Squirrels and bad interior design and lobsters, oh my.

Jesse: “Why did the squirrel cross I-95?”

Sarita: “Um, he didn’t. He got turned into a squirrel pancake before he reached the other side, ha ha.”

But not at the University of Rhode Island! This is the only place I haven’t seen squirrels all mashed in the road except for their tails flitting around in the breeze. If I were a squirrel in Rhode Island, I would live on campus where students could feed me french fries and Nutella and the only thing I’d watch out for would be cigarette burns from careless people flicking their butts in my general direction.  

On Saturday we drove to campus to show Jesse the two buildings I hang out in three days a week at URI. 

I teach in “The Castle.” It was built in 1928 and used to be an armory/gymnasium, where ROTC students made good use of the rifle range and shot machine guns at each other to prepare for duty in the armed forces. They also had military balls there. Unfortunately, the campus granite quarry ran out of rocks so Rodman Hall is only a castle from the front. The sides are made of brick the color of crusty Kleenex. 

From 1920-1948 that lovely chap Keaney down there owned Rodman Hall. Keaney supposedly invented "run and shoot" basketball and coached at URI and never had a losing season in 28 years. He was also a chemist and used his lab in Rodman Hall to concoct cures for athlete's foot, jock itch, and soreness. I wish he had invented something useful, like air conditioning. 

Now it’s called Rodman Hall, and it's full of classrooms designed by people who thought orange and yellow and green chairs would not clash with blue carpet. And it still doesn't have air conditioning. With 80% humidity and the odor of old cat stuck in the wall, it's a winning combination. The upside to all this is I have a “time-out” closet. I send people in there when they fall asleep in class (it happens a lot). 

Eleanor Roosevelt Hall is where my office would be, if I had one. This building used to be a girl’s dormitory in 1936. This is the only building on campus named after a woman.

Lots of things are kind of decrepit on campus. This lamppost was no exception. 
It kind of fell over after I leaned against it.  

 

Supposedly Eleanor planted one or more of these flowering Crab Apple trees that are in front of Roosevelt Hall.

Teaching here is just like at BYU, but with more coffee and beards and tattoos and shorter shorts and better architecture that isn't as well maintained because nobody has any money. On my first day, one student introduced himself like this: "Hello professor, my name is Louis and I have Tourettes." 

I thought he was joking. 

But he wasn't. He sits in the back and has convulsions and sounds like he's got a perpetual case of hiccups, but he's the nicest student I've ever had. So I forgive him.

This is our mascot. All who behold his gaze quake in fear. Obviously.

There's a farmer's market near campus, so we stopped by there on our way home and Jesse bought me squash and fingerling potatoes for my birthday. He was going to get lobsters too for $8/pound because they were ginormous and perched on top of small mountains of ice. But then one of the lobsters twitched its eyes at me and I didn't want them anymore.