Some of you might have gotten the impression over the years that these posts are essentially random. This is because they are. I don’t have all that much time to spend on hunting specific things down for no good reason (although–here’s a contradiction–I admit that sometimes I do just that). Anyway, the only benefit of having been so sick the last few days was that I could lie on the couch and browse through the images that I have saved on my laptop.

There was, in fact, something specific that I was looking for. I’m sure that, like me, none of you have been able to forget this anomalous lamp post, last seen in a post about a piece of outdoor sculpture installed in 1962 for the Semicentennial:

I’ve always wondered how and when that got there and when it went away so I started looking in a very relaxed sort of way, scrolling through the images. Right off the bat I found this one dated (alleluia) 1954. I have zero idea of who the students are but you can clearly see what the weird globe looks like:

I couldn’t find any other photos of this spot with the lamp there but then this caught my eye:

It’s dated 1950 but I’m not sure I believe that. Going by the landscaping I’d guess it was taken a year or two later but there can be little doubt that the lamp post was installed there in 1950 when the gym was finished.

But here’s the one I was really not expecting:

It must have been taken at roughly the same time as the semicentennial  sculpture photo, maybe a little after as the engineering annex the preceded Ryon Lab is still there. My best guess is that they bought these for the new gym and then started using them to replace broken ones wherever they were needed.

All I can say is that I hope they were on sale because they are ugly.

I’ll be back at school tomorrow.

Bonus: