Musings
an Online Journal of Sorts

By Alyce Wilson

While we were at Com Con a couple weekends ago, I spent some time exploring the Goucher College campus with our doggie, Una. We found a number of interesting things.

Wood was stacked up between two trees in the middle of a grassy field. I'm not sure whether there was actually a fireplace somewhere, or if they just liked the rustic look.

Every college campus has at least one abstract sculpture that looks like it was retrieved from the artist's scrap heap. I think it's to scare students away from the green, open space so they'll take refuge in the classrooms.

Una examined one of those sculptures closely, as if thinking, "Wow. Must have been a really big dog that left this!"

As we approached a larger sculpture, it drew us with its magical forces, like some huge Partridge Family totem. But when we got near it, it revealed its true, twisted nature, and Una lost interest.

Outside a class building languished a sad looking creation that appeared to be an aging Christmas decoration. Even when the greens were fresh, it would have looked strange, kind of like something Martha Stewart would create after she'd had a lobotomy.

On a cement ledge next to a short flight of stairs was an old cannon, without any plaque or sign explaining its historical significance. It's used to keep the freshmen in line.

A couple parking signs drew my eye. One marks a space "Reserved for the President". Another directs visitors to the handicapped spaces, some distance away. These spaces were directly across from the key campus buildings.

These signs cop an attitude:"Too bad for you, handicapped people. The president gets to park closer than you do." Also, what happens if there's a handicapped president? Does he have to park further away?

I don't have any photographs of it, but the president's house is actually on campus, a short distance away. I suppose the prospect of walking to the office is just too scary. The president might encounter a student (ick).

When we returned to the campus in the late afternoon, we took a different route, along the outer rim of the campus, past the residence halls. Across from one of them, a Halloween sticker was stuck to a light pole. It wasn't just a simple sticker: the scene was composed of multiple layers of smaller stickers for the ghost's face, the bats, the tombstones and the jack 'o' lantern. This is the sign of someone who was truly, truly bored. Either that or it's their first year away from home and they miss trick-or-treating.

Though we weren't exactly in a rural area, I had already seen signs of deer earlier in the day, in the form of droppings. Sure enough, on our afternoon walk, we spotted a group of three deer. Initially they fled, but when they realized that Una and I weren't pursuing them, they paused in a glade of trees. I zoomed in as far as I could, but they were too far away. They're the deer-shaped blurs.

At the close of our walk, as the sun was setting, we walked through a very modernist collection of buildings, which seem to serve as both office space, an art gallery and possibly classrooms. From a distance, the splash of lights on the sidewalk gave it almost a spacey feel.

Una posed in one of the spotlights for me, but she was hard to photograph, because she kept whipping her head around at imaginary noises. Maybe the concrete ceiling amplified sounds. Or maybe she thought the spotlights were alien lights, and that soon she would be sucked up into the concrete slab and spirited to a planet filled with strange iron sculptures and invisible deer.

More from Com Con 2007:

January 22, 2007 - Dog Hotel

January 23, 2007 - Swanky Staff

January 24, 2007 - Time to Go

January 25, 2007 - More Com Con Pics

Copyright 2006 by Alyce Wilson

February 2007 Index

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