Champaign-Urbana I: Friday
Oct. 1st, 2003 11:08 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
slipjig3So anyway, Kristi kicked in the door at 8:30 a.m. on Friday and bellowed, "Move it!
Well, all right, that's a slight exaggeration. But the urgency was there: she was dropping me at the airport on her way to class in Albany, and class wasn't bloody well going to wait. So: Overloaded suitcase? Check. Equally-overloaded boredom-alleviation carry-on, with CDs, books, crosswords, and what-have-you? Check. Pepsi for the road? That's a 10-4. Grab the shotgun and the Slim Jims and let's roll, Thelma!
I am deeply grateful for Kristi driving me down for Albany, which was well above and beyond the call of duty. The one problem, though, is that her schedule necessitated my arrival at 9:30 a.m., a good three hours before my scheduled take-off, which was a half-hour more than the layover I was about to face in Detroit. (Hence the overstuffed boredom-alleviation carry-on.) After getting stopped by security because of my belt buckle and shoe brackets, and disrobing further than any stranger had ever requested of me in public before (unfortunately), I communed with CNN and Kristi's Walkman, and tried to wrap my brain around what was happening. And found I couldn't, really.
See, I left Champaign-Urbana for good over a decade ago; my last visit was in the fall of 1996, even before Abbey was born. Whole swaths of my life had passed since I'd last stood on the Quad, eaten at the Courier, flopped into a cuddle puddle with these friends who helped define what little I know about myself. And meanwhile, these people and places had been changing right along with me without my knowledge. I knew I was excited, anxious to get back, almost to the point of neediness, but it was...well, something I couldn't quite comprehend just yet. So I didn't think about it too much. Now, a crossword puzzle. Now, a Richard Thompson CD. Soon, a flight, and a reunion. Soon.
The flight from Albany was largely an exercise in keeping my knees pressed to my chin for an hour and a half. This was the one flight that Jodi had difficulty finding a good seat for, and it showed; my overstuffed boredom-alleviation bag was inches away, and all I could do was wave at it, mournfully. (At least I could look out the window, sort of.) To my surprise, the Detroit airport turned out to be quite the nifty. I'd never been there before, and I was quite impressed at the tasteful, modern design, which I got to see in its entirety because the incoming gate and the outgoing gate stood roughly 47.2 miles apart. I almost didn't find the outgoing gate: they hid C1 behind a glass wall, behind two customer service desks. But the people-watching was above par, so I kept my grousing to a minimum.
Last leg was my first-ever trip in a prop plane. There is something about a propeller that makes flying seem more...immediate, more real. The trip was smooth, lovely, almost bucolic, until the damned Midwestern sky decided to provide me with a thundering hellstorm, as if to say, "Welcome home, Adam! Here's a plague of Egypt! Enjoy!" Amazingly, we arrived on time after being tossed around like Mardi Gras beads for 20 minutes or so. As I'd later tell friends, the pilots managed a perfect 3-point landing; unfortunately, one of those points happened to be the wing.
Jodi, my dear, dear friend, my saint and savior, the one who had made this happen, had joked earlier that I'd be bouncing like Tigger when she first saw me off the plane. Friends, when I saw her, I most certainly did. With a hug like a heartache melting away, I was home.
We wasted no time. After a quick leg-stretch and a tour of Jodi's spacious home [STATEMENT OF INTENT: I want that house], we dashed off to the Courier for dinner. The Courier is...well, let me put it this way: if Champaign-Urbana is Home, then the Courier is Home-within-Home. It's a restaurant-shaped hug, really. And bless their hearts, they didn't change a thing: the cash register, the punched-tin ceilings, even the menus. Even the prices on the menus. We met Jodi's delightful friends Michael and Beth (whom I'm now proud to call my friends as well; hi, you two, if you read this!) right away. A few minutes later, in walks![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ianphanes, looking becloaked, content and healthy, and I quickly collected more hugs. Ate, talked, ate more, talked more; got reminded of stories that I didn't even remember, and still don't.
(As I write this, I find myself craving a Banker's Burger with sweet potato fries and a blueberry shake, and sighing out loud. I'd forgotten. I'd so, so forgotten...)
The original plan of going to the Etc. (my other home-within-home) collapsed when it was found to be closed until next weekend. Well, booger. (Just as well:daev later told me that it had been taken over by a service fraternity who had no clue what the Etc. was about, and who'd painted the walls white and flooded the place with fluorescent lighting, the heathens). But we did walk the Quad, where I reminisced about shooting racquetballs with a giant slingshot over Foellinger Auditorium with Dwight and Jen, and scurried over to see in the Three Magnolias still stood, and thought of all that happened there.
And at one point during the Quad stroll I found myself flooded, overrun with memory and loss, and I couldn't move from where I stood on the sidewalk, not one step. I pulled at my hair and buried my face in my hands, as if I were ready to scream into my palms. But I didn't scream; I spoke, just barely above a whisper: "I want to come home. I want to come home."
We drank at the Espresso Royale, and then I stayed up until some obscene hour of the morning talking with Jodi, getting even more hugs, jet lag shifting my vision in and out of focus. But I wasn't about to sleep. Why would I miss this? I was home. I was home.
Well, all right, that's a slight exaggeration. But the urgency was there: she was dropping me at the airport on her way to class in Albany, and class wasn't bloody well going to wait. So: Overloaded suitcase? Check. Equally-overloaded boredom-alleviation carry-on, with CDs, books, crosswords, and what-have-you? Check. Pepsi for the road? That's a 10-4. Grab the shotgun and the Slim Jims and let's roll, Thelma!
I am deeply grateful for Kristi driving me down for Albany, which was well above and beyond the call of duty. The one problem, though, is that her schedule necessitated my arrival at 9:30 a.m., a good three hours before my scheduled take-off, which was a half-hour more than the layover I was about to face in Detroit. (Hence the overstuffed boredom-alleviation carry-on.) After getting stopped by security because of my belt buckle and shoe brackets, and disrobing further than any stranger had ever requested of me in public before (unfortunately), I communed with CNN and Kristi's Walkman, and tried to wrap my brain around what was happening. And found I couldn't, really.
See, I left Champaign-Urbana for good over a decade ago; my last visit was in the fall of 1996, even before Abbey was born. Whole swaths of my life had passed since I'd last stood on the Quad, eaten at the Courier, flopped into a cuddle puddle with these friends who helped define what little I know about myself. And meanwhile, these people and places had been changing right along with me without my knowledge. I knew I was excited, anxious to get back, almost to the point of neediness, but it was...well, something I couldn't quite comprehend just yet. So I didn't think about it too much. Now, a crossword puzzle. Now, a Richard Thompson CD. Soon, a flight, and a reunion. Soon.
The flight from Albany was largely an exercise in keeping my knees pressed to my chin for an hour and a half. This was the one flight that Jodi had difficulty finding a good seat for, and it showed; my overstuffed boredom-alleviation bag was inches away, and all I could do was wave at it, mournfully. (At least I could look out the window, sort of.) To my surprise, the Detroit airport turned out to be quite the nifty. I'd never been there before, and I was quite impressed at the tasteful, modern design, which I got to see in its entirety because the incoming gate and the outgoing gate stood roughly 47.2 miles apart. I almost didn't find the outgoing gate: they hid C1 behind a glass wall, behind two customer service desks. But the people-watching was above par, so I kept my grousing to a minimum.
Last leg was my first-ever trip in a prop plane. There is something about a propeller that makes flying seem more...immediate, more real. The trip was smooth, lovely, almost bucolic, until the damned Midwestern sky decided to provide me with a thundering hellstorm, as if to say, "Welcome home, Adam! Here's a plague of Egypt! Enjoy!" Amazingly, we arrived on time after being tossed around like Mardi Gras beads for 20 minutes or so. As I'd later tell friends, the pilots managed a perfect 3-point landing; unfortunately, one of those points happened to be the wing.
Jodi, my dear, dear friend, my saint and savior, the one who had made this happen, had joked earlier that I'd be bouncing like Tigger when she first saw me off the plane. Friends, when I saw her, I most certainly did. With a hug like a heartache melting away, I was home.
We wasted no time. After a quick leg-stretch and a tour of Jodi's spacious home [STATEMENT OF INTENT: I want that house], we dashed off to the Courier for dinner. The Courier is...well, let me put it this way: if Champaign-Urbana is Home, then the Courier is Home-within-Home. It's a restaurant-shaped hug, really. And bless their hearts, they didn't change a thing: the cash register, the punched-tin ceilings, even the menus. Even the prices on the menus. We met Jodi's delightful friends Michael and Beth (whom I'm now proud to call my friends as well; hi, you two, if you read this!) right away. A few minutes later, in walks
ianphanes, looking becloaked, content and healthy, and I quickly collected more hugs. Ate, talked, ate more, talked more; got reminded of stories that I didn't even remember, and still don't.(As I write this, I find myself craving a Banker's Burger with sweet potato fries and a blueberry shake, and sighing out loud. I'd forgotten. I'd so, so forgotten...)
The original plan of going to the Etc. (my other home-within-home) collapsed when it was found to be closed until next weekend. Well, booger. (Just as well:
daev later told me that it had been taken over by a service fraternity who had no clue what the Etc. was about, and who'd painted the walls white and flooded the place with fluorescent lighting, the heathens). But we did walk the Quad, where I reminisced about shooting racquetballs with a giant slingshot over Foellinger Auditorium with Dwight and Jen, and scurried over to see in the Three Magnolias still stood, and thought of all that happened there.And at one point during the Quad stroll I found myself flooded, overrun with memory and loss, and I couldn't move from where I stood on the sidewalk, not one step. I pulled at my hair and buried my face in my hands, as if I were ready to scream into my palms. But I didn't scream; I spoke, just barely above a whisper: "I want to come home. I want to come home."
We drank at the Espresso Royale, and then I stayed up until some obscene hour of the morning talking with Jodi, getting even more hugs, jet lag shifting my vision in and out of focus. But I wasn't about to sleep. Why would I miss this? I was home. I was home.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-02 05:36 am (UTC)And bless their hearts, they didn't change a thing: the cash register, the punched-tin ceilings, even the menus. Even the prices on the menus.
You know, when I went there, they hadn't changed anything, and I found this so unremarkable. Like, "of course, the Courier hasn't changed. It's the Courier."
The original plan of going to the Etc. (my other home-within-home) collapsed when it was found to be closed until next weekend. Well, booger. (Just as well: daev later told me that it had been taken over by a service fraternity who had no clue what the Etc. was about, and who'd painted the walls white and flooded the place with fluorescent lighting, the heathens).
Ack. White with fluorescent lighting. Might as well turn it into a Starbucks.
Now that brings back memories - games of chess, volunteering (and staying very late doing clean-up, taking those treacherous stairs to the kitchen with vats of old Wassail), King and Peasant, Hearts, and Spoons where the candlelight was so dim you could hardly see the cards. I used to collect two dollar bills so I could pay for myself and someone else. I wonder if they at least kept the stained glass Etc. sign.... You're right - they are heathens.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-02 06:15 am (UTC)You know what? You're absolutely right.
As for the Etc.... Yes, piles upon piles of memories there, especially the King and Peasant games, dragging over seven or eight tables into one long chain, then pounding on them while singing "An Toll Dubh" with a gaggle of friends who don't speak Gaelic, either... *sigh* I'm actually glad I didn't get to go on Friday, knowing what I know now.
However, take heart: I can't go into more detail until I get to the Sunday entry, but there are Secret Plans afoot. Stay tuned (or read
I know you're still on Friday, but...
Date: 2003-10-02 05:45 am (UTC)Jodi brought the flashlight back yesterday -- thank you! -- and says she'd help
The song now stuck in my head is "Home is Where the Heart Is," by Peter, Paul, and Mary. Not entirely apropos, but that line is all that keeps repeating anyhow. You express so eloquently how much you missed Shampoo-Banana (okay, not quite by that name, but still); your prose is as always exquisite.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-02 06:33 am (UTC)Jodi brought the flashlight back yesterday -- thank you! -- and says she'd help daev take over the Etc. if possible. Michael, who was also here at the time, says he'll talk to the applicable person about just what was actually promised when its care and feeding, as it were, was given to the service fraternity.
That's fantastic! I'm IMing with Jodi right now (as she said, "Boy, news travels fast!" *giggle*). It's going to take serious willpower not to pack my bags and come help. Oh, and Dave, if you're reading this: CALL THEO. I think he'll want to hear about this. (And I'm glad you got the flashlight back; I facepalmed myself pretty badly when I realized it was still in my hand.)
And thank you so much for the compliment! *blush*
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-02 07:07 am (UTC)Same here. That is so cool! Seriously, we may be moving back in a matter of weeks, and it would be a nice thing to re-visit.
And say hi to Jodi for me, btw. Haven't talked with her in a while (for a good reason), but I still wish her the best and all that.
(And I'm glad you got the flashlight back; I facepalmed myself pretty badly when I realized it was still in my hand.)
Just make sure that when you do this, do not do this with the hand holding the flashlight. It will hurt. Safety tip of the day.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-02 07:08 pm (UTC)She's most likely reading this.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-03 05:15 am (UTC)Hi, Jodi.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-03 05:27 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-02 02:25 pm (UTC)Know you don't know me, but I'm a mutual friend of lynda and michael. anyhoo.
just for clarification:
the etc. has been undergoing renovations for the past year or so. this is all part of a 5 or so year plan for renovating the etc to not only make it a better coffee house (especially finally meeting health codes) but to also make the room more multi-purpose, therefore more serviceable to the college students of the church. the grand plan is to give the students a physical place in the church building that they can call home during the week. the space is now, post-renovations, used for meetings and as a study room. these things were not done by the service fraternity, but by the church group that owns the building. the lights are not fluorescent, but are dim-able bulbs that I believe are the "long life" variety for ecological purposes.
The issue of the service fraternity operating the etc is fairly straightforward. the wesley foundation traditionally ran the etc. member numbers declined to the point that it was the same people working every weekend and they got tired. so we had to make a decision: close down the etc or ask the service frat. if they'd be interested in taking over the running. we figured that closing down the etc would take away one of our longest lasting community focused missions (and yes, it is a mission), so we opted for keeping it open but under different managerial staff until the foundation grew to a point where it could resume the operation.
Getting the renovations done is something that I personally have been working on for the past year. Not only did we devote many hours to it, but we fought tirelessly with committees for the purpose of maintaining as much of the etc atmosphere as possible. Yes the walls are no longer yellow, yes the floors are no longer green and black, but those are not the things that are the etc. The etc is a place to gather with friends and converse over hot drinks and food. It is friendships and it is community. If painting the walls changes that for you, then I am sorry.
~S
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-02 06:58 pm (UTC)I think a lot of the problems long-time Etc. patrons have voiced about the changes center around the thought that the service fraternity doesn't really have much background with the coffeehouse itself, and thus aren't on the same "wavelength" as to how it's to be run.
Just from talking to friends recently, there seems to be a growing number of people interested in getting the Etc. "back to what it was" (if you'll pardon the term). If enough people voice such a desire, and display the commitment and enthusiasm to actually see this through, would you welcome their input? This is not intended as a slight to those running it now, but a wish to add these friends' experience and love for the space to the operation.
Again, thank you for taking the time to set me straight. I'm sorry if my emotions got away from me on this, but it's a matter that is more dear to me heart than you know.
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-02 08:20 pm (UTC)We've done everything we can to maintain an atmosphere akin to what existed at the Etc. However, I hope you can understand that things are not the way they used to be. I'd wager that you are no longer the person you used to be. Things grow and things change.
As for the input: The only thing I am truly concerned about is whether you and the others have any idea how much time and work it takes to keep the Etc. up and running. You will have to devote every friday and saturday night, from 7 till 2am, every weekend during the semester. This does not include the time during the week used to order the food and supplies and to get change and make the monetary deposits. This is the reason why the students became burnt out and eventually gave up management to the service fraternity. A core group of 4 or so students had to work the Etc. every weekend, quickly becoming tired and disgruntled. We quickly learned that 4 core individuals was not nearly enough to do all the work and still enjoy the experience. It is a lot of work and I hope it would not be taken on lightly.
As for whether or not people outside the foundation would be allowed to take over operation: I don't know. This falls into the campus minister's jurisdiction. I'm not quite sure of his position on the Etc. (being that he is new) and what he eventually intends to do with it. However, I would not put it past him to want to eventually return the management to the students of the foundation once our membership increases. If these people are serious, I suggest the schedule a meeting with Rob and talk it over with him. He is a very nice guy and would be willing to listen to their position.
On another entirely separate note: Not to be rude, but I honestly don't appreciate being referred to as a heathen. I realize that it was said out of frustration and possibly with a hint of humor, but the word still hurt. I never use that word and would never even consider using it against another human being.
~S
(no subject)
Date: 2003-10-03 05:26 am (UTC)A very valid point. Thank you.
I can't answer for those in the area who have expressed an interest in helping, but I know them enough to know that they are not unaware of the level of responsibility involved, which they'll take into account before committing themselves. I also know that, if they do decide to help, it will be a labor of love. (It's frustrating a time zone away, because I feel like I'm volunteering my friends when I myself can't help. I wish I could be there to help. Dave, Jodi, I'm sorry if I'm putting words in your mouths; I'm trying not to.)
I'm sorry about "heathen." It was meant to be a joke, and not a hurtful one. I honestly wasn't aware that it might be as strong a word as it is for some people; I guess my connotations for the word are not the same as yours (in my mind, calling someone a heathen is no stronger than, say, calling them a "rascal"). I do apologize.