I finished moving into my residential college as a storm began
- fat raindrops, as big as coconuts, falling from a black and fouling sky.
These northerners were acting like a "tropical storm" (Henri) was a big deal.
“Surely New England gets storms?” I ask, from behind my mask.
“What about NOR_Easters?” I say, like a meteorologist.
“Those are different.” I’m told, with no other explanation.
“Did you bring this storm from the “SOUTH?” I’m asked, accusingly.
*(This was after I told them about coming from one ”bulldog-college-town” to another.)*
“Yes.” I reply, “It was in my luggage.”
A silly question but they have a point - the storm feels like it’s involved and fulfilling some obligation to dramatize my college move-in story.
“Time to quarantine!” I’m informed - “Yep, can’t WAIT!” I lie.
One disaster at a time.
When your baby leaves home you are either overjoyed or sad.
I was overjoyed, until I could not reach her on her phone for days,
and then a week, and then ten days.
Her roommate said her stuff was there, but
“I never see her.”
I asked if she could tell whether or not she had been there recently,
and she told me that she could not.
These were pre-texting days. My helpless eighteen-year-old daughter
was four hours away from home, at a college she had chosen. I was worried,
so I called everybody including the phone company down there. I asked everyone to put
a note on her dorm door, telling her to call her mother.
We got a call that night from an angry daughter who said this
to her dad, “What does Mom want?”
She was embarrassed and irritated that six people had yelled at her to call her
mother, and there were two notes stuck to her door that
said ‘call your mother’ - one from the phone company.
Six people who cared. Six strangers I do not know. Six angels.
I wondered which four did not step up.
Storm Did Form In Trump's Dorm
We did see some storm,
Which soon had started to form,
That was in Trump's dorm.
Jim Horn
So what would you do
if you woke up one morning to
a sign on your dorm room door
saying in no uncertain terms this is for
warning you that the reek in the halls
has exceeded the tolerance levels
our policy calls for? C'mon y'all!
We know we accept brilliant devils
but we expect you to at least
bat your eyelashes to the fact
that there's a pretty dang dangerous beast
out there. We hope you can call on your tact
and moderate your in-your-faceness
enough to where it deserves its effectiveness.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
actually, this is sorta a semi-sonnet, but i went with the closest could think of
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