1160 to Home Sweet Home

My spedometer read 1160 when I pulled into my parking spot late last night after a roundtrip roadtrip from here to Southern California and back. Exhausting and beautiful, memorable, lovely - thank God for cruise control is all I have to say.

I stopped by UCSB on my way back up, called Cindy who attended as well back in the day and I play by play told her how things were the same, what changed. Lots of new buildings that I didn't recognize, still plenty of bikes and bikepaths as the students have the righter way on this campus, the sun was shining clear and bright against that familiar blue blue sky, lots of our old eating favorites were still there - Freebirds, Woodstocks Pizza, the Blue Dolphin Cafe. Laid back students clad in tanks, shorts and slippers on cell phones carrying laptops - we didn't know what those were back in good ol' 1995. I was wearing a tee shirt, jeans and slippers so I blended in. I got asked to join a couple campus functions, I took their pamphlets, went on my merry way and didn't bother to tell them that I'm a 10-year alumni. Hee hee, I'm feeling like a dinosaur right now, but it sure was good to be back in my college era for a couple hours minus the studying and papers.

I stopped by the music library and my old boss Cathy was still there. As I approached the desk, I just smiled at her not knowing if she'd recognize or remember me. Eyes paused and second-glanced - MAILE??!! She remembered! Hee hee. She looked the same, a few more grey hairs, but she was the same Cathy I knew when I was a struggling student with boy problems (actually some things don't change - ha!). The music library looked the same too - classical LPs neatly stacked and painstakingly numerically catalogued, the reel to reels are no longer used given new technology but the consul still stands as a testimony to what was, student employees maintained book stacks (the "stacks" where I took naps when I was supposed to be straightening and Cathy knew it). Ahh...the memories and the people I met.

The campus looked much smaller than I remembered even with the new building additions, but the memories live on and bring many smiles.