250 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
250 lines
14 KiB
Plaintext
,...
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$$$""""" " """" $$$$$$ "T&$bxxd$&P" "T&$bxx$$$$$' " """""$$$
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""" """""" """
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ggg "Champaign Revisited" ggg
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$$$ by -> Oregano $$$
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$$$ $$$
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$$$ (* HOE E'ZINE RELEASE #910 -- 11/29/99 *) .,$$$
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`""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""`
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Prelude
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=======
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I want to dispell a Hollywood myth. In the old films we see the
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train pull out of the station and the last passenger runs for the door
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and gets on at the last second. Here is what really happens. Once a
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train gets moving, it gathers speed rather quickly and after just a few
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seconds, no matter how fast you run, no matter how loud you scream, no
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matter that all your luggage and your wallet and your coat are on the
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train, and no matter that you got off "just for a second, I swear," to
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make a phone call that you "had to make," there is no way to get on a
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that train once it starts rolling.
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The guy, a young college student, looked to me like he had a
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chance. In fact for about seven seconds I thought he made it. (Count
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out seven seconds that is a long time.) He ran past my window toward the
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train door. I thought he made it, but then my window caught up and
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passed him, he was well down the station platform, yelling, the full
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force of his stupidity had not hit him. Next train to Champaign would be
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in four hours, but who knows how long it would be till he got back his
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luggage and coat and wallet.
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Reconstruction of the Half-Remembered City
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==========================================
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I struggle here for a proper metaphor to capture how I feel about
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Champaign eleven years after graduating. In the cab on the way to the
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hotel where I'd spend my miserable weekend, as we came down Green Street
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into Campus Town the first feeling was the movie Back To The Future, Part
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Three. The old respectable shops and eateries of my youth were replaced
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by bright neon. Murphy's, a quiet little pub, that felt out-of-the-way,
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now became a bar with big windows and drink specials welcoming everyone
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in, not just the seniors and grad students of who used to be the only
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frequenters. The White Hen, now Home Town Pantry was a solid wall of
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neon beer signs, where was the quaint place we used to buy chips and soda
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at before we went back to the dorms to watch Cheers and Hill Street
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Blues?
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But that metaphor gave way to the scene in "It's a Wonderful Life"
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when Jimmy Stwart sees the Bedford Falls turned to Pottersville. After I
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got to the hotel, settled in, made some phone calls, I went for a stroll
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and every change seemed bad. My favorite bar was now a place that sold
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crystal dragons and unicorns, the mighty Co-Ed cinema was now a clothes
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shop. The McDonald's became a Korean Restaurant. Wendy's, now closed
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and dark and forboding, though this could have been predicted even in my
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day due to their horrendously gaudy wallpaper.
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But once I had given up and resigned myself to the town, what it
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finally felt like was Planet Of The Apes when Charelston Heston sees that
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he has been in his beloved city all the time and that there was no going
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back, all was destroyed. How could you do this to my beloved town, how
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could you make it so horrid?
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No lines in front of the bars Kams and CODs? This was 9:30 on a
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Friday night. Could things change so fast and far in just eleven years?
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I feel like an old foggy, when I pine for how things were better. But
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there were other factors that made me feel even more out of place.
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Everyone out this Friday night was one of the beautiful people,
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the guys were from cologne ads and the women from the covers of beauty
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magazines and I was did not fit in.
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I went to the R and R Sports Grill where I had my very first
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whiskey sour my sophomore year of school, a drink that is now my standard
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on those occasions where I go out drinking. The music was loud, not just
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blaring loud, but painful. Yet people came here to hang out and (of all
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the impossible things) talk with their friends. There was a drink that
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was frequently ordered which was an oversized pitcher of a reddish
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liquid, into which is thrust a plastic shark and five straws. This is
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how kids get drunk, they do silly things, it is a game. To me, drinking
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is more a recreation, friends together, a few pitchers of beers in a bar
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with a ball game on in the background.
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When I walked back to the hotel and got snide remarks and looks
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from the beautiful people I saw that this is not my world.
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Somehow after college I thought that I would always fit in with
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that world, that if given the opportunity I could still stay up till 3
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a.m. and I would always know how to have fun as I did it in college. But
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here I saw that I was no longer part of that world. I've moved on. That
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made me not just sad, but I felt out of touch in a way that really stung
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me. Here for the past 11 years I saw the college way of life as a
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fall back, as a safety net. Now I see that the rope has been untied from
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the dock and thrown onto my boat, set adrift to look for a new port to
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call home.
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Hotel Blues, Part I
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===================
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I would like to have a story about the hotel being a nightmare and
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cruddy, or, alternatively, a tale of swankiness and luxury, but the hotel
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room was nothing special.
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The only bad part was the bugs on the ceiling, these quazi-
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lady bugs minded their own business constantly rearranging themselves
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like living constellations charting out a constantly changing cosmos.
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What surprised me most was a full kitchen in the room. It even
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had a microwave oven and a stove with two full-sized burners. I
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questioned the need for all the cabinets, can people really stay long
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enough in the hotel to have the need to fill them all?
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I Am A Zombie
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=============
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I'll note the weekend as a disaster. I had planned on seeing so
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many people and doing so many things but lack of sleep really killed me.
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Saturday I made it to a play written by an old BBS friend of mine,
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Midget Caesar for those few Hoe readers who remember, a couple of IRCers
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came along, but with only four hours of sleep I was as useless as a
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heroin fiend, and maybe less lively.
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I went to sleep on Friday night at 2:00 a.m. and woke at 6:30 a.m.
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And that was that. Part was worrying about meeting people, part was
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worrying about not getting enough sleep and part was worrying that I
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should have brought sleeping pills like the last time I was on vacation,
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in Florida.
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I spent nine hours, before the play, trying to get just two more
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hours of sleep. I went out at 9:30 a.m. and bought some sleeping pills
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but they did not put me to sleep, I cannot nap during the day. A fatal
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flaw.
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Hotel Blues, Part II
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====================
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Somehow it is more depressing to be alone on a Saturday night in
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a hotel in a city not your own than it is to be in the familiar
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surroundings of home.
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I look out my eighth floor window and the city is alive, lights
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shining out fun and excitement, and flesh, people in couples walk the
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streets.
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When I walked back to the hotel from the play I saw countless
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people grilling on balconies and porches and the music was loud and
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upbeat and the beer flowed with the laughter. I was the only one not
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having fun.
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I have the TV turned on, but the sound to mute. TV completes the
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hopelessness.
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Sad thing is that even if someone had asked me to do something
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tonight, I would have declined due to my lack of sleep.
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I dug my own grave and now I lay in it.
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The Man Show pops on the TV and I feel better, I can now wallow in
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my own filth.
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Galileo
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=======
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Galileo sits on top of the highest building in Champaign, staring
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out onto the darkness which is filled with twinkling lights.
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Cars below are toys from this height, and the people running in
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the streets their movements follow statistical probability rather than
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the randomness it seems with street level viewing. In Galileo you can
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see far, I imagine giant smoke stacks in the blackness and lights,
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factories churning out product that is only used in other factories,
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which in turn do the same, none of these faceless buildings ultimately
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making product for public consumption.
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I get a beer and sit in a table off by myself, just glad to be
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around other people, even if I must keep my distance.
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The Blank Spaces
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================
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Among the side streets, away from the main quadrangle, away from
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the buildings where I had classes, away from the areas I know intimately,
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are the fringe buildings, buildings I passed hundreds of times as a
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student 11 years ago. Each of these buildings take me by complete
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surprise. I know them in most cases, I know their name and I am baffled
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at how I can remember. It is like finding a past life through hypnosis,
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and I fight to fit each into my current picture of campus, a picture that
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I did not know had so many blank spaces, whole parts of the map that were
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missing.
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But the strangest part is that I know that I entered most of these
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buildings at least once. Didn't I see the movie "Princess Bride" in that
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church with my computer friends? Didn't I go in that building when I
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needed to get a stamp on a form when the school computer dropped my
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entire load of classes two weeks into my Junior year?
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Now that I've noticed these buildings again and completed the map
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again, will these buildings be part of my thoughts when I think of
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school? Perhaps when I come back in another 10 years they will be more
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distant and all I'll remember is that 10 years earlier I had a vague
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recollection of them. All the original associations will be gone.
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Quad
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====
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Lincoln Hall is locked. Halloween morning, 11 a.m., Sunday, my
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last day in Champaign.
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It is probably for the best that the door is locked. The foyer,
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where I just now tried to gain entrance, was the high point of a doomed
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relationship. It is said that the only lasting love is unrequited love.
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Here, eleven years later, I still think of the girl who meant so much to
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me back then. And the girl who means so much to me now.
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I am on the main quadrangle of campus, where 70% of classes take
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place and it is all the same as I remember it. The best way to describe
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how I feel about it is to say that it is like looking at it while drunk.
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It feels everyday, but just a little removed from everyday. There is a
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slight distortion or sense of the unreal, like seeing the Eiffel Tower
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after having seen it only in photos all one's life.
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All the buildings are exactly how I remember them, perhaps a bit
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more majestic, the quad is built on a grand scale.
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Since it is morning only a few people stroll around, I am left to
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imagination and memory to picture what it is like with the crowds of a
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school day.
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The clock at Altgeld Hall (my favorite campus building with its
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twists and turns and dead ends and secret passage ways) rings out, its
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bells so comforting, they make me feel as though I never left, never
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missed a step.
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I'm going to go sit on the grass and read. Lots of time to kill
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today.
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Okay, now i go to the grass.
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Blight
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======
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There is a new blight in campus: sidewalk chalk. This is not just
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kids drawing dirty words on the sidewalks of the quad, these are
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multi-colored ads ten feet wide, for businesses or for plays or concerts,
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one even for a "semi-formal."
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I do not approve.
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Last Thought
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============
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My last thoughts are pretty straight-forward. In my mind I had
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downplayed my time here at the University, I told myself that what is new
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and current must be best and strongest. But spending these extra hours
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here I see that what I did in my term here, be it good or bad, be it
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productive or wasted, it is that which belongs to me. The University is
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a great heritage and I value now even more my time here, and though I
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still know people who go to school here, I cannot keep up this
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celebration of the new, I accept my time here for what it was and there
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is no way to recreate it. The current generation owns it now but they
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too will pass it on.
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Here, now, I have a feeling of boundaries set up which I did not
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expect. Buildings I cannot enter, students only. Bars where I not only
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feel out of place but where I am unwelcome. Even the Follet bookstore
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which sells textbooks I can't buy for classes I cannot take.
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The final note here is that what I have drawn upon for my touches
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with youth is not the University of Illinois as it currently is, I had
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thought that was where the strength came from. Instead what I draw from
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is my time here, which ended 11 years ago. It is my choices made back
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then and my memories that shape how I am now, and not the youth who live
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that life today. This is their day and good luck to them, for this too
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shall pass.
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[--------------------------------------------------------------------------]
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[ (c) !LA HOE REVOLUCION PRESS! HOE #910 - WRITTEN BY: OREGANO - 11/29/99 ]
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