Campbellsville University - Maple Trail Yearbook (Campbellsville, KY)

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? beautiful, but twice a week at nine in the morning I had to be in one of its pews for the chapel program. Besides chapel I had Fresh- man convocation on Fridays which was in- tended to teach me in a semester what I should have learned in a week. But I was in college now and its own special maturing process was teaching me to accept responsibility. Often I would sit in my room watching the rain as it formed small puddles on the pavement and turned the grass a deeper shade of green. It was then that I realized what college was all about. The books, the teachers, the friends, many of which would only become shadowed memories and nameless faces someday in the cloudy, distant future. A raindrop fell through the barely opened window and landed on my cheek. It slid down and left a track just like a tear and I remembered a friend on the faculty that had already left us for a better world. It was quiet and I lay back on my bed and went to sleep listening to the farm report on the radio. When I awoke the leaves were dancing before mother nature's brush and a vast monthly dis- play of color shrouded the campus. The Dog- wood, the Oak, and the Maple had donned their vesture of autumnal colors and I was a Sopho- more. The building of floats for homecoming was a busy and arduous time. Chicken wire, napkins, wagons, and tractors were combined to support the theme, Tiger Spirit . As a rule the nights were cold--very cold. Our fingers seemed to stay with the spirit of the season for they too turned--a light shade of blue. And then the weeks labor was displayed

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It almost didn't seem right, having to quit work, quit the summer fun, and quit sleeping late. just to go back to school. After all, just three short months ago I had graduated from high school and now the grim prospect of three more drudgerous years, a slave to the book, captive of the pen, and servant to the professor loomed ahead. And above all, to be treated like a green freshman by the upperclassm en was indeed a bitter pill to swallow. But there I was, standing out on Hoskins Avenue wondering if the institution before me was indeed Campbellsville College better known as Russell Creek Academy. A lengthy verbal proclamation by a gentleman calling himself Henry erased all doubts and I proceeded on my journey. A breeze swept over the campus causing the trees to sway and a little whirlwind raced between old Stapp Hall and the Administration Building. Ah, yes, the trees. The gnarled Dogwood to the majestic Oak and a row of sapling Maples that seemed to form a trail, all spread a shady blanket over the campus. It was a beautiful day and the morning sun re- flected off of the windows in the ivy faced gymnasium. I walked past that venerable of building, running my fingers through the cool ivy leaves that were still wet with dew. New red brick and sparkling grass caught my eye and I naturally supposed the two buildings be- fore me were new and the fact that no signs had yet been placed on them further supported my theory Clater I found out that I was correct and that the additions were the SUB and the Science Buildingb. I kicked at a fly that buzzed off toward the sun and I headed in the direction of the SUB. Suppressing the desire to explore its inner spaces, I instead turned right to in- vestigate the hill between the two new build- ings. There before me was a crescent ampi- theater of concrete and grass with a blacktop stage. Slowly I descended the rows and upon reaching the bottom I took a bow as if I were a great Greek actor and thousands of eyes were upon me. That day passed and so did the weeks. My first date was spent sitting in the arbored bench next to that stately old mansion, Stapp I-Iall. The stars were all out and I could al- most see the spire of the Big B . At night it was lit up like a giant white cone and I often had mixed emotions about it. Indeed it was

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for about an hour only to be torn asunder by a multitude of greedy fingers. The napkins seemed to form a blanket behind the gym and I thought back a few weeks to that premature snow that had fallen over the earth. Drive-in students heralded it as a good omen from above, on campus students considered it the biggest social event of the year. Mid-term gave the students an academic rating as to progress made or in most cases, regress noticed. With the brain strain came many dif- ferent responses from students and faculty alike. Some teachers lost their heads and some lost other things . . . and one continu- ously threatened to flush students to greener places. But what was college for anyway? Sure more students started wearing glasses and walking a little slower. Bleary-eyed collegers would stumble into class with red creases on their foreheads and cheeks where they had fallen asleep on their bedspreads or toppled over their books. Eight o'clock came earlier every day and the weekends flew. 1 Future became present and all too soon past. 3 Beside from a little snow and sunshine, the monsoon season proved to be true. Kicking across campus I roused a Starling and it caught the wind and flew off toward the autumn , moon. I was then alone for awhile and re- f treated to the Alumni Chapel. It was a time to be alone and I wondered how many other students felt as I did. I was engulfed in a hazy mist of memory like I sometimes want to do. South I-Iall was completed and occupied by now and there had been a series of Exodus' taking place on campus. The men in Carter moved to South to make room for the women of Stapp. And good ole Stapp met its maker that Fall. If one shed a tear a hundred did as the porch where I and many others had sat and talked, or sometimes just listenedg where boy first met girl and stole his first kiss. With it went tradition but the old Victorian code still re- mained. The concrete world crumbles with age and the rubble is cleared away, but the abstract remains, for only the concrete and an idea are potential while a memory is kenetic.