If the Hartwick College class of 2007 left nothing else in Oneonta, it left a soda bottle.

One thing that followed the class through its time at Hartwick was a Sprite bottle, President Richard Miller told the class during Hartwick’s commencement last week. Miller said he first saw it after an event at Dewar Hall and kept an eye on it. Despite requests to have the bottle removed, Miller said, it stayed on campus.

It stayed there for all four years.

"Every time I see that bottle, I will remember you and the years we have spent together," Miller told the class of 2007.

Miller said one of the last things he asked Gregory Krikorian, outgoing vice president of student life, to do was to retrieve the bottle from its home.

The bottle turned out not to be a Sprite bottle, Miller said, but a bottle for Canada Dry ginger ale. It was going to go back to its home after the commencement ceremonies.

If the bottle disappears, Miller said, "I will consider it a slight to both the class of 2007 and Hartwick’s ninth president."

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I’m used to getting a variety of responses when I work a night shift and make the nightly "checks."

"Nope. Nothing." "Quiet." "I’m watching television."

Those are all things I’m used to hearing. Sometimes agencies report the mundane crimes, sometimes they don’t.

A few weeks ago, however, I got a report of an unusual crime.

While calling various Chenango County agencies trying to get information on a supposed "industrial machinery accident" in Norwich, I ended up calling the Norwich Police Department.

The officer said the department didn’t have any information on the incident about which I was wondering, and he started going through the complaints for the day.

What he did have, however, was a complaint a woman had filed about a stolen geranium.

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It’s going to be a while before I can listen to Avril Lavigne without groaning.

I don’t know when, however, I’ll be able to listen to one of her latest songs without thinking of Munich.

New York State History Day usually is a learning experience for me in some way or another. Some years I genuinely learn something, and other years I "mislearn" information. The year I learned Ronald Reagan was president in the 1970s is a good example of the latter.

And then there was this year.

I thoroughly enjoyed History Day this year. Some students did spectacular projects, and some that I judged are going on to the national competition later this month at the University of Maryland.

Then there was Munich.

One student _ whose name and school district are being withheld to protect her dignity _ made a documentary on the massacre of the Israeli Olympic team in Munich, Germany. Good topic. Possibly even interesting.

I knew there might be a problem when the documentary said this was the first team to compete in the Olympics since World War II.

It got worse, however, with the selection of music to close the piece. The very well-meaning student decided to go with Lavigne’s "Keep Holding On."

I can’t exactly pin what seemed wrong with that selection, or what it was that made me want to scream, "No! Bubble-gum pop does not fit with a massacre."

But it did. On the upside, it could have been worse.

She could have used "Sk8er Boi."

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Staff Writer Amy L. Ashbridge covers health and business.