I used to wish I had been born a year earlier so I could be a member of the class of 2006.

I saw the old pictures of OU's class of 1906 posing with a rock bearing the numbers "06" and thought, "I could be in a photo next to that rock some day."

Apparently that's what went through the heads of this year's graduating class, since the gift is a replica of the original "06" rock.

Since someone spilled cottage cheese on the blueprints for my time machine, I'm stuck in the class of 2007. The best I can do is come up with a class gift that's even better than this rock thing.

Anyone will tell you that brilliant minds think alike, so I decided to think like the class of 2006 to plan the perfect gift.

Somebody had the brilliant idea of duplicating a giant rock displaying two numbers, without so much as an apostrophe. So I'm thinking we could replicate something else iconic on campus -- something bigger and better, like Oklahoma Memorial Stadium.

And somebody came up with the incredible idea to place the rock on the OU Research Campus, where only a fraction of the OU population would see it, because "the 2006 class has seen the Research Campus emerge from a grassy field to what we see today," according to the OU Alumni Association's Web site.

So maybe we could build a replica of the football stadium at the OU Health Sciences Center. We may not have witnessed the HSC spring up out of the red dirt of Oklahoma, but with time-elapsed video technology, we can now.

Let's be honest here: OU's mission is really to give the gift of football. Or if it's not, it should be. The same people who brought the world the heartwarming story of Jason White's knee-less Heisman campaign could bring a bunch of future doctors and pharmacists the timeless art of organized, university-sanctioned violence.

We could teach the HSC students to play flag football, or even two-below. Or they could use it as an 84,000-seat surgical theater.

OU's senior class gifts are always superb. Past classes purchased the statue that now sits atop the state Capitol, installed the reflecting pool outside the football stadium (twice) and built the arches that stand at the entrances to campus.

This year's class made a rock and put it on a different campus.

Even if you don't like my idea, you have to admit: The class of 2007 can do better.

hello there & you too