Slab City

There are two cement slabs on top of a hill I live near. I discovered them within a week of moving down south, and they have been probably one of the only constants I’ve had in these whirl-pool-years. Maybe you've seen them? They are simple, like words are often not. They have been the setting of kites on sunny days, sleds on cold and not-so-snowy days, and hammocks on windy days when studying just could not be a priority. I once happened upon a group of graduates with glasses of bubbly, toasting to the same uncertain future I watch my friends toasting to now. Their faces were washed with sunset and I could tell their posture was the best it had been in four years (more or less). They knew something, and I wanted to know as well.

So, the other day I ventured out to the slabs, as I do often, to meet two superdawgs. Upon arrival, there was something amiss. The piano was out of tune. The milk tasted funny. The mustache was gone. The book was missing a page, and the story was incomplete. There was another slab. That makes THREE. Three of these cement-island-refuge-oasisies floating in a sea of cow shit and majestic views.

If I was a bigger banana head, I could talk about juxtapositions, chaos, and the like. Cement in a pasture? How conflicting! But really, these slabs are just nice things to sit on. They keep your butt clean, which is maybe the most important part of the outdoors? Just kidding. They make an otherwise muddy field accessible on any day of the year, regardless of recent rainfall. They orient people toward a view. They provide a stage for your best dance move. They give you a platform from which to scream your best rebel yell.

And I think a lot about where I would have gone on Saturday afternoons had I not lived down the road from the best pasture in the history of pastures. Where would I have met my friends after classes? Where would I have had contemplative beers with melancholy bros? A couch? No, we’re not those kids, sitting on the couch. The soccer fields? Too well lit, too little view. The cafeteria? Too ballsy, too much of a view.

There was an afternoon in 2009 when I got a call from my friend Erika. She said, in her own words, “Dude! Riley! Please come to dogwood! There are lots of friends here and it’s super fun! Meet us at the cement slabs” About thirty minutes later, I met three of the best friends I’ve ever made. We were the five super-best-friends, the inseparable cool kids, the gang. And we had just discovered what it really meant to be free. We loved hanging out with each other so much more than we loved getting up at six for the breakfast shift in the dishroom every day. We were living beyond our own means, but gosh, easy street never felt so right. Where would we be in the absence of these unlikely surfaces?

The third slab is a welcome addition, in my opinion. The things that define our nostalgia are often simpler than we expect. A specific root on a specific trail can easily punt you right into the memory vortex. With the loss of lofts in dorm rooms, bubbas, and Ed Raiola, comes yet another place on this too-huge campus for the all-important reflection necessary for staying sane in this fucking weird commune. The next generation of kids needs these four by six platforms for their sanity. You can take the fun out of the college, but you can’t take the hippy out of the pasture. God save this place.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/zgdexx21ncrkfoj/Going%20Home.zip

Riley.

P.S. Wish Jackson luck as he starts his European adventure! I'm sure we'll hear from him. We'll miss you, dude! Thanks for the strawberry.