The shovels

The day of the ground breaking for another big building on campus occurred today. The millions of dollars going into it suggested that I will be able to point out its spires to my posterity in latter days. There were some tender words from the Chairman of the Board. He called it a seedling. Youth was the theme. Innocence and hope. The Chancellor bespoke himself on the Youth as well, but that of the students and how they were the blood of his dream—life blood, that is. All I could think about was how soft the ground looked in the sunshine. I hoped the photographers wouldn’t take a picture of me singing hymns. The President-to-be spoke as well. He was jocund and smiling while he described things like the division of modern Christendom into denominations. And he introduced the new Academic Dean in a sort of comic show where he proceeded to stack and spill WORLD magazines on the podium. The piles were brought forth to demonstrate the cultural contributions of the incoming Dean. There was the expected symbolic heap of dirt on the smooth green sod. There were shovels with college stickers on their handles and spades to mark them as the ceremonial instruments. These the men and two honorary students picked up after some confusion as to who got which shovel and then they each dug a spade-full of dirt and dumped it onto the pile again. This done, they stepped back and a populist invitation was made to the student body witnesses. A show of awkward limbs and weak wrists followed as the children went forth. They lifted dirt from the pile and let it sift back into the pile. The wind was a gentle vibration so all the dirt raised in the shovels returned to the heap; none of it was carried into our eyes.