grounds can be beautiful, and skyboxes can lace the football stadium, but it is the faculty that comprises the core of the institution. It follows that if these faculty bashers are correct, e.g, if the faculty are really bad, lazy and worthless, then the university itself is really bad. Interestingly enough, a substantial number of the faculty bashers actually have degrees from the university adjacent Nitchamburg field. If the faculty there are bad, lazy, and worthless - as the faculty bashers claim - it follows that the faculty bashers went to a bad school. Now I don't believe the institution is bad, but if you follow the faculty bashers' logic carefully, that is precisely what the bashers are saying. I find it difficult to comprehend why these faculty bashers would suggest that they received a degree from a bad university. Actually, ladies and gentlemen, data show that there is no significant difference between the faculty at the university which we are flying over, and the universities in Starkville and Oxford where the Graf Zeppelin will be landing. Yet, when the Graf Zeppelin lands at either of those two fields, its passengers will not witness the strife which you will witness here on the ground below. The faculty in Starkville and Oxford is basically the same as the faculty here. There is no significant difference in the physical plant, or the buildings and grounds of the three institutions: Only the administration is different. The difference must be administrative leadership. So, on two fronts, the logic of the faculty bashers defies belief! Look . . . look . . . look outside your left window, ladies and gentlemen, and you will see a person destroying several plaques. My co- captain, through his German-crafted Zeiss optical zoom lens, tells me that those are teaching award plaques, and that there is a cheering crowd gathered around. This is but one example of the discontent you will witness when you land at Nitchamburg field. We've got to get in and get out of Nitchampburg fast, ladies and gentlemen, while there is still a field on which to land. We would not want the same tradgdy to occur at Hitchampburg as happened on May 6, 1937 at Lakehurst:
I told my seven-year old daughter about Nitchampburg, and she wondered why anyone would want to go to lice-town. I had to agree--USM has got a bad case of the Nits. If only we could get a spray. Alas.