Not All Who Wander Are Lost

A Different Duty

It's the last weekend before finals, and for a while, it seemed like the students were all just going to stay in their rooms. When we went up for supper (fried breaded fish and buttered egg noodles, because it's Friday, and its always fish and noodles on Friday) the campus was deserted and quiet as if they had all gone home. Some were at practice or still in class, or off skiing or snowboarding for Phys Ed, but many quite likely had gone: there are usually several "closed" weekends in the term but I don't think this is one of them. It was just getting dark at 6:00 when we bundled up the baby and headed over the student center to begin the evening's wandering.

Darcie works for Student Programs; instead of doing dorm duty like other NMH faculty, she works from Friday night to Sunday two weekends a month delivering food and supplies to club meetings and dances and lectures, checking in with student workers setting up stages and lights, and generally overseeing the diversity of activies we offer to keep kids from smoking dope in the woods, necking in empty classrooms, and just generally going insane here at boarding school. Depending on how the baby's sleeping, I usually stay home with the baby or go along with the two of them on the rounds; most nights the baby doesn't sleep, and cries without Mama, and tonight was no exception. Darcie's programs duty has become a family affair, involving such adventure as driving a halfsleeping infant and wife back and forth across the river, letting Darcie out of the running car, driving slowly around the campus so as to keep the baby from waking while Darcie checks in with the teachers chaperoning the evening's events and coordinating the crafts projects.

Tonight we held the dancing baby up to a flashing-light Jukebox playing Alana Davis, saw a mediocre Improv comedy troupe from a local college, ate cheese sticks in the snack bar, passed the baby in her yellow ducky feetie pajamas around the room, pulled down some inappropriate and vague advertising signs (swastikas with tiny letters underneath that said what does this make you think about?; I have nothing against performance art and guerilla advertising per se but c'mon, now), and left instructions for the students setting up sound and video projection for the Freshman after-hours party later that night (imagine a sleep-over that ends at midnight).

Tomorrow night the same.

One week 'till spring break.