Tuesday’s Post featured a half-page tribute to Athens, with quotes from students, residents and officials from the city and the university. It reminded me of many good times. But it also reminded me of why I’ve always found The Post’s opinion page so hilarious, even when there weren’t any humorists on it.

Because without fail, every year — sometimes every quarter — someone comes along to write about how Athens is soooooooo unique.

First off, a grammatical quibble: unique is not a term that can be qualified. You can’t be very unique or kind of unique or unique only on Sundays, Tuesdays and every third Wednesday. Check “Webster’s.”

Second, people always list things that set us apart that, well, don’t. For instance, we like to think our student population has fewer popped collars than Miami and fewer O.A.R. fans than Ohio State and fewer STDs than Bowling Green, but take a walk down Court Street any time past 11 p.m. and you’ll quickly find evidence to the contrary on all three. And we might have Bagel Street and D.P. Dough, but we’re not the only college town with a distinctive morning-after hangover-treatment food and night-before hangover-prevention food (to paraphrase our commander-in-chief, “We’re fighting the hangovers over there in the pizza joint so we don’t have to fight them over here in the bed.”)

Also, contrary to popular belief, this is not the only place on Earth where the leaves change color.

As far down the Spring Quarter stretch as we are, some might say that using one of my last two columns to take shots at a town that has played host to a wonderful four years would demonstrate a certain lack of compunction.

Obviously, those people are not regular readers, who already know I have no compunction. Hell, at this point I’m probably operating at below-zero levels of compunction. The compunction Repo man will probably show up on my doorstep one of these days, and that’s the last you’ll ever hear from me. And so I’ll go out on a limb here and say that some people tend to oversell our little patch of Appalachian hillside.

Still, I like Athens as much as the next guy (who requested not to be named in this column for fear of losing his job) and I wouldn’t trade my time here for anything. I just think people are a little misguided in their assessments.

The reason Athens is so great is the time of life you spend here. Namely, the college years. After all, during no other stretch of your life can “Yeah, I’ll stop by for a beer” turn into a four-hour dart match and a $30 bar tab without serious consequences to follow (believe you me, though, having aspirin for breakfast several times a week will get old once we’re all working 40 hours).

That is not to say there aren’t some unmatched attributes that set Athens apart from the other diploma mills of the Buckeye state.

First off, with local attorneys William Biddlestone and Robert Shostak and Municipal Court Judge Michael Ward, we have a per capita rate of Mark Twain look-a-likes that I daresay rivals that of any other college town.

Second, Athens has a vibrant and varied local music scene. Emphasis on varied — unlike many other places, we are plagued by a minimum of acoustic crooners.

Third, Athens takes a proactive stance against ridiculous footwear.

For some reason, a large segment of the population — let’s call them women — consistently walks around in garishly colored shoes that cut their feet and make them stand on their tiptoes.

Now, many of them will say they only wear them to conform to standards of beauty set by a male-dominated society. So, as a member of the patriarchy, I hereby promise to still be attracted to women who chose not to foment future back problems with stilettos. Hopefully, my fellow repressors will soon follow suit.

Until that becomes commonplace, Athens is setting itself apart by actively discouraging women from donning such kicks via the installation of treacherous brick streets designed to ensnare those with pointed heels and tractionless clogs.

You thought they were there to create a quaint motif? No, lots of other towns lay bricks for aesthetic purposes. That wouldn’t make us very unique, now would it?