Living Again in a Place Where the Sun Don't Shine (Much--This Time of Year)

Fruit (nut?) from our backyard ginkgo tree

The last time I held out my hand for this blog, Winter was winding up, and we were headed for a place where it tends to linger. Not for long, we thought. Just for a season or two. Yes, the house in Florida is on the market, but it will never sell. We forgot what someone once told my parents who were anxious to sell their house at the time. Something along the lines of: There may not be a house for every fool, but there's a fool for every house.

By the time the house in Florida had sold, we had our eye on an oldy-but-goody one here. Actually, my foolish imagination had an eye on her before we ever saw her. A lovely, grand lady dressed Victorian or Edwardian style floated above SAM's head as he slept. Not literally, of course! She was in my dream, and the next day I found her, solid as a brick house, in a real estate listing online. Initially, SAM must have thought I was nuts. Buy a house based on a dream? Sure honey. I know you're a little shook up about moving from Florida (again), but you want us to buy a house that's more than 100 years old??? 







Okay, so she's not brand-spankin' new, but then neither are we. We've got some mileage on us. Besides, she's had a lot of work done to bring her up to speed. More is needed, mainly outside; I'll grant you that.

Ginkgo fruit, anyone?

Underneath those leaves lurk bushels of ginkgo fruits (imagine the smell)

Most of that work, though, will have to wait until Spring arrives. Hopefully, by that time, the ginkgo-stinko fruit will have dried up. The sun will come out again and warm the soil...

...and the rose bushes will bloom again.

It's Almost Halloween: Reach For 'The Long Hand of Twilight'

Remember when fantasy and science fiction books were fun to read? Silly instead of sinister, they didn't leave you with an uncomfortable chill in your spine or a brow-knitting blight on your spirit. Instead, they brightened your outlook on life as well as your face by turning the tables on things that go bump in the night. Laugh them away, those monsters that keep you awake when you should be sleeping. Send them to their eternal rest so you can enjoy a temporary version of it. Hmm. Maybe that's why so many people these days have trouble sleeping. Watching and reading too much horror, fictional or real, their minds can't relax. They are stuck in perpetual "fight or flight" mode. The autonomic nervous system's sympathetic response to the horror stimulus is unsympathetic to the body's need to rest.

If laughter is the best medicine, then The Long Hand of Twilight, a novel by Justin Bayne, will be an easy pill to swallow. It's a delightful book written by a native Floridian, someone who doesn't care for social media or self-promotion. He prefers to hide in the shadows so he can work on dispelling them. A prolific writer, he will, I know, forever dispel those shadows, those awful fears and doubts that haunt our thoughts and dampen our spirits. His book (someday soon to be plural!) will lead them by the hand and send them flying back to wherever it is they belong.

Fearlessly and shamelessly, I proudly promote Mr. Bayne's work for good reason. A recent addition to our family, he works hard at his day job and writes when he can find the time, something we all know doesn't grow on trees. If only it did.

Callaway Gardens: A Place to Dream of Transformation

Butterfly emerging from chrysalis at Callaway Gardens

The Butterfly's Assumption Gown
In Chrysoprase Apartments hung
This afternoon put on--

How condescending to descend
And be of Buttercups the friend
In a [Georgia] Town--

(Emily Dickinson, c. 1873)

Although the weather forecast this past Sunday and Monday was looking rather dreary for much of the southeastern United States, SAM and I decided to travel north to the Atlanta area anyway. We managed to dodge rain drops long enough to see much of the extensive Callaway Gardens located in Pine Mountain, Georgia. It was a much better day than I had expected. We spent Sunday night at a local inn and started our garden walkabout early Monday morning.

It was a good thing we started early because it took us a while to find specific places in the Gardens that we wanted to see, like this Butterfly Pavilion. I had left the reading glasses in the car, the writing on the map was tiny and difficult to see, and the signs along the winding roads were confusing at times. At least they were to us, which isn't at all surprising, considering that we are both "directionally challenged." Wouldn't it be nice to metamorphose into someone with a better skill set? Maybe an artist with the talent to transform a dead tree into something beautiful?

I wouldn't even mind making a fortune out of gardening like the people who came up with the Victory Garden idea. All I ever manage to do when it comes to gardening is spend a fortune--on plants, tools, books, and, of course, trips to famous gardens like Callaway. Well, we didn't exactly spend a fortune on this particular trip, but if I had my way, one of these days we would travel around the world and visit gardens in every corner of it.

For now, I'll have to dream about those other places while I putter around in my Florida garden. Do you wish you could visit other gardens around the world, and if so, which ones?

There is no Frigate like a Book
To take us Lands away
Nor any Coursers like a Page
Of prancing Poetry--
This Traverse may the poorest take
Without oppress of Toll--
How frugal is the Chariot
That bears the Human soul.

(Emily Dickinson, c. 1873)

'Press On,' Literally

If you have been following yours truly since the beginning of this blog, you know that the journal and the journey began with a dream. The dream may have been put on hold for a while, but the journey continued. I didn't want to talk about the dream anymore; it went into a box and was sealed up for a while.

Then we moved to Tallahassee, and the most amazing thing happened. The dream was so strong that it broke the seal on the box and danced around in my head again. Its rhythmic beat would not be still. So I let it play out, the whole song, the whole dream. Only I didn't want to share it again with ya'll. I kept it close to the chest and piled on the layers. Call it superstition if you like. I prefer to call it intuition.

School is now over, and the test has been taken
My faith has been tested, but it wouldn't be shaken
The reason is clear
If you choose to look here


"Press On" were the words
That I heard in my head
"Press On" were the words quite real
The words that often were spoken
The words that heal
The broken...

Dream  

NN/SOTS: Romance on Lake Talquin

Kayaking on Lake Talquin, 4-10-2010

Three weeks ago while I was asleep in Tallahassee, in the RV beneath the towering, pollen-laden oak trees, a dream slithered into my mind. It coiled itself around my consciousness and hasn't let go since then. I am watching a man on a flat-bed car speeding down a long, winding track. The scene looks like it belongs in an Indian Jones movie. The man is hanging on for dear life to the sides of the car as it hurtles towards the end of the track--a massive, double wooden door that belongs in a cathedral. Just before the car bearing the man crashes into the door, it swings open, and the man is discharged onto a giant water slide. I watch as he spirals downward, out of sight, and presumably into a body of water. A faraway splash seems to confirm that he has reached the end of his terrifying ride. But the dream and the man's ordeal are not over yet. A few seconds later--or so it seems in my dream--I see him again, dripping wet this time, yelling the whole way down the track. "I won't go again, I won't!" He grips the sides of the car, and as the door looms closer he draws up his legs. I know what he will do. He's going to kick the door open. Close enough to me that I can see the fear in his eyes, the man communicates to me that he has made up his mind. I understand that he can't bear the thought of being smashed to smithereens against the door. He is afraid that it won't open this time to let him pass through. The door does open, though now there is no slide, only emptiness on the other side. Once again, he is pitched off the car. I can't see his body as it enters the emptiness. The sound of his screams goes on for a long time, growing ever more faint. Finally, I hear another splash. It's morning now, time to go hiking if the weather is nice or to a museum if not. The dream goes with me, and I've told it to SAM. He says "I hope it's not me on that track!" Of course not, silly man. Would I just stand by in my dream and watch you suffer? No. If I couldn't derail that car, then I would leap onto it and hold onto you for dear life. So who is that man, and why don't I help him? The dream won't let go.

Double-crested cormorants, Phalacrocorax auritus, as seen from the kayak.

Sir Gawain and the Green Knight is one of those stories that won't let go of me. It's an Arthurian tale written anonymously sometime around the end of the 14th century, a romance, but not as many people today would understand the term. An adventure takes place, and it involves a journey. I think what stirs my imagination the most about the story is its structure. A mythical quest begins from within another myth--a tale of King Arthur and his "doughty knights." Only this time, Arthur and his knights don't do much except sit around the dinner table. Almost all of the action takes place within the central myth. The story has a wannabe spinoff quality. You know, like those shows in the 70s and 80s were apt to do--Rhoda from The Mary Tyler Moore Show, Laverne and Shirley from Happy Days... In a nutshell, Sir Gawain lops off the Green Knight's head at the GK's invitation and then must travel a year later to find GK and allow his own head to be removed. The Green Knight doesn't suffer any ill effects from the decapitation, and one hopes that Gawain will also come through the ordeal untouched. Does he, though? You will have to read the romance (click on the link above) to find out.

Turtles and cormorant sharing a sunny spot on Lake Ella

When SAM and I went kayaking this past weekend, we couldn't have been more pleased to find the weather warming up and plenty of critters enjoying that warmth. I'm not sure, but I think the cormorant was telling these turtles that no matter what people might say, he's still the King Fisher in these parts. He and his kind very well could be, after having been nearly wiped out by DDT in years past. Now, though, cormorants are facing a cool reception by fisher-people. The birds have made such a comeback (prolific breeding, few predators, opportunistic feeding and nesting habits) that they are threatening the survival of aquaculture in several states and could be upsetting the delicate balance between other aquatic bird species and their habitats. The biggest problem seems to be that the darn things are just too good at fishing! Maybe that's why SAM's catch over a period of two hours consisting of one nice sized crappie and a small bass didn't add up to a meal. He gave the crappie to an old man at the boat launch and returned the bass, still alive, to the lake.

 

Of course, there are other piscivores making themselves at home on Lake Talquin. We witnessed several sizable fish being caught and carried back to osprey nesting sites. Unfortunately, my skills with the camera--and maybe the camera itself--don't allow for spectacular captures like that. I'm lucky to somewhat focus on the birds at rest in their nest. We also saw the ospreys chasing cormorants a few times. I think those pesky cormorants were getting a little too close to the nests for comfort. We were being watched carefully too, and when we stayed in one spot for a while so I could try to focus on the nesting pair, one of the birds would take off and circle around for a few minutes. It must have been trying to distract my attention away from the nest. Now that I think about it, SAM's scanty catch was probably due to my insistence on constantly doubling back to try for another, better shot at the birds. I kept him so busy maneuvering the boat with the rudder that he didn't have much time to cast.

He shouldn't have pointed out this critter to me. I was not afraid of it; I was fascinated by it and made him circle around time and again to get just one more picture of it. At first I was convinced that it was a cottonmouth. After checking my field guide (National Audubon Society's Field Guide to Florida), though, I can say with certainty (maybe?) that it's a Southern water snake, a Florida Race, or Nerodia fasciata.

...And each season ensued at its set time;

After Christmas there came the cold cheer of Lent,

When with fish and plainer fare our flesh we reprove;

But then the world's weather with winter contends:

The keen cold lessens, the low clouds lift;

Fresh falls the rain in fostering showers

On the face of the fields; flowers appear.

The ground and the groves wear gowns of green;

Birds build their nests and blithely sing

That solace of all sorrow with summer comes

ere long.

And blossoms day by day

Bloom rich and rife in throng;

Then every grove so gay

Of the greenwood rings with song...

(from the Modern English translation of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight by Marie Borroff, lines 501-515)

Please visit Ramblingwoods.com for this week's Nature Notes/Signs of the Season post and links to other bloggers' nature posts.

Note: When SAM came home this weekend, he informed me that the pic of the cormorant with the turtles was taken at Lake Ella during one of our walks around that park in Tallahassee. Oops! The fact that the cormorant was seen in town on a small lake at a local park just goes to show you that the cormorant's range has widened beyond its usual, more wild habitats. Odd birds, those. They are opportunistic with a capital "O" and depredatory with a double "d."

Celebrating Independence Day

"O! ye that love mankind! Ye that dare oppose not only the tyranny but the tyrant, stand forth! Every spot of the old world is overrun with oppression. Freedom hath been hunted round the globe. Asia and Africa have long expelled her. Europe regards her like a stranger, and England hath given her warning to depart. O! receive the fugitive and prepare in time an asylum for mankind." (from Thomas Paine's pamphlet Common Sense, 1776)

**********************************************************************************

Give me credit for some kind of sense. I do know that Paine was not referring to getting this country prepared as a warehouse for people with mental illness. The current mania over the King of Pop's passing, though, suggests that this society is overdue for a thorough psychological evaluation. Will we ever be free from the tyranny of the entertainment industry in this country? I seriously doubt it.


Daughter has finally found some freedom from parental tyranny by renting her own apartment this week. She works as a licensed massage therapist in a spa that caters to the wealthy among us. I guess even rich people need relief from stress. Daughter says you can tell that the economy still hasn't recovered by the slowdown in tips lately. Here's hoping that things get better soon. She has signed a lease and can't expect any help from her parents (those meanies!). I think that SAM and I must have mapped out our financial downturn at some point in our life together, maybe while we were sleeping. It's really coming together seamlessly, just like a dream--an American one at that.

A mostly unused tennis court sits just a few steps away from Daughter's door. If she has any energy left after working on those tense, rich people, she might just take up the sport. She will need to find a partner, though. While we were helping her move, the only people outside were walking their dogs, some of them quite large (the dogs). I told her to watch her step. No one seemed to be bagging up after their pets. I think she will like her new place once the smell inside dissipates. The former tenant's two dogs had the run of the apartment, and steam cleaning the carpet hasn't even helped much. I'm letting her borrow an essential oil diffuser so the wet-dog smell should be gone soon. I think she misses some of the sweeter aspects of home...

...red gerbera daisies...

...white cabbage (the outer leaves, chewed up by bugs and discarded, were green anyway)...

...blue Peanut. SAM complained this morning that the cat constantly goes in and out of the house like she can't settle down. When she finally does, she doesn't want much to do with us, especially me. I think she blames me for someone's absence. She's missing the sweetest aspect of home. So am I. Hear that, Peanut? I'm no tyrant!

From the Guileless to the Gullible

My grief, quoth I, is called Ignorance,
Which makes me differ little from a brute,
For animals are led by nature's lore,
Their seeming science is but custom's fruit;
When they are hurt they have a sense of pain,
But want the sense to cure themselves again.
And ever since this grief did me oppress,
Instinct of nature is my chiefest guide.
I feel disease, yet know not what I ail,
I find a sore, but can no salve provide;
I hungry am, yet cannot seek for food,
Because I know not what is bad or good...
...Great Alexander made so great account,
Of Knowledge, that he oftentimes would say,
That he to Aristotle was more bound
For Knowledge, upon which Death could not prey,
Than to his father Phillip for his life,
Which was uncertain, irksome, full of strife....

--from "A Dream" by Rachel Speght, 1621--

I did not take the picture of Micah with the gull. I think it was taken by either my son or daughter-in-law, who e-mailed it to me this week. I forgot to ask who the photographer was. It's a spectacular picture, either way. He looks like he is so close to it that he could hop on and take flight with the bird. Things have a way of fooling adults, who really should know better. My grandmother (dad's mom) was reported to say that babies know everything there is to know about heaven and earth until the moment they say the word "rock." After that moment, they have to relearn everything they have forgotten. I'm not sure where Grandma's theory of learning originated. Maybe it's a fusion of the Platonic versus Aristotelian theories, the nature versus nurture debate that has been going on for centuries and can be found in religious as well as secular writings.

Do not be fooled into thinking this beautiful red plant is harmless. TC (The Write Gardener) knows exactly what it is from experience. His tabula, if it ever was rasa, now contains a lot of writing about this plant since first becoming acquainted with it.

Hubby and I spent a lot of time outdoors this past weekend in Southern Illinois. Kinkaid Lake near Murphysboro, Illinois, holds a lot of memories for us. We used to take a boat to this part of the lake and dive for little trinkets, sometimes even finding gold rings and other jewelry. Young people--usually inebriated--are known to congregate in this part of the lake during the hot summer months and sometimes shed more than just their jewelry. This picture of the dam and spillway makes the spot look fairly harmless, at least this time of year. Probably after today, the dry side of the dam will look anything but dry. It has been raining steadily all day, and it doesn't take long for the lake to fill up from the surrounding hillside runoff.

When we lived nearby, there were frequent reports of slips, falls, broken limbs, and even drownings in the lake and particularly on or around the spillway.

I guess the natural beauty of the area is irresistible to most people who either don't know or choose to forget the natural danger always present there.

Hubby and I picked a good day to explore the spillway. We could choose our path on the rocks, carefully avoiding the ever-present slippery spots and pools of water.

After climbing up the spillway and crossing the barrier fence at the top, we walked on top of the dam to reach another path that might not seem readily apparent to anyone unfamiliar with the area. The Kinkaid Lake trail is all but forgotten, and it seems to be an intended outcome. Concrete barricades block most access, and signs--if they ever were in place--are no longer available to point the way.

To seasoned hikers and former residents like us, a lack of signage is no problem.

We found the trail and a view of the lake from a bluff high above it.

I thought for a moment that I had found some more gold treasure, but this time it was hidden in the trunk of a tree. The memories must have really been working overtime at this point on our hike. Of course, there is treasure in this fungus, if you care to think of it as a valuable, renewable resource on this planet, slowly doing its work of decomposing living matter.

I guess Hubby felt like he had to prove his youthful vitality after finding the fungus. You will never find moss growing on this rolling stone. Maybe fungus, though. We all have it in our bodies in some form or other. Lovely thought, hmm?

The day after visiting Kinkaid Lake, we took a shorter walk at Rend Lake and found this sign greeting us at the beginning of the bike trail. We have been warned, and now we know what that little sign on the trail we saw earlier this year was all about. I like to think that knowledge is power and a way for the imagination to take flight.

Seagulls, as you know, never falter, never stall. To stall in the air is for them disgrace and it is dishonor. But Jonathan Livingston Seagull, unashamed, stretching his wings again in that trembling hard curve--slowing, slowing, and stalling once more--was no ordinary bird. Most gulls don't bother to learn more than the simplest facts of flight--how to get from shore to food and back again. For most gulls, it is not flying that matters, but eating. For this gull, though, it was not eating that mattered, but flight. More than anything else, Jonathan Livingston Seagull loved to fly. This kind of thinking, he found, is not the way to make one's self popular with other birds...

--from Richard Bach's novella Jonathan Livingston Seagull--

"Such Stuff as Dreams Are Made On"

...Be cheerful, sir.
Our revels now are ended. These our actors,
As I foretold you, were all spirits and
Are melted into air, into thin air;
And, like the baseless fabric of this vision,
The cloud-capped towers, the gorgeous palaces,
The solemn temples, the great globe itself,
Yea, all which it inherit, shall dissolve,
And, like this insubstantial pageant faded,
Leave not a rack behind. We are such stuff
As dreams are made on, and our little life
Is rounded with a sleep...

--from William Shakespeare's The Tempest, 4.1--

Last Saturday, Hubby and I decided to revisit some old stomping grounds we have trod many times over the years. We drove to Carbondale and stopped for a late lunch at Melange, formerly just a coffeehouse and now a delightful little bistro with outdoor seating and a fragrant herb garden. It serves up a reasonably priced menu quite different from the usual college-town fare of pizza and subs. Among other things, it includes a variety of tapas (served after 4 p.m., I believe), bison burgers (meat supplied locally), and herb-flavored cocktails.


Since we had both filled up on the 1/2-pound bison burgers and sweet potato fries (freshly cut and prepared with a tempura batter), instead of taking to the Campus Lake trail at SIU, we decided to try tooling around the lake in a paddleboat. We would still get some exercise but at a more leisurely, sit-down kind of pace. Besides, renting one only costs a dollar per hour. That is cheap entertainment for low-budget people like us.


Hubby let me take the pictures so he could man the rudder, or whatever that thing that steers the boat is called.

Several of the student residence halls surround the lake. I asked Hubby if he had ever wanted to live in one of them. He responded with a resounding "never." The students who lived around the lake had a reputation for extreme partying, and he was a serious student. When I met him, he was seriously considering either changing his major (geology) or dropping out of school. I convinced him to stick with it, and I guess he is thankful now that he did.


We did not see too many people out on the lake or anywhere else on campus and wondered if the students were on some sort of break. It's hard to believe that they could be holed up in their rooms or in the library studying on such a beautiful day.

The resident ducks were sure enjoying the day and didn't seem to mind sharing the lake with us.



I guess our stamina ain't what it used to be, and we headed back to the dock before the hour was even up. The day was rather warm, and Hubby was looking a bit done-in. He had only a few hours of sleep the previous night and was expecting to pull an all-nighter at the drilling rig.


I like to see that the campus landscapers are including some color and variety in their plantings. When we attended school here in the late 70s, the campus was a showplace. My dad told me that Delyte Morris, president of the school from 1948 to 1970, was largely responsible for making sure that many beautiful trees, flower beds, and winding trails from which to admire them would grace the campus. I would bet that his wife had some input on that decision.


I think I mentioned that I remember goldenrod, or Solidago, growing on campus. I did find some right next to the lake. According to my Essential Oils Desk Reference, goldenrod has throughout the ages been relied upon for its usefulness as a diuretic, anti-inflammatory, anti-hypertensive, and liver stimulant. Historically, it even played a role in the colonists' resistance to British taxation. When English tea was dumped in Boston Harbor during the famous Boston Tea Party, colonists drank goldenrod tea to fill the gap, and it earned the nickname "Liberty Tea." I wonder if the name also had something to do with its diuretic properties besides aiding in the quest for freedom from government intervention.



Historically, SIU has seen its fair share of important people too, including R. Buckminster Fuller. His work in design revolutionized humans' potential for creating affordable housing. He had some wonderful ideas and even tried to live by them. In 1960, he built a prototype Geodesic dome house in Carbondale that he and his wife lived in while he taught design at SIU. The dome pictured above is based loosely on his design, providing shelter for picnickers (and sometimes amorous college students), as well as reminding campus visitors of SIU's one-time connection to a genuine genius. According to one site I found, Bucky's dream for the liberation of the mortgage-strapped homeowner was doomed by design. Apparently, "the steady growth of the multi-national-corporate system was working against him. People were indebted to the system and could not afford to support ideas that cut across the grain of the mainstream society being developed in America at that time. Domes were springing up everywhere, but their mainstream acceptance was thwarted when mortgage and insurance companies failed to offer products to serve the growing dome home market. Unions disliked buildings that went up in one or two days; it was better for the workers when it took six weeks to put up a house." Several articles I've read blame unrest (Vietnam War and civil rights) at SIU-C in the late 60s for Bucky's decision to leave campus and shift his work elsewhere, but I wonder if the locally lukewarm, or perhaps hostile, reception for his ideas convinced him to move. A certain "backward" presence in Southern Illinois may account for what appears to be intimidation to outsiders and forward thinkers.


Strangely enough, Bucky's notion of doing "so much with so little" to create sturdy, affordable housing has taken a strange twist with the latest attempt to preserve his very own prototypical home. Fundraising efforts are underway right now to save the deteriorating home in Carbondale and maintain it as a monument to his genius. According to the dedicated people involved in the preservation efforts, only 350,000 dollars is needed to save the home from certain demise. I'm sure Bucky would not be so appreciative of those efforts. He would probably prefer that more dome homes be built in his honor.

Or maybe he would prefer that the neglected agriculture department at SIU receive some kind of new home, dome-like if possible. This building looked old and dilapidated when we were students in the late 70s. I guess the powers that be think most of the students are outdoors most of the time anyway. What do they need with a new building?



As Hubby and I continued our walk around campus, we came upon an interesting sculpture in front of one of the Life Science buildings. I guess it's supposed to represent life. I'm not sure.

The communications building design seems to communicate a lack of imagination.

At least there are signs now to point the way to confused campus visitors. In the old days, you might be lucky to get a hand-drawn map from your student advisor.

Now this garden looks a little more like a representation of life to me. Click on it to find out who's responsible.


Please don't think I'm a total troglodyte. I do appreciate art and particularly sculpture. Hubby and I found these sculptures quite handy as backrests when sitting outside on nice days to study notes or just stare into each other's eyes.

We were "here" too, Mr. Vergette. I'm glad you had the vision to create something meaningful.

The campus is still quite beautiful, almost park-like in appearance.


Pulliam Hall is one of its landmark buildings with a functioning clock tower.


Morris Library, named for SIU's most productive president, promises to become a world-class learning center. I thought it already was. Maybe its long-awaited coffee bar now under construction will help it become even better.


A corner garden (no credit given) brightens an otherwise drab concrete walkway that leads to another old and somewhat dilapidated building on campus. Judging from the shape and design of its windows, you can probably guess that it has some kind of connection to either the arts...



...or religion. If you consider the condition of the buildings, you can probably guess that both of those venerable pursuits seem to be poorly funded now at this forward-thinking campus.

Altgeld Hall is the most unique building on campus and is home to the music department. Though I have not been inside it for quite some time, I found a site that explores an inner sanctum there and in other buildings that was never accessible to me, or to any other female for that matter.

This building across the street from Altgeld shatters the vision of artistic achievement previously in sight.


We used to call it Pro-Faner Hall, for obvious reasons. It's an ugly, concrete monstrosity.

It's a rabbit's warren of confusion, and if you ever try to use one of the maps provided, you will understand what I mean.

At least someone tried to soften the harsh lines of the building with some greenery and some flowering shrubs, which I think are crepe myrtle.

I think the design for this building was conceived in the Cold War era, when public buildings were expected to withstand atomic blasts. This one probably would.


This building, Parkinson Hall, houses the department my husband came to call home during his four years here. He spent many hours toiling over boxes of rocks in its geology labs and falling asleep to lectures given by old fossil professors.

Once in a while, if the weather is nice, you might find a student pondering his or her fate here in the meditation area outside the Student Center.

When the weather got chilly, I always found the inside areas more interesting, like this mosaic wall on the south end of the building. Hubby found out years ago that the knobs sound quite interesting if you rap your knuckles on them. Several of them appear to have been rapped with more than necessary force.

We miss the Big Muddy Room that used to be downstairs. There was a cozy, dimly lit cafe that served the best Italian beef sandwiches, and you could play ping-pong for hours...

...where the arts-and-crafts shop now stands. I guess commerce wins out over students-who-skip-class-to-play-ping-pong.

The Neckers Complex just south of the Student Center used to have this fun wind tunnel between what used to be its two main buildings, A and B. You could always count on a cold blast knocking your hat, scarf, or maybe even socks off on most winter days. I wonder if the designer planned it that way. I bet he/she was from Chicago and figured out a way to capture part of the Windy City's essence.


Across the street from Neckers is an updated relic of Bucky's design known as the Arena. It is home to the SIU Salukis basketball team, and at certain times of the year, graduates have been known to accept their "sheepskins" here. We have several SIU-C sheepskin recipients in our immediate and extended family.

We ended our rather lengthy trek across campus at the group of buildings where I once worked as a student-secretary. The office of Educational Leadership used to be here but has since been commandeered by the Engineering Department. We always felt a little out of place, anyway, tucked in the corner of the building that once also housed the coal research scientists. I wonder if they ever figured out a way to clean up that stinky, high-sulfur coal and convince everybody that it won't cause acid rain out east? A more acceptable product sure would come in handy right now. And some of Bucky's ideas would too.

...Sir, I am vexed.
Bear with my weakness. My old brain is troubled.
Be not disturbed with my infirmity.
If you be pleased, retire into my cell
And there repose. A turn or two I'll walk
To still my beating mind...

--from The Tempest, 4.1--