Thirty years on campus spent carefully noticing my surroundings have made my experience something like the movie Groundhog Day. So much stays the same that anything different pops out immediately. So a couple of days ago I nearly jumped when I came upon something so completely unexpected right in the middle of the quad:
In case you don’t immediately grasp the import, the plate that covers the National Geodetic Survey marker in the quad is upside down! For context take a look at this post about the marker and the azimuth in the front gate. If you do, you’ll see that it’s supposed to look like this:
There was no way, of course, that I could just let this be. I borrowed a screwdriver from the Woodson (they don’t know and I’ll bring it back tomorrow, I swear) and took it off. It was very muddy inside and someone had scraped the muck off the spot where the marker is embedded, so there was clearly some intent at play. If you zoom in you can see the little triangle:
Very mysterious.
I lost my nerve when I was putting the plate back–it’s heavy and it fits tightly so the possibility of catching a finger is fairly high. Net result: it’s now right side up but backwards, that is, the R is facing Fondren instead of Lovett:
I’ll go back and fix it later.
Bonus: This also doesn’t look quite right. It seems like it should be more interesting than the marker plate but somehow it isn’t. Main entrance to Lovett College, circa 1971.