Today was my first day in the Riverside Community College Reading and Writing Center. I got the memo in my e-mail about where and when to report, but, because I thought I knew all about the where and when, I didn't read it very carefully. So I drove up to the Admin building and, after checking my mailbox, walked the few steps down to the where and when and stood there for a few minutes, waiting for the sliding glass doors to open.
They didn't open. In fact, the building was dark. It being early morning and me being recently awakened, I stood there wondering who had changed the rulebook of my life and why no one was there to explain this to me.
Then I noticed the scrap of paper taped to the door that explained that the Center had been moved to the Martin Luther King Building (formerly the Martin Luther King Memorial Library). So I walked to the King Building.
On my way, I walked past the Quadrangle, the oldest building on campus. This building is probably around 100 years old, if not older. I wish I knew something about architecture so I could give you a better description. Let's just say it's an old, stone building, two stories high, kind of like a castle without the minarets or bulwarks. It is square, wrapped around a large, square area-called the Quad. It was the social center of the school. In my day, it was usually lined with tables manned by leaders of student organizations beckoning students to sign petitions, join clubs, and get information about campus events. Cecil the Insane Biology Instructor would often take his classes there to gaze at the variety of flora that had been landscaped and cultivated around the quad, as well as the fauna that lived there.
In one corner, down a wide stairway-kind of like a cheap version of the Spanish Steps in Rome, the Pit sat. The pit was a blank square within the square of the quad where students and teachers sat and drank coffee, ate lunch, listened to noontime concerts, or visited with one another. The pit also was home of the short-lived summer theater that I once acted in. I liked it as an ampitheater, but it was too much of a hassle to set up and then tear down every year.
As I passed the Quad this morning, I witnessed the results of the current remodeling project to make it more earthquake ready. The classrooms had basically been gutted and all that stood there was the great stone shell. I could see through the windows that everything-walls, desks, blackboards-everything had been removed.
It made me a little sad to see them remove these pieces of my education, where Don had delivered his profanity-laden lectures about composition and poetry, where I learned that Dr. Burton was not my enemy, and that reading great works of literature was a good thing, both grade-wise and soul-wise.
I wonder what Dr. Burton's ghost must be thinking.
2 comments:
Crazy Cecil used to have his office on the 2nd floor on the south end of the Quad. Mother had a bio lab with him in the adjoining classroom. She took me to class one night (no babysitter I guess)and I remember Cec had a Barry Goldwater for prez poster that was peppered with darts hanging on his door. Musta been the year he ran which was either '60 or '64. Obviously prior to his jimson weed ingestion and becoming a drooling right winger.
Last time I saw Cec, he was sitting alone in the middle of the Spanish Patio at the Mission Inn with an empty bottle of pinot on the table and his head flung back snoring to the noonday sun.
The Jimson weed and drooling refers to Cec, not Barry. Although some would argue thar Barry was a drooler.
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