Sunday, August 28, 2011.
Back To Campus, Now And Then.
Classes start tomorrow at Tulane, and today is move-in day for Mary Leigh and her fellow Greenies who live on campus. It was not the exciting event it was last year. The thrill of being on her own in college is gone. Even though she and her roommate (Melinda, a friend from McGehee's) are the first occupants of a brand-new dormitory hall, one specifically for sophomore honor students. (I'm astonished that such a thing exists.) But Mary Leigh is dreading the return to school, and in fact is seriously considering dropping out. I don't get this, but I'm not her.
Mary Ann took charge of the move, of course. In less than an hour everything was in the room. I made one haul with my trusty hand truck. (Since my Time Saver days, a hand truck is as essential a tool as anything that side of a car or a refrigerator.) But Mary Ann was worried I might strain myself, and told me to sit down and shut up.
The place I chose to do this was the combination kitchen and laundry for Mary Leigh's floor. Looked nice. Some Chinese take-out cartons were on one of the tables, full of samples of something I couldn't quite make out until I actually picked one up. I threw it right back down. Free condoms. In many colors.
Well, that's the college world now. My eyebrows also rose when I read this appeal on the bulletin board: "It's midnight. Do you know where your roommate is? Perhaps asleep on the sofa in the lounge, being sexiled by you? Please be considerate." It's moments like this when ML's complaint that she has no boyfriends reassures us.
There was a jazz brunch in Bruff Commons, the dining hall where Mary Leigh never eats. It's managed by Sodexo, the multi-national company that evolved from Marriott's food service operation. The cover of the Hullaballoo--Tulane's student newspaper--had a story about Tulane's Sodexo employees' battle with management over unionizing. I was pleased to see the student editorialists and professors solidly on the side of the workers. When colleges aren't full of liberals, liberals won't have colleges. Whatever that means.
Guess who's running the cooking side of the operation? None other than Michael Uddo, formerly of G&E Courtyard Grill, more recently of Mike's Bistro in Metairie. We saw him running around in chef garb, but couldn't get close enough to say hello. I hope he makes some improvements to the food in Bruff. The food at the jazz brunch was nothing to write home about, except in complaint.
The jazz, on the other hand, was good. The guitarist played Django style, the singer reminded me of the young Ella Fitzgerald in her vocal style, and the trumpeter had some great licks. I would have gone over and asked to do a number with them, but Mary Leigh would have been furious with me.
It took two cars to move ML's stuff, and since she's staying I drove home alone. I went through Slidell to avoid the road construction in Metairie at the I-10-Causeway interchange. (I think it only has eleven more years to go.)
All the way home I considered the contrast between ML's college experience and my own. I remembered freshman year--when I was still seriously trying to take up mathematics as a career--as being very lonely. Then spending the summer hanging out at the now-extinct pool on LSUNO's East Campus before going to work at the Time Saver. It wasn't until my buddy Chris Christopher moved into the new dormitory that I started hanging around the campus. Next thing I knew, I was drawing cartoons and reviewing plays for the campus newspaper, joining a fraternity, trying to woo girls in the dorm lobby, getting a crush on Marcelle Bienvenu (who was on the programs staff at LSUNO then), and otherwise taking advantage of the campus community.
I want to tell Mary Leigh that nothing's going to happen until she gets involved in something. Just from reading the bulletin boards, I know that Tulane has a dizzying number and variety of programs she could get into. Incomparably more than UNO ever did. But the mere fact of my suggesting such things makes it even less likely that she will get involved.
Now here's a weird coincidence. On Facebook was a friend request from one Mary Pat. "Remember the days at the LSUNO pool?" she said. I did, all right, and I remember her. She was a lifeguard, and a looker at that. I wrote back asking how on earth she recalled a geek like me. She wrote back saying she knew all the regulars, and remembered my brand-new 1968 VW Beetle. Everybody pays more attention to everybody else than we think they do.
And what's with all these Mary Somethings in my life?
