With the opening of the Ethos Forum and the relocating of the other departments that previously called another building on our campus home, The Blasingame Academic Complex (more affectionately known as the BAC) is going to be knocked down soon. And though it might come as a shock to anyone who has stepped inside that old, run down building recently, I’m really going to miss it.
You see, I can’t help but feel sentimental about the BAC. We’ve got a long history together.
In 2008, my parents and I moved to Jackson because my dad got a job at Union. I was 3, almost 4. If you know much about Union’s history, you know 2008 was a marker for a pretty cataclysmic event and might know where this is going.
At the time, we were living in an apartment while we house-hunted. One day, a tornado watch was issued and my parents were concerned about the fact that we were on a higher floor of our apartment complex. They decided we would relocate to somewhere we could be on ground level while the tornado passed. I was supposed to watch a “Barbie” movie that night and was really looking forward to it, but my parents told me I could watch it on my dad’s laptop where we were going, so I was in. My dad grabbed my pink bicycle helmet as a precaution — I remember being very confused as to why we were bringing my bike helmet and not my bike — and we left the apartment.
You wanna guess where we went? My dad’s office. In the BAC.
On February 5, 2008.
The fateful day a highly destructive tornado plowed through Union’s campus.
It was just a horrible coincidence that in trying to flee to safety from the tornado, we waltzed quite literally into the eye of the storm.
I was oblivious, sitting criss-cross-apple-sauce in my dad’s office, pink bicycle helmet strapped on, intently watching “Barbie.” I had no idea what was going on or what was to come. My parents were exchanging worried looks all the while.
My account is only from flashes of my memory, bolstered by my parents’. The power went in and out, until it just fully went out. At one point, there was this really bad smell that we think was natural gas — I remember it smelling like rotten eggs. Sirens were blaring. It was storming hard. And then — though I have no memory of this part — my parents swear the roof came off of the building slightly before landing back down.
The next part I remember the most vividly. We rushed out of dad’s office and into the hallway, where the smell I referred to was now even stronger. My mom picked me up, cradling my head. We flew out of the BAC doors and started booking it to the former Lifeway building. I remember screaming and crying in my mother’s arms at this point, my little heart racing — this wasn’t the ideal situation for a 3-year-old, especially one who just wanted to watch her movie that night and was instead met with a terrifying experience.
During this dash across the parking lots, my dad recalls seeing something horrifying. It was pitch black and the only time you could see anything was when lightning flashed.
My dad looked in the direction of the old dorms. Lightning flashes. There they are. Pitch black again. Lightning flashes again. The dorms had been demolished.
We safely made it to the Lifeway building, where I remember playing with this stress toy my dad had in his office: a small and squishy purple thing shaped like a brain. It calmed me. We stayed there until a kind man gave us a lift back to our apartment.
Thanks be to God that my parents and I, as well as everyone else on campus, survived that night.
There’s a photo from the day my parents and many other volunteers returned to campus. My mom’s car (windows shattered) is parked in front of the BAC — this is in the background of the image. In the foreground of the image is a mountainous pile of cars that had a lot more damage than just the shattering of their windows. Like many other testimonies I’ve heard from survivors of that night, it amazes me how close we were to destruction and how it seems like God just had his hand perfectly shielding us in a little miraculous bubble from harm’s way.
After the tornado, we moved into a house with a storm shelter. That became the top priority on our house-hunting criteria list.
Though the tornado was one of my first and most impactful memories at Union, and particularly in the BAC, it wasn’t the last — and the others were far more joyful. I spent many a times as a child sitting with my knees curled into my chest in the corner of my dad’s classroom, watching while he lectured to students. We also frequently had what we called “daddy-daughter days,” which always included a stop or two at his office. One in which I remembered we picked up a little mini dollhouse and doll at the store before coming back to his office to assemble it. I remember when the bathroom counters in the BAC felt so high up and the sinks hard to reach even on my tippy toes, and now they feel so unbelievably low to the ground.
I had my first ever class at Union in the BAC as a rising senior student. My freshmen year, I helped some other freshmen navigate the surprisingly confusing layout of the BAC (due to its endless circle nature). I sprinted to my dad’s office after an Old Testament exam to try to score tickets to Taylor Swift’s The Era’s Tour (which we did, by the way). I ran across campus to my dad’s office again in the BAC just last year after I found out I was going to be on the Cardinal & Cream staff to tell him the good news. I’ve frequently parked in the BAC parking lot just to walk through it on the way to my true destination, simply for nostalgia’s sake.
My dad’s office is not in the BAC anymore. And soon, the BAC itself won’t exist at all anymore.
In the days following the tornado, I drew an interpretive illustration of the tornado. It is just a bunch of multi colored crayon scribbles on a piece of notebook paper. It’s a little abstract, to say the least. But — hey — they say the greatest artists are unappreciated in their time. I think 3-year-old me depicted the frenzy of what she felt during that night in a really sweet way.
I hear that people are writing and drawing on the walls of the BAC in anticipation of its removal. I feel like I need to get the picture I drew printed and make one final trip to the BAC to tape it to the wall as my contribution, my farewell and my thank you.
