Ah, Summer on Campus--OMOC Ch. 5

An Enlightening View

Post is from Chapter 5 Old Man On Campus.

I park the car, (with none of the usual shark-parking required at other times), adjust my backpack and tromp toward the Quad. It’s the first time I’ve attended a Summer session, so I don’t know what to expect, other than a more intense, closely compacted class experience. Ten weeks shoved into five weeks ought to be an interesting exercise in learning, if not logistical necessity. I step onto the Quad and revel in the warm breeze blowing across the green space. The majestic library edifice anchors the west end, its half-million books a veritable treasure of knowledge. The noble old chimes peal the half hour, tones evocative of storied halls and ivied walls, the trappings of intellectual pursuit. Mature trees shade the sward, lending a true sense of higher purpose. All in all an enlightening view. I drink it all in, feeling more erudite with every step.
    I should mention the naked girls. Okay, not fully nude, but bare enough in their sunscreen-slathered sprawl that these youngsters are about eight colorfast cotton stitches away from an arrest for public indecency. There aren’t many of them, but the damsels I see on the grassy realm of the Quad lay like unsprung traps for concupiscent, prowling young males. One might call these girls mister-bait were the attribute not so whimsically close to a certain venereal reference. They sun themselves of an afternoon atop the fresh grass, in their pre-cancerous repose, almost reading Chaucer, Kafka or perhaps Moliere. Some of their books are even open. But they’re not fooling anyone except possibly themselves; these young, nearly naked women are enjoying the way we men wander off the footpath while eyeing them, our furtive glance cast to one side or the other, to this or that squirrel that’s far more interesting with its prized apple scrap, or look at that, a four-leaf clover and isn’t that amazing? Are these lasses alarmed that we look at their comely young bodies, even those of us who could be their grandfathers? Of course not. Do they make an effort to hide their emerging sexuality and burgeoning femaleness? Not a chance. Would they be disappointed if we did stare at the squirrels instead? You bet your acorns.
    Case in point. I’m halfway across the Quad, heading to the English Department where people actually open and read Moliere, when I spot her. Twenty-years-old, tops, auburn hair to her shoulders and I assume everywhere else, she’s three squirrels away, laying on her back, soaking in every UV ray and leering male eyeball she can capture on this sunny noontime. Even her posture is provocative; if it were January I’d think she was making a snow angel. Her (almost) two-piece bikini is mostly not there, but what is there consists of straps, the odd shoelace (no aglet), and a bandaid. The outfit, if you can call it that, is nearly her birthday suit with the cutest little vest you ever saw. She sees me, the old pervert, ogling her instead of the squirrels, and she grins and half rises. Teeth flash, hair flicks, head lolls. She knows she’s beautiful, and she understands that I know it, too. And here’s the part she won’t understand until she’s had her little heart broken by men who run fast enough that she catches them. Certain men like me, that is to say men who are durably married and intending to stay that way, see several things in her come-with-me behavior. We see the female form in all its curv-ed, captivating perfection; we see the sexual allure that she has down pat; and we see a future for her filled with real life in all its messy contradictions. I smile back, hike my backpack higher onto my shoulder and schlep on. Some things never change, and young women always, even on a college campus--especially there--will always undress as far as the law allows to lure the male of the species. Many of them are indeed on campus in pursuit of the coveted MrS degree. Some things never change. On to class I go.