Ugly Enormous Green Hangars

Conn College was a place I’d thought of applying to.  I seem to recall that I ultimately did not.  I have a nice image of it but hCW I never visited the campus.  And certainly I hadn’t recalled that it was started as a college to accommodate women, whom Wesleyan wouldn’t allow in, during the early part of the last century.  The campus is lovely and we both noted how secluded it felt.  Our tour guide is well intentioned.  But we learn a bit too much about the story behind the campus mascot: the camel, for my taste.

Later we head to Muddy’s in New London.  We must go up along side the Cost Guard College. I think our man Donald recently gave a graduation address here, invariably offending someone in the process.  New London has a rough, chiseled quality.   What is this church?  How is it that this brick building hasn’t been knocked down?  It’s standing here all by itself.  Muddy’s is on an old downtown strip.  There area some beautiful buildings in various stages of renovation.  Despite the heat we sit outside in the back where we can see the port.  There are lovely houses on a hill.  And there are ugly enormous green hangars of waterfront activity off to the right on he opposite shore.  One imagines that the people on the hill were none too pleased about these enormous constructions that mar the waterfront. 

“Isn’t this the town?  Hey, baby, do you remember the book we read about the boy who saw a sea monster off his town?  It was set in the eighteenth century.  All the people came to see.  Some of them went out to hunt for the monster but no one could find it.  Do you remember that story?”  “No.”  She doesn’t.  “Wasn’t that taking place right here in New London?  I think?  And upon second though I recall that it was probably up north, in Gloucester, or some other fishing community in Massachusetts.  I remember that story.  Why doesn’t she?

My car is out in front of Muddy’s. My bag is in the car.  Inside my back pack is my passport. Inside that back pack is my lap top.  I consider the magnitude of just how shitty it would be to loose either item.  I try to enjoy my chicken Caesar here out on the back porch, where no one else is sitting due to the heat.  But I keep thinking that someone might smash the window and go for it.  We haven’t had an opioid crisis in China for over one hundred years.  I consider the traffic on the street and the proximity to the restaurant.  I don’t opt to go and get my bag.  But I finish my salad more quickly than I otherwise might and pay and depart.  My rental car has not been violated. 

Wednesday 07/19/17