It’s time to gear up for the annual migration of students into our small town. Circumstances are always changing here, and as much as my human nature resists change, I love the total package of Bloomington: the seasonal fluctuations, the town and the gown. As the product of two IU students who fell in love, got married, and decided to build their lives and family here, I bridge both worlds.
This summer I had the opportunity to stroll through campus, deserted and quiet like a ghost town. In my current phase of life, activities like walking through campus carry more significance than they did when I was student here. I feel as if I am walking on hallowed ground. My mind stirs with the thoughts of the students and scholars who walked these very paths over the past 189 years.
Here are some campus scenes and sensations that are presently calling up from my memory to be shared in this community forum.
The Hippie Hangout. I don’t think I’m hallucinating. In the 1970s I remember riding down 10th Street in the back of our red Dodge station wagon, passing by Dunn Meadow and staring wide-eyed at the mass of bell-bottomed, long-haired students throwing Frisbees, sitting in the grass talking, and enjoying the sunshine. We called it the Hippie Hangout.
The Sugar and Spice shop. When I was in early elementary school, Mom returned to college to finish her degree in education. I frequently accompanied her to campus. One of my favorite places to visit was the Memorial Union. I called it the Elevator and Escalator Building. Mom always treated me to a gingerbread man at the Sugar & Spice shop. I remember munching on my cookie while I sat in the row of seats at the base of the escalator, biting off one arm at a time, watching the students walk by.
The Wrubel computing center. Dad worked at Wrubel when it was located in the basement of the HPER building. We descended a concrete staircase to enter his department, humming with room-sized mainframes, the cutting-edge technology at that time.
Tenth Street stadium. Just steps across the parking lot from Wrubel stood the old stadium, now the location of the beautiful campus arboretum. The Marching Hundred practiced there. My brother played trombone in the band and I loved watching them rehearse.
Assembly Hall. I was lucky enough to be in a family that held season tickets in 1976. Need I say more?
Showalter Fountain. I was a student in 1987, part of the mad dash of NCAA championship revelry to Showalter Fountain. I was there when one of the fish statues was stolen. (Disclaimer: I didn’t steal the fish, and I don’t have a description of the people who did.)
The Library. I never quite got over the amazement that the IU library is huge enough to hold a cafeteria. And the stacks: floor after floor, row after row of nothing but books. A guaranteed quiet place to study.
Ballantine Hall. Even as a young adult, I always appreciated the beautiful walk along the creek from Jordan Avenue to Ballantine Hall. Back in the ’80s, “Mad Max,” a campus crusader, shouted his sermons to passersby outside the building where I spent many hours in liberal arts courses.
It is my hope that the influx of new and returning students take a moment this semester to realize they are making history: their own personal history from a brief yet important time in their lives, and a contribution to the collective history that walks the pathways of the Indiana University campus. I sometimes wonder why we are given the wisdom to appreciate something so many years after the experience itself. Again, I return to the truth that the learning really never ends.
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