His Dorm Room

After he met us outside Wilder Hall, Ben walked us to his dorm.

It's been a long time, but the atmosphere of Dascomb Hall was distinctly familiar. Conversations leaked out into the hallway. Some rooms had bodies sprawled hither and yon. Doors opened and shut. Other students walked by us engaged in conversations upon which the fate of the world seemed to turn. At the end of the hall, a woman was cleaning the lounge, moving couches and chairs back into their proper places — who knows what chaos erupted in there last night.

Ben's roommate wasn't around. (In fact, we didn't see him at all that weekend.) But there was plenty of evidence that two guys lived in the room. Yes, there was plenty of evidence. I know I wasn't good at room-keeping when I was an undergraduate (something I never grew out of), but you know I don't remember piles of stuff quite like this. It made his room when he lived here seem like a ... like a TEMPLATE.

Oh my god. I failed as a parent.

Oh well, it's his issue, now.

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The College Student

"Hi dad."

"Hi Ben. You know we're coming up this weekend, right?"

He knew. And he sounded as happy as might be expected of a freshman when parents intrude on first semester campus life.

I asked if he wanted to get together Thursday night when we arrived. He said no but that he had set the entire weekend aside. As it turned out, we got in very late on Thursday, so not seeing him Thursday was no big deal.

Friday morning after we registered for the Parents' Weekend activities, I called him.

"Hi dad."

"Hi Ben."

From the sound of his voice, I thought maybe I had called too early.

"Where are you? Are you up?"

He was up and somewhere not too far away.

"Stay there," he said. "I'll find you."

The sun was shining down from a cloudless blue sky. The grass was soft and green. And although fall color had pretty much come and gone, there was still enough gold and red in the trees to impress us. We walked along the sidewalk trying to figure out what direction he'd come from.

He was already smiling at us when Trudy pointed and said, "There he is!"

His hair was long, and he walked with a confident stride. He was wearing a light sweater — a sure sign that he's adapted to northern Ohio weather. We started walking towards him. He stepped off the sidewalk and began running to us.

"Hi you guys!" he said as he put his arms around Trudy.

"Hi dad," he said as he gave me a hug.

"Hi Ben. It's good to see you."

He looked just like a ... college student.

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Finding Amherst

The car rental clerk didn't know Amherst, but he suggested the turnpike in a vague hand-waving, eye-rolling kind of way that gave us little confidence in his mumbled directions. The guard at the exit booth suggested the turnpike because it has better signs, although he didn't know Amherst, either.

We didn't take their advice. But you see, we didn't really know where Amherst was besides somewhere near Oberlin.

"It isn't far away," Trudy said.

"So which way shall we drive?" I asked.

"North," she said.

So we got off the freeway and drove into Oberlin from one side, past Tappan Square, half expecting to see Ben as we drove thru campus, and back into the darkness out the other side of town.

We passed farmhouses and fields and barns with cold farmyard lights on poles. The road turned this way and that. We drove long enough to begin suspecting we weren't going north, anymore. And then we came upon a sign that said we were going SOUTH. So we turned around.

"I could call the hotel," Trudy said.

"You have their phone number!?" I shrieked partly in frustration but mostly in joy ... although to be honest I don't think I communicated the joy part very well.

"Eight miles north of Oberlin on 58," the hotel clerk said.

So we drove back into Oberlin, past Tappan Square again, this time not particularly thinking about Ben as we drove thru campus, and turned on 58.

Seven miles later, we drove under the turnpike with a large, well-lit sign pointing south to Oberlin and north to Amherst.

If only we had followed those guys' advice.

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Coming In For A Landing

The eastern banks of the Mississippi are glowing red in the very last light of day. Imagine the view from the top of those bluffs as the setting sun dips to the horizon and the river descends into darkness. But what a view this is, watching it all from 30,000 feet.

St. Louis must be around here somewhere, but there's no sign of the city, nothing but the bluffs, the river and farm fields disappearing into the darkness in the east.

Our 737's engines begin to whine. The nose dips. The seatbelt lights come on. A flight attendant tells us to bring our seats and trays into an upright position and to turn off all our electronic devices and that they'll be making one more pass thru the cabin before they dim the lights.

Although the full width of Illinois is still ahead of us, we're coming in for a landing at Chicago.

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Weekend Creature Features

We sat in our chairs reading and chatting and staring into the woods. We moved into the sun when it got chilly. We moved into the shade when we got hot. And in the canopy of the Live Oak trees over us, butterflies by the hundreds fluttered among the green leaves. There is a scene in The Hobbit where the dwarves have Bilbo climb to the top of the forest to see what he can see, because they are lost, and he pokes his head out of the darkness into the brilliant sun amid swarms of butterflies fluttering. The treetops of the park would have looked like that on the weekend we were there.

The raccoons made off with Guinness' kibble that night. We know better, but the container the kibble was in was evidently just too innocent looking for both of us, and although we made multiple passes of the campsite before we went to bed, evidently the kibble got left on the table. At least there was no sign of it in the morning. We were sure we had packed it away. But that feeling of certainty was vaguely familiar and made us both remember a certain rasher of bacon that we were once similarly sure we had packed away only to find the container sans rasher a few tens of yards into the woods. And so we both knew that out there somewhere in the undergrowth was a container that used to contain kibble and nearby certainly would be a contented raccoon happy with the previous night's haul.

I sat with a cold drink in my hand, and the bees found out. (How do they do that? One moment you're sitting there, and the next, all the bees in the neighborhood know you've opened a can of pop.) One bee was particularly insistent on getting into my glass. I got up to do something, and when I returned, the bee was entombed in the ice. I fished it out, but it was motionless. I set him on my jeans in a sunny spot in the breeze hoping it'd dry out but to no avail, so I resumed my gazing into the woods. And then the bee slowly began to reanimate, turning to one side and then to the other, the water soaking into my jeans. And then it began to move forward. And then it arched its abdomen and drove its tail into my thigh. And I yelled. And then I flicked that dang bee off my leg into the woods as far as its little trajectory would carry it not caring one hoot if it survived the impulse imparted by finger.

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Flora and Fauna

1. Flora

The cherry tomatoes in the back yard have liked the rain and cool weather. They tower above us and are (by our standards -- which isn't saying much) loaded with fruit. We've had to put a wire fence around the plants in addition to the bird netting. The netting keeps the birds and squirrels out, but when he sees red fruit ripening in the midst of the tangle of green, Guinness is remarkably adept at finding a chink in the fence defenses. He stood there the other day barking at the plants, because he could see the red fruit and didn't at all like the fence that was keeping him from them. He would bark at the tomatoes and then turn and look at Trudy and then bark at the tomatoes again. He was quite distraught, and we now have no doubt where the (few) tomatoes from last year's crop disappeared to.

2. Fauna

I saw Guinness in the backyard the other day, in the corner by the woodpile near the tomatoes (undoubtedly contemplating the ripening fruit just beyond his reach). It was sunny and the sky was blue. A shadow passed over us. A vulture flew over the trees. Guinness stood still and watched it go by. Then he turned his head and watched it fly back around. He silently stood there for several moments watching the black wings against the blue sky. Although I suspect I know (more or less) what goes on in his head when he gazes at the tomatoes, I have no clue what was going on in his head then, but he was certainly deep in thought.

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Just A Sprig

Just a few weeks ago, the rains started coming. Long, slow, drizzling rains. Soaking into the roots rains. Making the tomatoes happy. And the cucumbers.

Guinness and I were out running a week ago, and all the rain had pushed up the little weedy things giving him much cause to stop and sniff and pee. Much cause. Every five feet, he'd pull this way or that until I finally started jogging, pulling him behind me on the leash.

But some time between then and yesterday, the mowers cut the grass in the fields by the school, and the little weedy things were cut down to size. No more cause to stop or sniff or pee. And when we went out to the track, Guinness was so well behaved. He just pranced along beside me with his tongue hanging out and his tail wagging. It made me proud to have him next to me. I wondered of the soccer moms saw. Or the kids at the middle school football game. What a good dog!

Until we came to the far turn.

There on the outside of the track was a sprig of grass that had escaped the blades of the mower. A single sprig shooting up a single seed head at most four inches from the ground. Just a sprig. But to Guinness it was evidently a towering fire hydrant. He pulled with all his might as I ran past it, tugging relentlessly to go back.

He had been so good up to then. And after all, these jogs are just as much for him as for me. So we stopped and walked back. And he sniffed. And he peed. And with that bit of business taken care of, we finished our run.

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Triboelectrification

Grey weather here. Grey weather there a few hours ago. But their clouds are clearing, and the video shows spots of blue.

The rocket is on the pad. The engineers are ready. They are green for launch but are watching the clouds closely.

Maybe this will be the day if the triboelectrification constraints have mercy.

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In The Rain

Yesterday in the afternoon, a wind came out of the north. The branches of the Ash trees swept and swayed. And Ash seeds that have been in the tree since spring (waiting perhaps for a little water with which they might sink new roots) fell from the sky like snow, turning the ground light crisp golden-brown.

Today it rained: a slow drizzle all morning. Ash seeds clogged the gutters and collected into piles on the ground where the water was running, turning the driveway into a lake.

I wonder if anyone saw me out there in the rain with my hat on, just before lunch with a broom in my hand, sweeping the pools of wet Ash seeds into wet, golden piles, barely able to contain myself at the contribution they'll make to the compost pile.

Who is that guy? What on earth is he doing? Mabel, tell him it's raining!

10:54:05 PM   permalink: []   feedback:   comments:  

When the Bottom Falls Out

I was in the yard trimming hedges when something fell behind me. It made a racket falling thru the leaves of the Monterey Oak, like a struggle or something. I turned to look. A clump of shredded Juniper bark was swinging from the lowest branch.

High above, in an Ash tree branch that almost overhangs the oak, the long-time squirrel nest had shifted noticeably, and I could see light thru it. Its bottom had fallen out. All the squirrel's work thru the spring and summer, day after day gathering sticks and fuzzy shredded stuff -- and the bottom just fell out.

There was no sign of the squirrel, although I suspect he fell thru that hole. (At least that would explain the struggling sounds I heard and why some branches were swaying when I turned to look.) In any event, the squirrel soon reappeared and began working feverishly, biting off brittle sticks and taking them over to the bottomless nest. But the nest was beyond repair, and after a while the construction ceased and the squirrel disappeared.

I can't say I blame it for quitting.

Still, the next day the squirrel was back working on a new nest on a different branch in another tree nearby as if nothing had happened at all.

I gotta go run or something.

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His Not Hip Brother

My brother came down from Chicago for the ACL music festival, and my contribution was to ride shotgun as Trudy drove him to the park in the morning and from the park at night.

I napped on his first day here while he painted rusty knick knacks, swept the patio and driveway, blasted a stereo in the backyard, weeded the rose bush and begged me (to no avail) to let him install gutters on the side of the house.

I asked the manager of the taco place to make some decaf coffee, and he drank one cup of the real stuff then two. I ordered two breakfast tacos. He gobbled down three.

One night I splurged on a small chocolate frosty. He dove into a bag of fries and a double cheeseburger and spooned a large frosty on the side, three nights in a row.

I drove him to the resale store, and he looked around for cool shirts as I rocked in a rocking chair on the porch outside with the owner trying to recognize the names of all the bands she said she gets to play on the little stage in the back during the week.

He recounted with glee standing in the mud and heat for six hours, jostling for a good position to see Pearl Jam. At every mention of their name, all I could see was his white drum set from when we were young, and my head got dizzy thinking of the prospect of standing up so long.

I am so my brother's not hip brother. And I am so glad he came.

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