I seem to have finally found a job. What a relief! More details about that soon.

I was in Athens today, and I released my copy of The Rule of Four. They have built a new parking deck for North Campus, which was something that was sorely needed. I parked there and hiked across one of the quads, past the library, to Park Hall. I opened the door and walked in. The library smell of books. It was so familiar. The grooves worn in the stairs by all the students climbing up to second floor lessons. It was empty. I got a few odd looks from graduate assistants and professors who must have wondered why I was there. I felt embarrassed. I didn’t want anyone to see me leave the book. I left it on a bench in the foyer, then left the way I had come.

I think they have done something to the street at the corner of Baldwin and Sanford Dr. I don’t remember there being brick there before, nor posts to keep cars off the stairs next to Park Hall. Has that been a problem? Or maybe it was done to discourage bicyclists and skaters. There are some new buildings, which somehow made it seem easier to hike. I wonder if they had to level some of those hills to build new buildings?

I was just about to slip between Waddell Hall and Lustrat when I looked. The spurt of water caught my eye. There is a fountain there where I used to sit on a wrought iron bench donated by a class in the 1800s. My spot. I started to go over and sit for a moment, but I stopped. I told myself I was being sentimental, and I walked by. I didn’t smell any honeysuckle on the path. I wonder if I just didn’t pass by the right place.

Sometime I wonder if all those Georgia fans, the ones who wear red and black and go to football games, really get that place. Maybe I don’t either. Maybe it’s lots of different things to different people. The whole time I went there, I never went to a single football game. But I often sat by a bubbling fountain on North Campus, on an ancient bench, surrounded by monuments to the history of UGA.