VISIT TO A PHANTOM CAMPUS
The loon trudges up The Hill to visit the ghostly remains of his past. Yellow buses, innards churning, once challenged The Hill, and so, too, sometimes, did a 1954 blue and white Chevrolet BelAir containing the young loon.
Having gained the summit, the loon looks across to where those houses weren’t and once upon a time the yellow buses entered a turnout and spewed out their well-dressed scholarly contents. The loon himself was often guilty of sweater vests in that almost forgotten time.
The loon pauses to take note of the vanished parking lot where he once parked the 1954 blue and white Chevy. Well, all right, tennis courts. Better tennis courts than more of them big old houses.
The loon wonders what would happen if he walked up to that door, knocked, and asked the resident for a custard-filled maple bar. He could have gotten one in 1961, for lo, this is where the cafeteria multi-purpose room dwelt in times of yore.
The loon tentatively identifies that corner kick place as the spot where he ruptured his hamstring while scoring an all important run during a third period P.E. softball game in 1962.
There’s the boys’ locker room, but not anymore.
What ho! The hill at the end of the upper field. It exists! The upper field doesn’t, though.
The loon often lunched here. It’s not a mirage. It’s concrete.
No track, no goal posts, but nonetheless a familiar view.
The loon rests his walking stick and notes that it’s still pretty wild on the west side.
The hub courtyard, gym on the left, radiating spokes of learning here, there, and on the right.
The loon, in search of a burrito, descends.
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