It is the start of my absolute favorite season of the year.

It is starting to get a little colder.

It is starting to get a little darker also, and it's just the crisp chill in the air.

It's like someone has cast a magical spell over the whole world.

I love fall.

It's also when my kids go back to school, which might have something to do with it.

But you know, I love them so much.

I love them so much.

Also, school is, uh, it's important for everyone's sanity.

So for today's episode, we are talking about going back to school, including older kids

going back to their colleges.

Our places editors, Michelle Cassidy and Jonathan Carey bring you two stories about two universities

with very unusual rights of passages.

Jonathan has a vending machine unlike any other.

Any other has a very strange tradition that goes back decades.

Michelle, take it away.

Walking through the campus of Gallaudet University, a school for the deaf and hard of hearing

in Northeast Washington, DC, you might notice some small stone slabs embedded in the grass.

If you look closely, they bear inscriptions.

Some simply have years, 1923, or the class of 1969.

Some of them have phrases carved into the surface.

Long live the spirit of 76, or we pave the road to success.

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