Talk of schoolwork is mostly avoided, although the thought looms in their minds. Stories, true or exaggerated, new or a decade old, long and short, funny or somber, are retold for the hundredth time. The Roo who ate a stick of butter. The Roo who, while playing dodgeball, slipped on a puddle of beer and broke his ankle. Few do not.
Most runners stay and talk until well after they have finished eating.
Reluctantly, they stand and put their trays away. For many, two to three hours of studying in the sterile, silent library awaits them. For the lucky few, there is nothing but a lazy fall evening, a remiss from the labor. But for every Roo, there is at least one more day of practice, and one more blissful rendezvous with the boys. I'm not sure it would have been more overwhelming to have been asked to list every great work of literature in order of social and political importance and influence than to have been asked to write about what running at Grinnell means to me.