Wander

The day after the concert, Gary and I wandered around Bloomington to find photos of spots I remembered.

This proved to me I followed a rabbit trail at IU that never deviated from these streets:

When Gary asked if I’d ever been to the Bluebird Nightclub before (where the Ingrid Michaelson concert was), I said, “No, it was a BAR and I was only eighteen. I knew where the Baptist Student Union was, though.”

That red line on the left ends at North Walnut. At the top right is Wright Quad, where I lived.

I remembered the Village Deli on 5th, which has tripled in size since I was there thirty years ago. I would go right before my Finite Math tests and do the homework I had skipped the other weeks of the semester. And I would eat this:

Just the best sandwich ever.

I try to make it every Thanksgiving at home and it’s never the same.

I got a C in Finite Math and never attended a lecture or did my homework. I credit the Bird for the Wise sandwich.

That’s about the only “off-campus” place I visited. Venturing further right on the map, I had an epiphany in Dunn Woods:

“My Mom has NO idea where I am right now.”

Then, evidently, I went back to my rabbit track of Village Deli, through the woods, to Ballantine Hall, to the library and to Wright Quad.

There was one deviation; I went to Showalter Fountain for the riot after the Indiana U Basketball team won the NCAA tournament.

This was my house at the quad. I was behind the upper-right window.

I was relieved to hear from the Starbucks barista at the Biddle that dressing in Saran Wrap to serenade a men’s dorm would still earn you the title “Wright-Reuter Third Floor Whore Corps” to this day. Ahead of their time, those girls.

Here is the post office at Wright Quad where I overhead someone say “No, he’s not dead, but his press secretary is.”

It barely penetrated my consciousness. I only realized Regan had been shot when I saw someone charge down the dorm hall yelling, “Bush in ’81!” Our basketball center Isiah Thomas caused a controversey when he remarked, “people get shot every day.”

Gary kept leading me down streets and alleys I’d never seen before. He got a lot of good photos of beautiful spots I’d never seen before.

(I KNOW! He’s such a good photographer.)

I had never seen any of these buildings and vistas. That’s why when I saw a girl jogging to class I yelled across the parking lot “WANDER, GIRL! WANDER!” Get off the rabbit trail already.