We took the son down to Pratt yesterday for his first year of college. He is in the Industrial Design program and is – I think – quite excited. My emotions are a bit of a stew: sadness, excitement, worry, anticipation, and more. Even if I were good at sorting through this kind of thing (typically I’m not), it certainly isn’t going to happen on four hours sleep. The dogs, understandably, don’t really care that I spent 10 hours driving yesterday – their chief concern is the fact that they had a really boring day and would like to go for a run. Now. Again. More.
We did have yet another bit of cosmic synchronicity hit us on campus. The lawn where we were served a cookout dinner last night is lined by sycamore trees. Tree identification is not my strong suit – I know the locals (red maple, poplar, red oak, hemlock, and pals), but get me out of the New England woods and I’m in trouble. I knew sycamores, though. Why? Because Pluvialis mentioned plane trees and lime trees recently and I looked ’em up on Wikipedia. I had this suspicion that citrus (limes) might not be winter-hardy in Cambridge and was tired of not knowing anything about plane trees other than the assumed fact that they’re trees. If you don’t want to click through, here’s the key point – what are plane trees in Pluvialis’ neighborhood are sycamores here. While we were waiting in line for our picnic dinners, S (the boy’s mom) commented on the trees – the last time she was on campus was January and the foliage makes the area even more beautiful. I allowed as to how I thought they were sycamores; she looked at the leaves and noticed how maple-like they were. I wouldn’t budge and told her why I was pretty sure. Somewhere in my explanation, Jesus College in Cambridge was mentioned.
Aside – both the boy and I have been known to start with a reasonable sounding kernel and spin an increasingly baroque and improbable story out of it – absolutely deadpan. My son is much better at it than I am and does it to his mom regularly, but I’m a known offender as well.
At this point, S thinks I’m spinning a yarn. The Cambridge that springs to her mind is the one 30 miles away outside of Boston, not the one an ocean away. The existence of Jesus College is questioned, but before I can clarify, the man standing behind us (nice south-Asian accent) interjects, “Why yes, there is a Jesus College in Cambridge. I went there.” The sycamore identification went unresolved, but there is now general agreement that Jesus College exists and that the world is weirdly folded-up-on-itself small.
Thanks for doing the work for me on lime and plane trees. I’ve been reading about them in English novels for decades and was too lazy to figure out they were basswood and sycamores.
I’ve always loved how sycamores smell. Where I grew up in the Southeast they line the streams we used to canoe on. The smell of them gives me that Proustian transportation to canoeing memories.
And Pratt is a great school. Congratulations and good luck to your son.