Five Senses of a Fall Day

Yesterday was a beautiful day, and I decided to park myself at a nice bench on south campus to see what I could see. So here is the Five Senses of a Fall Day in the 10ish-11 a.m. hour.

I see…

• One lone male student on an electric scooter whizzing by me.
• Two female students who look like they are coming back from an exercise walk. One says to the other “We should do this more often!“
• Bright yellow Lilting Banshees [student comedy troupe] flyers taped on the stairs from Collins up to Bostwick and Johnson.
• Leaves gently falling off the trees as the wind blows. In the distance (where there are more trees than where I am sitting) it almost looks like confetti, or an old-style ticker tape parade. (You can see my very amateur attempt to get a video of the leaves here.)
• Some of my colleagues from Facilities walking out of a building carrying a ladder. They are laughing and talking and seem happy.
• The copper edging of Johnson Hall’s rain spout glistening in the sun.
• Lots of individual students walking to or from residence halls or academic buildings before 10:45 (when classes typically change on a Thursday). I’d say half of the students (male or female) are in shorts, half in pants of some sort (mostly athletic). Similarly, there is a decent split between students in short sleeves (it’s about 60 degrees right now) and sweatshirts.
• A male student in tall boots – olive green garden wellies. There is no rain in the forecast, so it is a surprising footwear choice. I wonder if he might have just been working in the Campus Garden? (I have the exact same pair of boots that I wear when gardening).
• One student who has been standing in the exact same place mid-sidewalk for maybe 5-7 minutes, looking intently at their phone (and maybe texting too? I am a little far away to be sure). I look back a few minutes later and they moved maybe 10 feet forward on the sidewalk, then stopped again.
• A couple of our WFU Police officers walking along the Mag Quad (aka Manchester Plaza) sidewalk.
• A couple more scooter-ing students.
• A fair number of our female students in ponytails (and one in two long braids). Very few are wearing their hair loose this morning.
• Two students are walking towards Johnson and they lower their voice to a whisper as they pass me. I wonder what they are talking about.
• A young man wearing a top ponytail (it’s not quite a man bun). It suits him well.
• The same student accessories over and over – a sort of College Student Uniform. It consists of some combination of: backpack, travel coffee tumbler or water bottle, earbuds (or the occasional over the ear headphones), phone in hand. Nearly every student has all of these as they pass me, unless they are jogging.
• A young woman in a cast and a knee scooter navigating the sidewalks and building entrances – she is doing so very adeptly.
• A lawn sign advertising early voting.
• Large numbers of students exiting Tribble, Carswell, Green, and Manchester as classes change at 10:45. The sidewalks begin to fill accordingly, and people begin to head to the Food Court in Benson, presumably for an early lunch.
• A female student riding a bike. For all the scooters I have seen, this is the first bike of the day.

I hear…

• A slooshy sound as a scooter ran over a patch of leaves that had gathered in the dip between the curb and the street.
• Regular, rhythmic steps as students pass me. When they step on the leaves, it makes a satisfying crunch sound.
• The occasional staccato ping! as acorns fall from trees and hit the pavement. This sound is repeated many, many times while I was there.
• The caw! caw! caw! of a nearby crow.
• A loud airhorn, and then yelled commands. It takes me a moment to realize that football practice is happening. Then I could hear Move! Move! or Hey! Hey! or Go! Go! – whichever coach was giving directions was doing it in duplicate.
• The sound of passing cars slowing down before they hit the speedbump outside Johnson Hall.
• A female student voice saying “Yeah, it’s just really sad, so...” and then to my chagrin, she and her companion were too far away for me to hear the rest.
• A smaller bird – with a much less assertive voice than the crow – chirping in a nearby tree.
• Whistles from the football coaches at their practice.
• A LOT of crow cawing suddenly. I don’t know how many crows constitutes a murder, but I am pretty sure we have one.
• A scraping sound as a large, solitary magnolia leaf is blown across the sidewalk. The leaf is big and looks heavy (for a leaf) and is loud as it scrapes along.
• Two students passing me mid-conversation. Student 1: When are you leaving for Winter Break? Student 2: I *think* Saturday…? His voice makes it sound more like a question than a statement.
• “Yeah, I think it will be neat when your story comes full circle” says one female student to another as they walk by me. I am dying to know more context about this.
• A very strong and insistent blast of the coach’s whistle. Maybe practice is ending?
• What can only be described as a “productive” sounding cough from a student in the distance.
• Bits of conversation as students walk up to Johnson after class. I catch a snippet of what sounds like an unhappy phone conversation, followed by a pair of students walking together, discussing – shall we say – their romantic entanglements.
• Greetings from a colleague of mine who I will see at a meeting in a few minutes.

I smell…

• Crisp fall air.
• The earthy smell of a lot of leaves on the ground. Also a hint of mud.
• A whiff of cigarette smoke from someone smoking nearby.
• Bursts of fresh air whenever someone walks by my bench quickly.

I feel…

• A cool breeze blowing through my hair.
• A little bit sad that the fall leaves seem to be past their prime. In most years in Winston-Salem, the first few days of November are the best time for leaf-viewing. The colors seem more muted than they did a week ago, and some of our trees have lost half their leaves or more. Here are a couple of pictures of the variance in color.
• Tickled to watch a squirrel hop over tiny piles of leaves that have blown near a tree. It is a funny-looking jump he (or she) is making.
• A big burst of air suddenly blow up around me. It sends a lot of leaves cascading from the trees onto the ground nearby.
• Oddly comfortable for sitting on a metal bench that looks like it was made of chain-link metal. It is shockingly nice to sit in, truly.
• Warmth on my cheeks as the sun begins to shift over the part of the bench where I am sitting (I started out in full shade, but didn’t end that way).
• Relief as I see a student pause at the crosswalk – because someone on an electric scooter is coming pretty fast and doesn’t look like they were going to slow down. The student then crosses safely. (Generally speaking, both cars and scooters have been respectful of crosswalks while I was there).

I taste…

• Sadly, the only thing I taste is the last of my morning coffee.

That’s our Five Senses from my perch on south campus. Hope that painted a picture of what your Deacs might have experienced yesterday.

Have a great weekend, Deac families! And give your students a call tonight 😉