This evening I had the opportunity to visit my old college, Ursinus, a curious adventure since the number of people I still know there has fallen dramatically over the years. Nonetheless, a little wandering is good for a body (so say the authorities), so that is precisely what I intended to do for the duration.
The ride up offered a gem of a sunset, with golden clouds so bright a Viking might pay to make his dragon-ship fly. Reds and golds flecked the clouds like fire, giving way to orange, purples, and thence a deep blue like the sea as the sun disappeared. A star winked into view, first here then there. After a time all was dark, save for star-light from the sky and the street-light from the high poles lining Main St., Collegeville.
A trip to the old college is never complete without its rituals, and one of those is called "Give-Nathan-A-Treat." The "Nathan" in the ritual is a religious studies professor, and an old friend who appreciates my odd sense of humor. Every time I visit the school I leave something goofy on his door for him to read the next day; often a drawing or a joke, or a drawing that happens to be a joke. Once I wrote him a page-length note which contained exactly one period. Another time I took a quote we both know from Romans ("Hath not the potter power over the clay..." ect.) and scrambled it amongst a series of pictures referencing inside jokes from classes years ago ("Dude, you HAVE no Koran!" and "die Sterntaler") . From time-to-time I also include a German joke, if I can remember how it goes. The point of all this is to creatively devise an amusing thing, which is as good a lesson as any to learn in college, if I dare say so.
Another "ritual" involves visiting places which carry personal significance for one reason or another. One such place is the indoor track, where I spent many an hour during the winter months running races, workouts, and strides with the chaps. There is also the outdoor track--newly surfaced since my time--where I never ran a race outside of time-trials at practice. Years ago I recall us doing a core session on the grass during cross country camp, when coach Bayless happened to remark that "Some of you need more sun...Nick Pane over there is whiter than Casper the Friendly Ghost." Curious times, those. There is also the library of course, and the rooms in Pfahler where all of us spent more hours than we care to count, pretending to do homework more often than was probably wise. But we managed.
Finally though, there is the north corner of the Field House, on the edge of a hill overlooking the baseball field, the tennis courts, and the field hockey pitch. I used to love going there at night, a secluded place away from the noise of Reimert and just watch the sky. I saw a meteor there once, and the International Space Station another time. Many years ago I spent several hours with a visiting friend, just sitting and watching the starts slowly shift across the sky. Tonight I spied the usual constellations, with Jupiter sitting just on the shoulder of Taurus the Bull. A chill wind blew upon me from the west, flowing down the hill into the darkness beyond the tennis courts. I stood there longer than expected, slow thoughts rolling over and over in my head, like someone trying to roll down a hill of honey. Special places will do that sometimes, depending on the frame of mind you bring along.
It's been almost two years since I attended my old college, but still the place stimulates the intellect and enlivens the imagination. I feel strange every time I go back, yet rare is the time when I leave the place without some new thought or idea taking root in my mind. Like a dear friend, places like that--one's that "speak" to you in a new way after every encounter--are exceedingly valuable.
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