American Universities – Snippets of a Traveling Mind

“There is a charm in solitude that cheers.
A feeling that the world knows nothing of.
A green delight the wounded mind endears.
After the hustling world is broken off…”(John Clare)

Let’s face it. Covid -19 has required an immense personal sacrifice for over two months now. As each day’s routine now seemingly feels the same, I’ve thus dutifully followed the recommended plan to stay wisely at home, stop non-essential travel, trust shopping online, and make use of “virtual” mediums to avoid direct human contact. Yet in spite of these safeguards, increasingly it seems that I feel trapped like a prisoner in my own home. How about you?

So many puzzling questions thus quickly arise about easing the strain of my semi-quarantine status. How can my wife and I avoid infringing on each other’s personal space to conduct our own private lives? By what means can I effectively deal with my “cabin fever” which festers negative mind distractions that are psychologically harmful? What steps can I take to avoid eating out of idle time boredom ? How can I energize my daily routine to avoid sitting in sedentary laziness on my living room couch?

So with social distancing firmly in place now and for the unforeseeable future, I’m determined to shift my awareness to finding more productive opportunities outside. Picture me then taking up bike riding again as I often did as a restless teenager seeking new adventures growing up in South Florida. Yet a spirited ride for me as I continue to endure this health crisis rut will serve as a much needed escape from home to new places of solitude/silence. I’ve thus thankfully discovered that the visually stimulating grounds of nearby Nova Southeastern University serves as an ideal destination for my daily biking endeavors. For here I can pleasantly “soak in” the subtropical natural beauty of South Florida as spring time emerges as well as reviving my “happy day” passions of my youthful college past. So join me in my quest for serenity as I pedal quietly around NSU’s main campus on a gorgeously sunny weekday morning in the following photograph display.

The NSU Taft and Rosenthal University Centers normally bustle in daytime with campus life. But as I passed by these impressive looking landmarks, the soothing presence of flowing water from a “Shark” mascot fountain seemed to take center stage” in my attention today.

This statue of famed South Florida entrepreneur Wayne Huizenga sitting under a pleasantly shaded tree tempted me to sit contentedly next to him for awhile on this shaded bench.

In the late 1980s, I taught freshman college classes as an adjunct English professor in the Parker Building below. Being no longer “caught up” in the time driven dash to and from class from those days, I discovered a freshly new outlook of these environs by conducting a pleasant walk along these lush vegetative corridors.

The current Miami Dolphins training facility prominently stands out along the northerly perimeter grounds of NSU. Yet the eerie silence emanating from these locked facilities provided a stark reminder that spectator sports might soon become for me a much more solitary hobby.

The diverse ecosystem of tropical flora at NSU’s Medicinal Healing Garden nearby the Parker Building provided a secluded place for me to quietly unwind from Corona’s life challenges. Good idea that I brought my insect repellent here today.

Self meditation also provided an inspiring activity at the NSU Healing Garden as I found the perfect flower to focus my full attention on.

I often stopped to read at benches set along a picturesque loop path overlooking Gold Circle Lake near the NSU Administration Building and Law School complex.

Plenty of hungry reptile and aviary life also congregated at Gold Circle Lake to keep me company. I never realized that iguanas love bananas.

This inviting park bench area outside the NSU bookstore provided positive memories of my youthful energy to embrace the act of serious textbook study sitting outside as a graduate student in the past at NSU. Incidentally, the need to find Wi-Fi access was not a big issue back then.

Does this open green at NSU look like a nice place to unwind from a stressful day in class? Does anyone feel like throwing me a frisbee?

“Where we love is home, home that our feet may leave, but not our hearts” (Oliver Wendell Holmes)

I’ve always embraced the stimulating “buzz” of community ideals existing in the college experience. For this reason, I have often considered such youth vibrant institutions as a “second home” option for extended stay visits. I can reminisce then with great satisfaction about my early adulthood years as a Masters Degree student, dutifully walking to and from the campus library every day to join so many others in diligent pursuit of academic excellence. I also recall how good it felt to be part of a university community as a tenured professor where students/faculty cared deeply about academic learning.

In a similar fashion, I realize that my early retirement from teaching frees up my time to find new ways of exploring the magnetic attractions of the college collegial experience. Witness my spirited discussions with fellow alumni from the University of South Florida Alumni Club each fall as we recapture the campus energy of cheering on our hometown team during college football live broadcasts. Or picture a lazy summer Sunday in Fort Lauderdale when I often feverishly scan the local newspapers for university offerings of cultural/musical interest for the week ahead.

From a traveling perspective, such nostalgic college memories provide similar homebound longings during our long, road trip separations from family/friends each spring. Consider a centralized open space on campus, for instance, as an ideal spot for this traveler’s peaceful solitude with my wife, Ruth from the daily rigors of the road. Or embrace the familiar “air” of youthful intellectual energy from those nostalgic walks around campus amidst stately centers of learning proudly standing from the historic past. You might reason as well how a student union facility on campus functions as an ideal place for us to settle into a college community presence so far from home. With such feelings of finding the spirit of home in academia firmly in mind , I present a photographic display of favorite college images from our recent travels.

The picturesque “green” of the University of Mississippi in Oxford, Mississippi provided a restful picnic stop to enjoy informal family moments typically shared at home.

Surveying several Confederate Soldier era monuments from the Civil War along the main campus “green”, I realized that these legendary heroes of the defeated Rebel forces had found an honorable home in this ” Old South” setting at the “Ole Miss” campus.

The distinguished statue presence of Civil Rights hero James Meredith at “0le Miss.”also reminded me that a university provides a home for those who foster equal opportunity for bettering oneself for all races, creeds, and colors.

The modern campus of California Polytechnic University inconspicuously lies along the remote coastal ridge near San Luis Obispo, California. Yet a series of Buddhistic offerings at the bustling Student Center provided a much needed home for student gatherings to experience “spiritual enlightenment” on campus.

The Lyndon B. Johnson Presidential Library at the University of Texas main campus in Austin functions as an impressive landmark documenting the extraordinary political legacy of LBJ. In my tour of this museum, I felt a warm human presence of being welcomed behind the scenes into his Presidential world and Texas home.

A strong tradition of home field, winning college football unites Vols fans at Neyland Stadium on the main campus of the University Of Tennessee in Knoxville. I similarly felt this show of “Vols Fever” in my brief tour of this campus.

Being linked efficiently with convenient pedestrian bridges to the center of downtown Knoxville, the Univ. Of Tenn. also serves as an accessible home of academic learning offerings for the surrounding Knoxville community .

After our long trek across the vast Great Plains prairie on our last road trip, a short visit to Colorado State University in Fort Collins provided a first glimpse of the Rocky Mountains. We now realized that a much needed oasis for us resided nearby in a cool and quiet home stay for mountainous inner reflection.

In a brief tour of the University of Illinois in college town Champaign, historic murals at the student union provided vivid evidence that this building served as as a popular home hub of unified student gatherings for both fun and serious academic study.

As we traversed the main campus of the University of Washington, in Seattle on foot , we witnessed the blossoming freshness of a new spring arrival. It seemed then that each plant “screamed” to us of the critical need to preserve the surrounding natural beauty of our “Mother Earth” home.

Returning to my undergraduate roots of academic success at the University of South Florida in Tampa, I fondly recalled the freedom of living on campus away from my home for the first time.By fostering a strong self sufficient outlook on my own then, I had learned to make future use of this quality later in life to strongly pursue independent strategies for travel.

Tag: American Universities

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