Flashes of Panic

They’ve been waxing the floors in the gymnasium at the College this week. While they dry, we’ve been entering and leaving through different doors. On the one hand, I don’t get to walk by the solemn, self-confident team photos from sports the College no longer contests, and wonder what happened to the players on the 1939 baseball team. (I’m in some of these pictures, but not in the part of the hall I pass going to the locker room or the weight room.)

On the other hand, yesterday I left by the back door and walked up the hill the way I used to after practice every day. The leaves are changing, and the view south from atop the hill was pretty spectacular. The College has maintained this view through some judicious land purchases and leases, essentially allowing the southern part of town to develop so long as it’s not visible from the campus. One of the results has been the preservation of a lot of very nice open space; another is this view, pretty much hills and trees straight back to the Holyoke range, where Bare Mountain and Rattlesnake Knob look back at the viewer. The hills in between, “Mounts” Castor and Pollux, were apparently named for twin maple trees on their crests when they were both cleared farmland. The northern twin is gone, or subsumed by other trees, but if you look carefully from Bay Road there is still a flaming red maple at the crest of the southern hill.

The hills look like a storm-tossed sea in a Japanese painting, or a seriously rucked-up rug. From here, there’s nothing placid about them, though you’d think there would be. I wonder how many students stop for a few seconds at the top of the hill when they pass by, and look out, and think about the world beyond the little microcosm they’re in. I know I used to look, but I can’t remember what I was thinking about.

Or do they at least look out and think, “Whoa.” Especially since they cut a row of tall pines on the first-base side of the baseball field, the view is pretty clear.

Jolted out of my routine, I managed to forget the half-full mug of tea I had left in my locker while I swam. I expect it will be iced tea when I go back tomorrow. I wonder if the under-dose of caffeine on the day is responsible for my current low-grade headache.

Now Playing: Weirdo from Between 10th And 11th by The Charlatans