Charlottesville is one of the spots that I've most been looking forward to on this trip. I haven't been back here for about 10 years. I had a great day revisiting a lot of my favorite places. I encountered a lot of ghosts, some happy, some sad, but all ultimately positive.
I started out with a trip to the Corner. I got a bagel at Bodo's. Bodo's Bagels is a Charlottesville "chain." There are a couple of stores around town. The entire time I attended school here (and the 4 years prior to my attendance), the corner location had a sign on it saying "Coming Soon." So they had the property, but it took them almost 10 years to actually open. It was a long-standing joke that it would never open. So when I went there this morning for a bagel, it was pretty bizarre. I also stopped at Mincer's to buy some UVA gear - I limited myself to a pair of pants, a sweatshirt and a t-shirt. I also used this opportunity to pick up my favorite sandwich at Take-it-Away, smoked turkey and house dressing on french bread. This was the sandwich I ate on graduation day back in 2002. Yes, I remember these things. FYI - my second favorite sandwich from Take-it-Away? Tuna fish and sprouts on french bread. They also sell bags of bread ends and to-go containers of house dressing. This was one of my go-to snacks back in school.
So after I loaded up on food and supplies, I headed over to the start point for the volksmarch. Oh, one note about this particular volksmarch. About a week ago, I emailed President Sullivan (have I mentioned this yet? I can't remember) to let her know that I was coming to town and would be doing the volksmarch - she does volksmarches as well, so that's not completely random. But it was just a simple note to say hi and let her know that I was looking forward to it. And she emailed me back! She said she had just done the walk, and if she was going to be in town, she'd walk it with me, but unfortunately, she'd be out of town today. How great is that? And when I emailed her again after the walk today, she returned my email again within like half an hour. She must get a ton of emails for her job and it was great to know that she took the time out to respond to mine.
Ok, so the volksmarch. I apparently had difficulty reading directions at first and ended up doing the first serpentine pattern basically backwards, but it all worked out. The first section was historic downtown Charlottesville, which I'm a little ashamed to admit that I had never been to before. Then I walked down main street, where I used to go see Carbon Leaf play, and then through the Medical Center. The ghosts started there. My fourth-year boyfriend is, I believe, a resident at the UVA Medical Center, so there was the slimmest of possibilities of maybe, possibly, running into him. So, of course, I had to have one of my patented imaginary conversations with him regarding how our relationship had impacted the rest of my life, etc, etc. Good to think about these things - definitely giving me more to write about.
I walked past the South Lawn extension where my 4th year apartment has been torn down in order to make way for newer buildings. That apartment was so interesting - 7 bedrooms, 3 1/2 bathrooms, 2 kitchens, one living room, and a spiral staircase. And yes, this was an apartment. I deviated slightly from the planned course in order to detour through the engineering school. It being a Sunday during the summer, the buildings were all locked, so I couldn't get in to see my old classrooms, but I could still walk through the courtyards. I walked past the steps where my parents took my picture after I graduated, past the spot where a friend of mine told me that the twin towers had collapsed on 9/11, through the courtyard where I received my diploma, past the place where I was loaded into an ambulance after almost passing out due to dehydration, past the loading dock where I was loaded onto another ambulance after falling down a set of stairs and cracking my chin open on the concrete landing.
I walked down past the chemistry building to the new dorms, which have been completely transformed, back past the old dorms, the physics building, and the education school. I went into the building that houses Clark Library, where there is a copy of my 4th year thesis. Again, the library was closed, so I couldn't go home to find it. I walked past the amphitheater where I saw one of my roommates get hypnotized by Tom Deluca and down past Edgar Allen Poe's Range room. I finally made it over to the Rotunda and the Lawn. I sat on the south stairs of the Rotunda, looking over the Lawn as I ate my turkey sandwich.
Side note - I'm currently watching Army Wives and in this episode, one of the women's daughters is moving into college - it happens to be UVA. And this campus that they're walking on is OBVIOUSLY not UVA. What the hell? Seriously - if you choose a Unesco World Heritage Site as the setting for your show, you can't fake that location.
Ok, back to it. The Lawn. One of my great regrets in life is not applying to live on the Lawn during my 4th year. It was partly a logistical issue - leases for off-grounds housing needed to be signed in September for the following year, but applications for the Lawn weren't until January or so. So if I waited to sign a lease in hopes that I'd get accepted, I might have been SOL in terms of housing. And if I applied for the Lawn after having already signed a lease, I'd have to find someone to take over my spot and potentially screwed over my roommates. Living on the Lawn is one of the University's biggest honors. There are 54 rooms where students originally lived when Mr. Jefferson envisioned the University. Distributed among those rooms are 10 pavilions, where staff or faculty members live. They used to also house classrooms, but all of those classrooms have been moved at this point. Some Lawn rooms are designated for specific University leaders - the president of the Jefferson Literary and Debating Society, etc - and most Lawn rooms are decided via the application process. So I didn't apply partially because of logistics, but most of it was because, at the time, I didn't think I'd get selected. Looking back, I wish so much that I had at least applied. I really think I would have gotten selected. I was a female engineer with a 3.6 GPA and was Tech Director of my student run theatre group at the time, and ended up being Producer my 4th year. I was basically the definition of a student-leader, but I underestimated my worth (as I've done my whole life). There's nothing I can do to go back and change that decision not to apply, but oh, how I wish I could.
I walked down the length of the lawn, to the spot where I stood at commencement. I said hi to Homer - the tradition is that before you graduate, you're supposed to streak the Lawn, starting at the Rotunda, run down to Homer, kiss his rear end, run back up to the Rotunda and look through the key hole to see the statue of Mr. Jefferson. I never did it, and that's one thing I don't regret.
I walked back up the length of the Lawn, passed around the Rotunda and sat on the steps where Rob (that 4th year boyfriend of mine) and I sat when we were either breaking up or getting back together at one point (I can't remember which, it happened so many times).
Oh hey - it's close to the end of the episode and it turns out she wasn't moving into UVA at all, so it makes sense that they don't know what it looked like.
I made a stop in Starbucks on the Corner in order to recharge my phone before walking back to my car at the downtown mall. I passed by a movie theatre where Rob and I went on a date to see Monster's Ball. PS - not a date movie.
So, overall, a great volksmarch. But I still had a couple places that I wanted to check out. I drove over to Beta Bridge. This is a bridge where students (generally) paint whatever message they have on the walls to promote or advertise. After the Virginia Tech massacre, the "Hoos for Hokies" message stayed up there for about 2 weeks, but it usually changes almost daily during the school year. I did paint it once to advertise an FYP show (couldn't tell you which one though). I drove over to Lambeth, my 2nd and 3rd year apartment, and the only housing that I had that is still standing at the University.
Next stop was the University bookstore, which I knew would be a bit of a minefield. I managed to get out of there with only $250 worth of goods, including a wine glass, a camp chair, a couple shirts, a photograph of the Rotunda, and more. I did resist buying a water bottle or a thermos, because, seriously I have enough of them. I also saw a desk where students order their class rings. I never got one, so I asked the girl at the counter about getting one for a previous year. After coming "home" tonight, I looked into it online and I'll definitely be ordering myself one just as soon as I can figure out what size my finger is (I never buy rings for myself).
A couple more stops - the site of my first year dorm, which has been torn down as well and a new, huge, air-conditioned dorm has been built in its place. Then, the Student Activities Building. Ah, the SAB. Where I learned to love theatre, I learned how to lead, and learned about teamwork. Now, I bet I would have learned these things without the SAB, but I wouldn't have learned them without First Year Players. And without the SAB, FYP likely wouldn't have had a performance space, so it stands to reason, that the SAB helped to shape me. It's a hell of a space in which to produce a show, but that's part of its charm. Only the first 3 rows of the audience can actually see anything and the house lights take about 10 minutes to warm up, at which point, it's time to take them back down to half. And we all remember the story about when clothes were hung on the water pipes in the "dressing room" and the weight of them caused the pipes to burst, flooding the building and almost forcing the show to not open. FYP could have lost everything, but the 7 Society stepped in and provided us with the funds for the repairs. (This was before my time, but it's a story of legend now.) Also, the 7 Society? One of UVA's secret societies, but that's a whole other story. If you're interested, you can check out more information here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secret_societies_at_the_University_of_Virginia
And no, I'm not a member of any (not that I could tell you if I was for a few of them).
Final stop of the day was back to the corner to pick up my favorite sandwich from Little Johns: the Nuclear Sub with no cole slaw. Yummers. I ate it back at the house where I'm staying and then relaxed for most of the evening (and apparently took 2 hours to compose this post - I think it's my longest, but it's UVA, so that's to be expected).
So I'm leaving C-ville tomorrow. I'm sad to leave, but I hope to come back more often. I'm vowing now to make it to Reunions in 2017. I've skipped both the 2007 and the 2012 Reunions because I didn't know if any of my friends would be there. But I vow to come back regardless.
No comments:
Post a Comment