over there at the state university

over there at the state university

fiction
edward w pritchard

Over there at the State University they started having a lot of meetings about maintaining the status quo because things were going quite well and things were going successfully financially. Hiring of faculty was up, and enrollments were bulging, and endowments for building was helping the entire community. Students loans were surging like never before and the University was spreading across and dominating the downtown and the community.

The President of the University sometimes needed a break from all the hub bub and sometimes would lose the battery charger to both his phones on Thursday, so he could crash for a day or two on Friday afternoon or Saturday. He still had to check the e-mails in case one of the benefactors called but if he pulled it off this weekend he would apologize to his wife, then put on an old shirt and read a little of what he wanted to read early Sunday and then sneak off shopping for a few gourmet foods on Sunday. He enjoyed those few minutes shopping for things he didn't really need but were his preference and always he concluded his time alone by reading something original and not conventional before he returned to the fold on Monday. He was the leader, but the University was running itself now and the University had a will to power and position to expand and it controlled him like everything else around it and the University president knew better than to try to change it's philosophy or methods, but for today he was in charge.

The students sometimes would all disappear from campus on Sunday morning and one nursing student would go over to the Children's hospital where she interned a few quarters ago and drop off surprises for the really sick children. The girl was pretty but today she wouldn't stop to talk to the handsome Doctor's or socialize as she walked across campus and wouldn't check her blackberry to review her social calendar. If it was lightly raining, the nursing student would stop near the Church that was co-affiliated with the University and listen to the choir which was able to rise above the liturgy of the University services.

At the fraternity, one or two guys, who hadn't drunk too much and weren't hung over on Sunday would get up early early Sunday morning and fix a sink over at the food bank where one or two of them had worked so the people there could do their work Monday and Tuesday of next week. After that they would throw old pieces of roofing materials into the municipal dumpsters that they had loaded into their truck from some work they had done for the food bank a few weeks ago and then they would joyously run down fraternity row carrying an old discarded mattress from the food bank and throw it into their fraternity's dumpster with the house letters painted on the side.

A few students, would go into to the Library Sunday morning and rather than read the Wall street journal or Barron's might grab Francis Bacon's essays and go off in quiet corner and spend an hour or two just reading what they wanted.

If the light rain continued at the University Sunday some of the football players would walk over to pizza place for an early lunch on Sunday morning about ten am and if one of the handicapped assistant part-time teachers was being made fun of in her car near the pizza shop one of the defensive tackles who was trying to watch his weight might only have to glace at the four guys who were judging the limping girl carrying too many canvas bags of stuff to change those four guys and keep them from saying something cruel to the limping assistant un-tenured temporary teacher and not spoil her weekend or pierce her heart with their comments.

Sunday mornings are a good time around the University. Everybody doesn't think alike and there are no budget meetings or meetings about how to reward the successful business guys who didn't go to college but want to give something back but don't quite understand what a liberal education is all about. The community around the University appreciates the Colleges on Sunday for the people run things for a few hours before it's back to exponential growth on Monday and the continuation of the war against the on-line Universities. Practicality and the school of hand knocks rule tomorrow but Sunday morning the President of the University reads what he wants and thinks originally let the subject be what it may.

The University does a lot of good things and is a growth engine in our economy. It needs to stand up so the right wing guys don't take over. Sunday mornings are a good time to start. Sunday mornings are the time when we are ourselves. We listen to the music we want, read what we want, and don't have to kiss and kow tow to business interests which insidiously control everything in an dynamic low growth community.

Sometimes on Sunday mornings at the school of music someone who likes to play piano will play Chopin and will play some etudes even if they don't ever perform professionally just because they want to be challenged. At the school of business, on Sunday mornings someone will read John Locke's writings on sensation that have nothing to do with the insurance business or how to successfully run a growing telemarketing company.

A light rain on Sunday mornings drives a lot of people inside and independent thinkers and creative people can come and go as they want for a few hours. When they move about the community it's a good thing, even if they walk with a limp, because the people in their houses are exposed to the un-institutionalized thinkers and writers in the area.