Man, I'm glad the weather has cooled off these last couple of days. It's been pretty tough around here this summer without the air conditioning that you can find in any Denny's but, inscrutably, not in one of the finest colleges in the US.
I am not sure who invented air conditioning, and if I were going to find out, I'd have to steer the mouse all over the place to open Netscape, so forget about that. Suffice it to say that whoever it is, he or she is on my good list.
Also on my good list is the Reserve Room, and whoever the nice person was who decided to open it 24-7. Also Jos Clemente Orozco. I mean, given the prevalence of air conditioning elsewhere on campus, I am not all that sure that we would have bothered to air condition reserves if there weren't a world-class mural there that would wilt off the walls otherwise.
At any rate, if that heat had kept going I was going to throw a sleeping bag in there right under Corts, so it's probably just better for all concerned that the weather has started being more Rob-friendly.
Although as much of a trial as the no-air conditioning thing was, there are others who have had a worse time with the summer heat. Just consider the plight of the black bears a few hours outside of New York City. As the Times details in its aptly titled article, "Streams Dry. Berries Dead. What's a Black Bear to Do?", the streams are in fact dry and the berries dead, due to an unusually bad drought this summer.
What a black bear is to do, apparently, is come visiting homeowners. The job of getting rid of the ursine marauders (good name for a football team!) falls to easily the unluckiest landlord ever, John Bradley, who owns a number of rental properties in the bear-plagued New Paltz area. The Times details Mr. Bradley's intrepid "drop and run" technique, in which he strips off all his clothes and runs away, presumably faster than the love-crazed bears can catch up. Hope you never trip Mr. Bradley! 800-pound love-crazed Yogi bear--ouch! That'd be quite a Boo-boo!
Just kidding. Actually, Mr. Bradley's self-titled "drop and run" involves luring the bears away with an armload of dirty laundry, which he then drops, drawing the bears' attention while he makes his escape. Presumably this hasn't backfired so far. If it did, while death by love-crazed bear would be easily one of the most terrible ways to die I can think of, at least people would remember you.
"Don't wander off into the forest, you kids! Do I have to tell you the story of the horny bears and poor Mr. Bradley again, God rest his soul!"
Not that Mr. Bradley hasn't been tempting fate. Or not that the bears haven't been "looking for it," so to speak. Indeed, one day a bear came knocking while he was skinny dipping in his pool. The bear was trying to get into a shed, looking for food, or, I like to think, looking for love. Sure enough, Mr. Bradley ran right out with his dirty laundry for the drop and run, but his shy suitor climbed over a fence and fled. Performance anxiety, I guess.
It isn't just in Mr. Bradley's neck of the woods that the heat has gotten the bears all worked up. In New Jersey, for example, there have been 1,200 nuisance complaints about bears so far this year, a record high, compared with 892 all last year. Daniel Sullivan and Alysa Wishingrad, two tenants near New Paltz, recently saw two buck deer bolt out of the woods, with a bear in hot pursuit, which was "making a sound like a speeding train." This, I assume, is the mating call or something.
Those bears, remember, can run 30 mph in short bursts! Can you run 30 mph, because I sure can't. I think clearly the best solution is for all of us to stay in reserves, where it is air-conditioned and free from amorous bears.
And if you have to walk across campus, be sure you pack your dirty laundry for that drop and run!
