Taking a walk around Campus

On the wall across from my home computer hangs an old “Shoe” cartoon strip by the late Jeff MacNelly. It depicts one of the cartoon’s major characters, Cosmo Fishhawk, also known as Perfesser, standing by a typewriter and gazing out a window as his nephew, Skyler, observes that as a writer he should be “pounding” on the keyboard instead of dawdling. The Perfesser disagrees, offering the punchline:   “Typists pound keyboards,” he says. “Writers stare out windows.”

As our story on the writing life at UConn notes, Prof. Sam Pickering uses another time-honored writer’s tool to seek inspiration for filling a blank page or computer screen. He takes a long walk.

The UConn campus is a particularly good place to take a walk in search of writing ideas.   A crisp fall day just before Halloween offers the contrasting scene of students in hooded UConn sweatshirts covering their hands with their shirtsleeves as they move across campus, while others stroll in shorts and flip-flops.

Passing along the sidewalk that runs across the perimeter of the George J. Sherman Family Sports Complex, two young men acknowledge each other as they cross paths on the artificial turf track, while a lone runner can be seen ascending the stairs in the distance at Memorial Stadium.

On Hillside Road, shuttle buses crawl down the street in each direction, stopping to let students on and off, as a truck rumbles by Gampel Pavilion. Meanwhile, inside the dome, the men’s basketball team moves through its second week of practice under the watchful eyes of Hall of Fame coach Jim Calhoun.

On the plaza between the Thomas J. Dodd Center and the Homer Babbidge Library, two young women sit at a table ignoring the wind that whips across the open space as they engage in an animated discussion, warmed by the coffee cups they each hold with both hands. Inside the library, the Bookworms Café is another scene of contrasts with students chatting at tables, staring at e-mail computer stations or walking in every direction.

As I arrive back at my office near Mirror Lake, the ducks decide to walk as a group down the Storrs Road side of the water.

It seems the sights and sounds are enough to write about after my walk around campus.