Going to the Dogs
My recent visit to the campus of the Black Warrior has provoked some consideration of accidental (?) correlations. Two in particular have been of high density in these: hush puppies; and food.
I quite recognize that the average Southron will admonish that hush puppies are food and one of its highest forms, for both humans and their most stalwart of allies, canines. My reference however is not to these wonder morsels of fry bread, but rather to footwear. Back in my undergraduate days at the campus of the Black Warrior, my wanted footwear were gray split pigskin loafers with composition soles. The latter were claimed to be ‘non slip’ but that claim was specious, especially on newly mopped linoleum floors. Slippage was not an issue on the rough, bare concrete floors of the student laboratories.
The origin of this consideration is two-fold, arising from my purchase a couple of months ago, after a period of several decades, of a pair of hush puppies. I could not get those split pigskin loafers of my undergraduate days because despite my foot having broadened in width from its then “A” (slender) to its current “B” (narrow), the company has diminished its scope of production of the shoe. As a result I had to settle for what I mentally categorize as ‘an old flatulence shoe’.
Nonetheless, the shoe is a hush puppy, made on a last that is different from those used by any other manufacturer of my experience. After many years of wearing Allen Edmonds in the office, and Clarks since retirement, it took a couple of weeks for me to accommodate myself to the differences of the shoes. This evinced memories of the same process when I was a freshman and new to both the split pigskin loafers – recommended by a helpful shoe clerk in Huntsville to my parents as ideal for the college student – and the intense walking required of freshman in college. The latter would diminish somewhat in later years but never to the benign levels of high shul.
Those memories resurfaced Thursday as I walked from the new chemistry building to the stately general library, and then back by way of Lloyd and Galilee halls to my accommodations. The day was crisp, albeit warmer then near Frank Miller time than it had been when I arrived on campus. Nonetheless, one of the thoughts that surfaced was that this was about the time during my undergraduate days that I would begin the process of buying a new pair of shoes.
In those days, my hush puppies wore out from one of two causes. Either the soles eroded, and the shoe repair gurus did not know how to renew them then, or drops of chemical solutions, mostly acidic, would burn little holes near the toes that would eventually work through the leather. As my standing became more senior over the years, the mode gradually shifted from the former to the latter so that by the time I was a junior, and about this time of the year, usually after thanksgiving holiday, I would begin to feel a bit of breeze on the toes of one or both feet and know that during the christmas holiday I would have to go purchase a new pair. Not that these shoes are thin, either on top or bottom. Much has been learned about soles and I deal little with strong acids and bases these days, more with fountain pen ink and paper and computers. But the thought was there, the memory of good days past.
The other thought that came had to do with foodstuffs. During my first two years at the campus of the Black Warrior I resided in dorm and had a meals contract, wither 20 or 14 meals per week, running Monday breakfast through either Sunday or Friday lunch. Once I moved off to an apartment off campus, that ceased and food was less structured. Nonetheless, I recall the nature of that food: mostly unappealing, and definitely unspiced. There were exceptions but they were few. Such is the nature of institutional food.
This memory resurfaced when I ate in the hotel on campus. This is a nice facility well cared for (superficially) with pleasant staff. Unfortunately it operates the heating and air conditioning as if it were a dormitory so unexpected cold or heat waves must be endured rather than abided with either shivering or perspiration. The other institutional aspect of the hostelry was its food. Definitely dorm food, somewhere between insipid and abysmal. In fact, the coffee on this trip was that way regardless of where I had it. I suppose I am spoiled by Rooster’s Coffee Barn.
Anyway, I did find something to be thankful for which is a boon given the season.
On Hallowed (?) Ground
Wonderful day yesterday, both exhausting and exhilarating. S tarted the day driving across the campus of the Black Warrior to the new chemistry facility. Its entrance is a stately three story rotunda lacking only a proper statue of its benefactor and namesake, probably something on the order of that Romanesque statue of George Washington that resides in the Smithsonian, properly sidelined from impressionable children and like minded bogs except standing since the rotunda is a bit skinny to give the proper celestial majesty. Certainly the brow of the benefactor is suited to a laurel wreath.
But as is often the case with the Potempkinish intentions of humans, especially politicians, the real impressiveness is inside, the facilities and the temper of the place. It is obvious where the gilded dreams of immortality have succumbed to the realities of teaching and doing chemistry and these spots shine trough the tawdry gilt like something ethereal. The academics who strive here have good heads for both, the labs functional and practical, the curriculum constructive and strong, much more than I have seen at other colleges. Despite its appearance as a party schul there is metal underneath.
Frm there by a wonderful walk whose path inclosed the old quadrange and in a day much more temperate than the near lower phase point of dihydrogen oxide of my arrival on campus, to the stately central library, the base of the new quadrange. There a full two hours and more of interaction with graduate students on the informational temperaments and behaviors of scienctists and engineers. Too few questions but the students of today seem to lack both the interest and the chutzpah of my time. Or perhaps it is that library science students are just more polite?
Then I was free to play tourist. Off first to the site of the old observatory and muse amidst the bustle of the pangs of war and the goodness of humans. None of this will get the mirror back but that would be a vindication somehow. Still, the overbuilt Topsyesque tenor of the present campus bitterly reminds that its discovery is even less probably.
Next, back along my path to pace what was science row when I was an undergraduate. The buildings seemed little changed without but within was another matter. Lloyd, the old chemistry building is being transgendered into classrooms and that work is still apace. I could glimpse my senior year research area through a basement window after withstanding challenge of presence from one of the infamous Quad squirrels. Surviving this challenge with a sob story of nostalgia I was permitted to gaze through the window – gather the photons emerging from that room via the window – and see that at some point since my departure 40 years ago the room had been finished and painted a far cry from the irregular concrete floor and bare cinder block walls of my day. This had been my oasis between classes my senior year, a place to do some studying but mostly working on the content and expression of my senior research thesis. Poor quarters even then but in many of the ways that count better quarters than any office since.
Next, Galilee Hall, the seat of physics here on the campus, now far removed from the other components of science as the chemistry and biology and maths have moved over the years. The interior is much changed. Blackboards and arm desks alike are long gone and the paint scheme is somehow oppressive. But the people inside radiate the thoughts and demeanor of physicists and the air has the aroma of physics, more heady than frankensense or myrhh. Seeing this I can now leave content. Despite the distressing ministrations of administration, the depravity of athletics, and the hedonism of rednecks, there is still a core of value on this campus vindicating all the other evil and waste.

The Path of Croxton
Blogging is a bit slack, I know. Yesterday I had rather a bit of running about so that today FD SCP and I can motor down to the campus of the Black Warrior. I have an invited appearance to enlighten graduate students. Fear that this will be more of a mouse-in-a-maze ( not I’itoi [Link]) thing rather than a wellspring of knowledge thing. Ah well, I have been accused of being extinguished many times, distinguished seldom.
Since this is in the nature of a road raid rather than a persisting campaign IT resources are going to be light on my side and unknown connectivity on the other. Some campuses have enough WiFi that hair straightener is outsold by Brylcream and Wildroot while others are as vacant of etheric opportunity as Greater Metropolitan Arab. Won’t know where in the range the campus falls until I actully stick my toe (metaphorically) in the Black Warrior. Also I will be vacating promptly after the anticonfabulation so not only will blogging be limitedbut I probably won’t even have much time to concentrate on the improtant question that haunts every nerd whenever they visit the campus, namely – where is the mirror?
Also, in addition to having to return to observe dinosaur devourment day early, a result of family entropy in action – once the third generation attains adulthood and strats producing another generation the number of opposing states, a form of entropy, has a calendar wrecking effect – I also want to be well out of cintral Alibam before the arrival of any hydrophobic fanatics (yes, that likely is redundant) of Alibam football. Although it would be enjoyable as sort of an academic Boxing day extravaganza. (Although I have to admit I have no idea whether such is scheduled. Not one of the things I give much attention span to since Italian ham sandwiches are unavailable and off the diet.)




