Greetings newcomers and veterans, and welcome to'or back to' our peaceful little isthmus here in sunny southcentral Wisconsin. My name is Dan Hinkel and I'll be your intermittently friendly Wednesday columnist. Go ahead and e-mail me, and I will promptly disregard all suggestions or questions, stylistic, substantial or otherwise.
From my perch high above Johnson Street, it seems that summer, even in its waning moments, is now just as much a memory as it was a possibility'these things are not always certain'three months ago. Back then, in my hot and stuffy room and in my head, on a different street and a three months distant time frame, summer was almost a burden to consider. It felt to me as if it would be another summer of drifting along, not achieving, building or progressing. I was right as ever.
It was another summer, drifting along, away from the hard realities of life in a world that doesn't revolve around drinking iced coffee and reading away a sweaty hangover in the gaping spaces of the average 25-hour workweek. It was fun and I am surprised to say that the burden that haunted me at the beginning of summer, in all its regressive glory, is still just as real, but far less troublesome. How can that be?
Maybe because the progress that some unnameable force or context wants us to see as progress is nothing but nonsense in the first place. Perhaps lying around brushing up on the classics and learning how to waste an entire day sitting in a lawn chair listening to good music and watching the smoke and waves of heat distortion rise from an overworked grill is what this summer had to offer. And perhaps we had no right to ask a damn thing else from it, thank you very much.
My hopes for this school year are remarkably similar, but in a dissimilar sort of way. I would only like to be surprised by this year, and I think that's all I can request.
Every season has its purpose, and summer had its own for me, and that purpose did not revolve around labor, social networking or fighting the war on terrorism. The school year is a time of increased purpose and motivation, and that's fine with me.
Having an objective and then seeing it obliterated in a familiar sort of way is the mechanism by which I can assure myself that I am not aboard one of F. Scott Fitzgerald's shore-stranded boats, constantly being drawn back into the past. It's hard to go backwards when the future still surprises you.
In a way it's ironic that the only surprise I could imagine for this year is for everything to go as I plan. Mark my words, as I think that it will all be the same in a very different way this time again next year.
So I hope you will all enjoy this year, and will not be taken too aback when things fall apart, as they always do. Just learn to, as they say, \go with the flow."" When necessary, feel free to change ""the flow"" to your liking. Do this, as in a few short months this year will only be as real as lying in a park, grass at your back, with only the future ahead and a memory of the surprise of an indeterminate future.
dlhinkel@students.wisc.edu.
