The campus is still and quiet. If you walk across Cameron Avenue and look left and right, the few autos you see are from the Physical Plant. The campus buildings we have always with us and they never cease to need care. And of course, the caretakers are making sure that we have a smooth commencement, clean grounds and a working loudspeaker system in Kenan Stadium this Sunday. They were clipping the bushes in front of the Mary Ann Smith building when I passed there.
Rounded hedges make it look a little less forlorn and deserted.
It's due for a refurbishing and will get one, if the Fall bond issue passes. The campus is peaceful and lonely and left to the librarians and gardeners who meet their daily quota of hours no matter the season. We'll pass through commencement with the same vigor and tired feet we have since the first one in 1799. But the ghosts of the visitors who came to see the first students graduate will mingle with our living parents, grandparents, sisters, brothers, aunts and uncles and in the song of the greetings flung to friends for the last time, old classmates will turn to a new fate. The heat of the still air will close our minds to all but a cool retreat.