Words and Water Worries

The trouble with impromptu activities is the lack of planning. Water, for instance. Water would have been nice.

I’ve got four slightly-uphill miles left until I reach home; or more accurately, the refrigerator. Twelve other miles behind me have narrowed my focus wonderfully. When Jesus promised that those who drank living water would never thirst again, the inhabitants of arid Palestine must have felt like this. That sounds amazing. Tell us, is this living water chilled? Does it come with ice cubes in the door, like in Texas? That would be great.

Today was not supposed to be an exercise in cameldom.

It was actually supposed to be a quick bike ride over to Wal-mart for footwear. My tennis shoes were on their last leg and starting to look like they’d escaped from the wardrobe department of a zombie apocalypse. I started getting a blister last night at work because the left shoe had a gap in the padding that went clear to the rubber. So I dutifully plodded off to go find a pair of shoes to last me another eighteen months. After finding a pair (black, so I don’t have to change socks after school; and cushy, so I still have blood flow at work) I strapped them on, tossed the old ones in a nearby can, and stood exultingly in the breeze.

And that’s when it hit me. Wal-mart was already on the edge of town, and I’d been musing about the need to get a little exercise today. Why not bike the seven miles to Pullman? Sounds fun. It’s not all that hot. I’ll be fine. So off I went: an impromptu excursion.

And, at first, it went swimmingly. There was a hint of a breeze, the noon sun gently baking me from a few million miles away... you know, if I’d known I was going to be out in this a few hours instead of a few minutes, I’d have worn sunscreen. This is going to take my ruddy Germanic tones a few shades up the chart. I glance at my arm. “Ohhh, he’ll feel that tomorrow!” “I think he is feeling it now!” “Ouch!” The Balto quotes roll out easily, accents and all, despite the lack of audience; I am alone as usual these days. Oh, well. I’m sure the angels enjoyed it.

Pullman is still in one piece and swimming with growing bustle as new freshmen and their parents make their first trip to Washington State. Part of my track crosses the campus, and on a further impromptu whim to my impromptu whim, I swing left. The WSU library is up here somewhere, and I have nothing else planned this afternoon. Now, let’s see. Logic dictates that a library, being an important building at a college, will be on the older part of campus, and the oldest parts of campuses are generally in the middle (and in this case, at the top of a rather steep hill). One map and rather less oxygen later, I found it. The surroundings—both inside and out—were a sharp reminder of what a big business education has become. I attended Texas A&M for a year and a half, and I know what the look, smell, and feel of plenty of state money is like. WSU has it. After three years of a one-room library and meeting in professor’s living rooms, it feels strangely decadent to look out a thirtyfoot library window at football players stretching on crisp Astroturf, a well-paid coach advising every third or fourth one. You can almost smell the dollars. The ungrateful students swarm by, superbly unaware of the prestige, power, and often wickedness they are financing. “Ignorance is this.” The library is spacious, modern, all lack of angles and unscented light. They only have one book by C.S. Lewis—such shame. They try to make up for it by four full stacks of Native Americana. I remain unimpressed. My hunt for the military history section takes me across the rotunda to the older section—the original library. 
Suddenly I’m in a very different world. That inimitable old library smell, the bare wooden desks and chairs, the relentlessly right-angle stacks narrowly crowded from dark floor to ceiling, few windows and less fresh air—here is the heart of scholardom on Earth. I am content. Here are words enough for any lifetime, words upon words upon words; some good, some bad, all bound and waiting patiently for wanderers like me. A few hours are spent reading half a book on dreadnought battleships, but outside the sun has moved unseen and other obligations approach. I return to modernity and its curves, pastels, and overabundant light. While the helpful young lady at the circulation desk grants me a library card, I glance at the wall, where a plastic pink triangle sign simperingly proclaims this area a “homophobic free zone, where we are happy to care for your needs however we can.” If that’s the case, they really ought to deny me that library card in the name of consistency. I muse idly while waiting over the irony of taking the pink triangle—the concentration camp badge in Nazi Germany for convicted homosexuals, like the star was for Jews—and making it into a sympathy sign. An object of reproach turned into honor. Christians, actually, have done the same with the cross. We are just so far removed from that hideous method of torture that it no longer registers. Our Lord also died a cursed death far outside the “respectable” pale, and belief in that cause also changed the world. A good reminder from a foul source.

Then it’s off though the maze of campus for home. I suffer repeatedly the uniquely civilized problem of knowing exactly where I am and where I wish to go, but having no legal route to get there. Turns, U-turns, and a mile long detour finally get me down the hill and back to the Chipman Trail. As the late afternoon sun adds nearly ninety degrees to the air, my thoughts turn to water. Camels are truly blessed creatures in spite of the hump. But at last my refrigerator is in sight and the impromptu excursion is over: I am the richer by a library card, two shoes, and a light case of sunburn. Not a bad afternoon’s work.