"DECEMBER BOYS" PART ELEVEN: "NINETEEN. CLUMSY AND SHY" (1st section)

NINETEEN, CLUMSY AND SHY
(1st section)

     Even before Rhett’s official new summer schedule began, he immediately understood why everyone he spoke with feel so hopelessly in love with Madison in the summer time. It was as if the sharp decline of the student body allowed the campus and the city itself to breathe and to also luxuriously present itself at its most inviting and lustrous. When he wasn’t taking advantage of a few lazy days lounging around Uncle Denny’s house and exploring his vast record collection, Rhett strolled around with a languid stride that he typically did not have the time for during the school year. There was no firing gun to begin the season in a frenzy. It was more like phasing into the next chapter of his life.

     The healthy seasonal glow remained in the atmosphere around him even after his summer school classes began. The Sartre class was perhaps a tad too dry for Rhett’s personal satisfaction but he wasn’t one to usually complain about those sorts of matters (however, on one torturous occasion, after enduring the vomitus arrogance of a particularly fatuous Professor, Rhett would write on an end of semester class survey, “…knowing that this man remains in your employ seriously depletes my image of this University.”). On the contrary, Rhett’s Fundamentals In Ethics course was the game changer that he had secretly been hoping for via three distinct levels. First, was the impassable veneer of his new instructor.           

     The forty-ish Professor Stewart Scarfe, with his medium length just beginning to gray at the temples hair, medium build which remained fit from swimming laps three days a week and the stereotypical casual yet professorial wardrobe of blazer, button down shirt (always ironed) and necktie undone by the collar, blue jeans and sturdy loafers, was certainly a non-threatening sight. What was unnerving was his cold, emotionless stare which seemed to burrow a hole clean through whomever happened to be the recipient of his hard gaze. This combined with his tendency to address students solely by last name and with a formal “Mr.“ or “Ms.” preceding the name would have been intimidating enough. The most insurmountable aspect of Professor Scarfe’s Fundamentals In Ethics course was his formidable mind.

     Stewart Scarfe was simply one of those rare individuals who seemed to exist about five minutes into the future when compared to those who happened to be around him (most specifically, his students). The sharpness of his intellect was evident even when he casually allowed his students to debate each other, moments that sometimes exploded into full blown arguments that he always knew how to instinctively halt before tensions eroded the purposefulness. When he called on a student, in his soft, clipped voice, it felt like a bolt of lightning had miraculously discovered your whereabouts indoors! Many a student had been struck dumb and frozen solid when called upon by Professor Stewart Scarfe as if being zapped by the “whammy” for no one in his class wished to ever sound unintelligible or unknowledgeable publicly as well as in the presence of the professor who demonstrated his knowledge of Philosophy and Deconstructionism intricately and easily. It was as second nature to him as games of Hackey Sack was to his pupils and attempting to reach the bar he set was indeed a struggle, yet typically inspired his students to band together in solidarity. It was as if they were equally trying to save each other from drowning. Even though Professor Scarfe was unquestionably demanding, he was a benevolent leader—to a degree—which does bring us to the second most challenging aspect of his course: the readings.

     To keep pace with Professor Scarfe, one had to stay on top of the voluminous readings, which were dizzying in content and also made the standard shortcuts of casually skimming the material a direct bee-line for one of Scarfe’s trap doors. Unlike some instructors who regurgitate the same content year after year with a level of dispassionate interest over time, Professor Scarfe honestly loved the course he taught and therefore, the content it contained. Every year and summer session, he would completely overhaul his syllabus and in doing so, he prided himself on his self-made reputation of his intellectual and educational diligence. Simply stated, Professor Scarfe knew his material inside and out, as if he shared a few pints with Plato, Kant, Descartes and Socrates at the Union Terrace in the evenings.

     Fully remaining cognizant of the demands of students’ complete course loads during the school year, Professor Scarfe paced and spaced the duration of the class reading assignments as he knew that any sense of overload would be counterproductive to any actual learning. However, in the summer, with fewer students and considerably smaller course loads to bear, he did all he could to ensure that his student’s mental muscles did not weaken just because of the inherent warmth of the season. How it actually tickled him to sometimes witness his students bunkered down in sections of Der Rathskeller surrounded by popcorn, drinks, books, papers, notes and those aforementioned readings and the intensely feverish (and to the untrained eye—panicked) conversations just trying to make heads or tails of all of this head spinning material. “Mission accomplished,” Professor Scarfe would muse to himself as he ducked out of sight before being spotted.

     For Rhett Brazelton, the class was precisely what he had wished for as a real test of his academic prowess as well as determining if his epiphany was more than fleeting. While he did feel that drowning sensation as students of the past and his present experienced, he quietly enjoyed the readings and homework, his third eye proudly regarding those mental boxes filling up and being properly filed. The sense of completion and accomplishment was spirit lifting and the content fit his astral brain like a glove.

     Even so, there was one more and easily the most insurmountable obstacle in Professor Stewart Scarfe’s course, so much so, and for quite some time, it nearly derailed Rhett. And that obstacle was her.

     On the first day of the class, Rhett Brazelton walked halfway up Bascom ill and entered a small classroom inside of the School Of Education building with anxious anticipation. He found twenty chairs with attached arm rest/writing desks all arranged into a semi-circle. Rhett quickly chose a seat to the right of the mid-section, closer to the door. After seating himself and settling in with his notebook, he began to view his new classmates entering the room, making mental notes of the demographics. And then…

     Footsteps.

     Purposeful, metronomic footsteps.

     Whatever anticipatory thoughts Rhett had inside of his brain concerning his class were scattered away like fluttering butterflies at the sound of those footsteps. Raising his head towards the direction of the approaching sound, Rhett’s eyes quickly raced past the arriving students and zoomed in on a pair of rusty, dusty cowboy boots and panned upwards to reveal the sight of her.

     Rhett’s heart stopped beating for a fraction of a second, and then, as if remembering its sole duty, began beating a gain yet at triple speed before settling into a somewhat normal rhythm. Yes, it was her, the girl from that spring day on Bascom Hill. The girl that Rhett eventually relegated to fantasy. But, this time, she entered the classroom and she was clearly not a dream. She was even better than a dream. She was real.

     Autumn brown hair that appeared to have the consistency and sheen of silk. Olive skin that looked like the healthiest suntan yet lasted for the entire year. While her resting face was certainly not what one would describe as “warm,” (in fact, some might view it as “petulant”) Rhett could not take his eyes away from it, especially her large-ish nose that attractively held her very smart glasses in perfect place. Sensing his gaze like a Jedi Master, she flashed her eyes at Rhett’s, commanding him to look away, an order he promptly obeyed by turning his head downwards towards his desk. Still, he took a peek to see that she had taken a seat on the furthest corner of the semi-circle on the opposite side of the room, her footsteps reverberating in his mind long after she sat and settled herself. 

     She was more striking to regard as she sat at rest, Rhett thought to himself. While not one to be so easily swayed at the sight of a pretty girl, as that tended to be Craig’s endless fascination, Rhett was blindsided by the dark luminescence of the girl from Bascom Hill. Fearing that she would become the apple of everyone’s eye (and seriously, how could she not be?), he covertly investigated his classmates’ faces to see if they were as visibly thunderstruck as he was. When he noticed that not a single person was staring in her direction, he allowed himself a quiet sigh of relief.

     Snapping him out of his reverie was the entrance of Professor Stewart Scarfe, who strode into the classroom and towards his podium where he set down a few note cards and finally, to his desk where he laid his coffee and sunglasses. “Good morning,” said the professor as he wrote his name upon the blackboard then turned to face his class while holding the student roster. “Welcome. This summer, just as the title of this course states, we will be exploring the fundamentals in ethics. We have a tremendous amount of material to cover over these next several weeks so time, as much of an illusion it actually happens to be, is indeed of the essence. So…Mr. Brazelton, what exactly are ethics?”

     And so it began. Not even one full minute had elapsed and Professor Scarfe had everyone’s complete attention for fear of being randomly called on to answer a question even before having their notebooks out of their backpacks yet. Rhett was immediately at a loss for words. Being so unprepared (and truthfully, how prepared could one actually have been on the very first day) had transformed Rhett’s brain and all of the contents within it into a bowl full of jelly. Words failed him as did thoughts but he knew that he had to produce something and quickly.

     “Um…ethics…um…ethics…, “ stalled Rhett as words began to formulate from the gelatinous pool of his mind. “Ethics are an individual’s personal belief system of what constitutes ‘right’ and ‘wrong’?”

     “In its broadest definition, you are not terribly far off, Mr. Brazeton,” said Professor Scarfe approvingly yet distantly. “Yet, let’s see if we can get ourselves a little closer. Mr. Ising, how would you build upwards from Mr. Brazelton’s statement?”

     Kevin Ising, 20 year old Sophomore of currently undeclared major, was immobilized. Like Rhett, he never figured that he would be called upon so swiftly but before he even realized he began speaking. “Are ethics basically like…well…uh…like principles to live our lives by?”

     “I am seeing a variation of a theme,” Professor Scarfe expressed without feigning either approval or disapproval. “Ms. Lee?”

     Young Lee, 19 year old Sophomore also of undeclared major yet was internally fluctuating somewhere between English and Journalism, was a hair more prepared to hear her name after witnessing the professor’s alacrity with engaging with his students. Even so, her heart raced upwards into her throat. “Well…” she began shakily. “We all have ethics…”

     “Do we now?” interjected the professor. “How do you know? By any chance, do you happen to know the intricacies of your classmates on an intimate level, Ms. Lee?”

     “Well…no…” answered Young Lee, beginning to wilt in her seat and a quiver in her voice. “I’m just…well…I would assume…”

     “Never assume,” Professor Scarfe began. “Don’t panic either,” he continued with a splash of an encouraging tone. “Just re-think and re-phrase. You cannot assume anything, especially whether all of these individuals possess ethical behavior. They could all be immoral hedonists for all you know, for only they know where they were and what they did last night,” he concluded slyly, which of course, continued to keep the nervous Young Lee off balance and peppered the room with equally nervous laughter.

     “OK…well…we all have the capability of having ethical behavior,” she began again.

     “Some do. Some don’t. But better.”

     “Um…well…if we did all have the capacity for ethical behavior, are the ethics themselves concerned with why we think of things as being good or bad?”

     “Ah…”considered the professor. “Now, we find ourselves more into ethical theory. Or even, theories for that matter, as there are several. Or, to probe further, there are various ethical theories that are of a more descriptive quality as they solely describe people’s actions, be they ‘good’ or ‘bad.’ But, even that depends greatly upon a certain validity within those descriptive ethical theories because we need to understand if those descriptive theories do in fact correctly describe what people do and how we consider and identify those actions as being ‘good,’ ‘bad,’ ‘right,’ or ‘wrong.’”

     By this very early stage in the course, all 20 students, already on edge for fear of being called upon, sat in collective confusion as they eyes blankly blinked like a group of cartoon mice. It was a look Professor Scarfe knew only too well…and secretly enjoyed, for that matter. Suppressing a light chuckle, he continued.

     “When you stop your car at a stoplight, is that action necessarily ‘ethical’?? Is it necessarily ‘good’ or ‘right’?”

     “It is if you don’t want to get in an accident,” offered one particularly brave soul.

     “Yes, an accident would certainly be a consequence of that action but that doesn’t equate itself with being ‘good’ or ‘right.’ Especially if you happened to be a nihilist. What about theft? Is that inherently ‘wrong’? What of something like rape? How could you argue ethically and prove the inherent wrongness of that act?”

     “How couldn’t you?!” announced a sharp voice that sliced through the air. Rhett’s eyes shifted towards the direction of the comment and was most intrigued to find that the girl from Bascom Hill was its owner.

     “Hmmm…” muttered Professor Scarfe. “Ms….your last name please?”

     “Lessing.”

     “Yes, the very impulsive Ms. Lessing,” he began. “Yet, this is precisely the core of what we will all be examining this summer. We will be exploring a variety of subject matter of which all of us have formulated, at least, some opinions—some of which, like what I am gathering from Ms. Lessing’s comment, will be passionate and even specifically individualistic, and perhaps even traumatic. My contract that I offer and extend to each of you is to ensure that all topics will be handled with respect and sensitivity. If any of you are at any time still feeling uncomfortable with the topics discussed, or how I am presenting them, I openly invite you to make an appointment to voice your concerns with me during my office hours.

     “Yes, this class will be challenging and possibly upsetting but ultimately, it should prove to be enlightening, because this is not a course about opinions. This is a course about ethics and what we can prove or disprove based upon philosophical theories as well as the principles of the philosophers themselves. So, Ms. Lessing, going back to your statement, I ask you your own question. How could you prove the inherent wrong-ness of rape?”

     “What kind of a…,” began the identified Ms. Lessing with visible anger rising from her face and voice.

     “Remember, I am not asking for your opinion. I’m asking you to prove your viewpoint ethically,” interjected Professor Scarfe.

     “Well…it’s…,” she began, her palpable fury becoming rapidly flustered. “’Ethically’?! But…this is rape!”

     “Yes.”

     “In this country alone, a woman is…”

     “You are about to quote a statistic. That has nothing to do with ethics. Mathematics are not a part of this course.”

     “It feels as if they are since you want me to prove something through some formula, as if that is going to present a definitive answer, like some Math problem! I mean…really…ethics regarding rape?! Isn’t it obvious?!”

     “Morally, yes and I feel that none of your classmates would argue with you on a moral level. But, again, and as the title of this class states, we are dealing with ethics and the fundamentals of ethics and ethics alone. So far, each one of you has happened to define ethics by in fact defining the nature of morals, for morals strictly adhere to the individual whereas ethics strictly adhere to an external source like the rules of the workplace or codes within various religions or the rules of society itself. We are going to spend this summer exploring issues through ethical theories, principles and philosophers and I would urge all of you to begin to understand that if you are going to try and prove the inherent rightness or wrongness of anything, including rape, a petulant ‘Rape is wrong because it is!’ or ‘Rape is wrong because I say so!’ will not get you out of the starting gate,” said the professor coldly, which made the girl from  Bascom Hill bristle but yet, she remained quiet. “What will, however, get you out of the starting gate is what we are all here this summer to learn.”

     Rhett Brazelton, with his pulse racing due to the intensity of his class’ first few minutes (was that really all of the time that has passed?), internally sighed to himself. Finally taking his eyes away from her, Rhett internally sighed to himself for a second time, mentally turning the name “Ms. Lessing” over and over again. She was definitely real. 

     She had a name.
Copyright 2015 by Scott Collins All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights.

"DECEMBER BOYS" PART TEN: "THE DOOR INTO SUMMER"

DECEMBER BOYS

"THE DOOR INTO SUMMER"

     If people’s perceptions of Craig Hughes as an introverted, heart-on-sleeve, naval gazer were correct (and they typically were) then Rhett Brazelton’s level of introspection was downright astral. Not careless, scatterbrained or chemically enhanced by any means. But, whenever Rhett found himself deeper and deeper in thought, he became mesmerized to the point of becoming absent. This peculiar personality trait had been a part of Rhett since infancy, when people from various sectors—family members and friends, teachers, complete strangers—would remark at how tranquil the little one seemed to be, as his bouts of crying were unusually rare and his eyes seemed to be peering into a world unseen by anyone else other than himself. “He’s just taking it all in,” his Mother, a university Botanist, would explain plainly and always full of inquisitive delight.

     Rhett found himself in that exact state of mind on an early warm spring morning, shortly after his pilgrimage with Craig and Mariah Esposito’s weekend visit. It was precisely the type of morning his Mother had actually warned him about one beautiful summer day before he embarked upon his Freshman year in Madison. As Elizabeth Brazelton sat at their kitchen table, toiling over home finances and monthly bills, Rhett sat blankly nearby, watching/not watching MTV videos playing in the background while holding a magazine in one hand and the presence of a novel sitting closely on the kitchen table. Elizabeth Brazelton ran her hands through her then newly shorn, closely cropped hair and in a voice that displayed an atypical bout of weariness, she declared, “These days will definitely find you.”

     As if being yanked from the ether by a strongly pulled tether, Rhett returned to the present and murmured a somnambulant, “Hmmm?”

     “Rhett, in no way am I even beginning to condone this particular behavior, especially as I am about to fork over an enormous amount of money to fund your education, but the days will come for you when you simply say to yourself, ‘No.’”

     “What do you mean?” he asked, intrigued.

     “You will one day find yourself waking up to face the day. You will ready yourself and even make all of the necessary plans to meet the duties to which you are obligated. And for some unknown reasons, you will say, ‘No’,” she answered tiredly as she returned the cap of her red pen from end to ink point, set it down upon the table and rose while stretching her athletic body. “So, right now Rhett, I’m saying ‘No’ and am wondering if you would like to join me for a walk or should I just leave you here to your thoughts and videos.”

     “No. I’ll say ‘No’ too. Let’s go out.”

     And off they went, Mother and son, to spend a warm afternoon “taking it all in.”

     Returning to the morning at hand, Rhett Brazelton indeed woke up at his usual time, showered, purchased his morning orange juice from Pop’s Club, collected his books and materials for his morning classes, as well as his headphones, for the morning walk to Bascom Hall. But there was one notable difference. While waiting for his turn to check out at the registers, Rhett spied a discarded copy of that morning’s Chicago Tribune, which he instinctively picked up and began to peruse. After skimming through the comics, his eyes sped back towards the advice column and onto the daily horoscopes, a section he generally paid no credence towards but with all things, as far as Rhett Brazelton was concerned, he didn’t rule anything out. The prediction was swift yet carried the force of a bolt of lightning as it stated…

“Today is a 9! On this day, your heart will fall in love. It will be someone you have never met before. Act quickly. Act wisely. For it will never pass this way again. Have a wonderful day!”

Rhett scoffed at the prediction and yet found himself reading it again and again, transfixing himself upon the words and the suggestion that he absently stood in line and was eventually goaded onwards by the rightfully impatient students behind him. After offering a feeble apology, Rhett discarded the paper and headed off to class.

      Rhett Brazelton strode up the massive monolith of Bascom Hill, being succulently stroked by the breeze and sunlight, and still buzzing with the horoscope he had previously read. After reaching his destination, he walked inside Bascom Hall, trotted down the hallway and reached his classroom, only to open up the door, see his classmates gathering themselves for the day’s new material and without warning or provocation, Rhett quietly said to himself, “No.” He then shut the door, exited Bascom Hall and found himself a gorgeously shady grassy spot on Bascom Hill, left to his own devices with his headphones and his thoughts. Rhett sat, letting the wind of spring caress his spirit, as he stared into space, regarding everyone who walked past him, again pondering the obvious spirituality and interconnectivity of all of the people who had previously and will one day walk this hill. Soon, like a television channel clouded with electronic snow, the image of all before him began to fade into a cloud of colorful dots. And then, it happened…

     Footsteps. Almost metronomic paced footsteps sent waves of sound from the here and now directly into Rhett’s reverie. It was like listening to a static filled radio station when suddenly a song from who knows where bursts through, announcing itself, demanding to be heard. Rhett turned his head towards his left, and emerging upwards from the direction of Science Hall, he saw her and instantly, he was gone.

     The first item Rhett noticed were the dusty, rusty colored boots, the source of the metronomic beat, which almost needed a bass guitar and fat handclap to make the effect even more complete. Trailing his gaze from the ground upwards, his vision revealed the sight of a tallish, olive skinned girl with wavy, shoulder length autumn brown hair walking with a not too fast, not too slow, decidedly not a strut but definitely aggressive stride that was commanding. This girl walked with a comparatively heightened sense of purpose to her fellow Bascom Hill walkers yet seemingly no one on the entire hill seemed to pay her any stitch of attention. That is, except for Rhett who was happily dazed and confused, feeling a sudden and overwhelming sensation of ardor that he could swear he could feel all the way into his eyebrows as he turned his head to watch her sumptuously phase through his field of vision. The girl continued to walk past, towards the Liz Waters and the Lakeshore dorms, until she was completely out of view, and her eventual disappearance suddenly returned Rhett to reality. He laughed to himself. Shrugging his shoulders and re-adjusting his headphones which displaced themselves during his act of obvious rubber-necking, Rhett Brazelton laughed to himself for this sort of behavior was atypical as it was just not in his nature to stare or to, at least, call attention to himself for staring—which he seriously hoped that he hadn’t done. To no one in particular, which therefore meant to everyone around him on Bascom Hill, Rhett exhibited a theatrical “Hey, what can I do?” motion and took one last futile look over his shoulder with hopes that perhaps one final glance at this stunning sight could be witnessed again. Seeing that she was indeed completely out of view, Rhett stood, sighed and smiled to himself and began to walk down Bascom Hill to points unknown, only armed with the full intent of enjoying the day ahead, no matter where it took him.

     The memory of the autumn brown haired, olive skinned girl with the dusty, rusty boots and the commanding stride was never far from the forefront of Rhett’s mind as he neared the end of his first year of college. With the presence of the continuing warmth of spring slowly building upwards in the heat of summer, the campus blossomed and bloomed into its tremendous final stages of excitement before the students’ eventual departure until the Fall. From the foliage of the trees, flowers and plant life to the increasing amount of people spending time outdoors, life in Madison near the end of a school year was a feast for the senses, especially amorous ones. For a brief spell, Rhett kept his eyes sharply opened for another sighting of the girl, even going so far as to return to Bascom Hill, headphones firmly attached to his ears and playing the exact same music he listened to that day, as if to magically conjure her reappearance. Unfortunately, she never arrived. 

     Rhett’s more logical reasoning chalked up this girl’s apparent disappearance to just being “one of those things” that invariably occurs on a campus this size and with a student body this immense. It is simply not unreasonable to catch a full view of the most strikingly attractive girl on campus and then never see her again. It was akin to being surprised by a shooting star or better yet, waking from a glorious dream that you impossibly try to physically grasp and keep forever. When presenting himself with the concept of a dream, however, Rhett’s astral brain went into overdrive. What if he had actually dreamt that entire morning on Bascom Hill? And if it was a dream, then it would stand to reason that the sight of the girl immediately after reading the romantic predictions of the horoscope was equally invented as if it arrived from a wish. At the contemplation of this notion, Rhett shuddered, feeling a quick icy wave race through his body. For if the day of Bascom Hill, including what he was beginning to assume was nothing more than his fantasy girl, was only a dream, then what was his real life? Where did his mind or even all of him go to once he went to bed each night? Feeling more unsettled than he wished at the sudden thought of life as he knew it was somehow a product of his sub-consciousness, Rhett waved away the dark fantasy and fully returned to bright reality.

     When Rhett Brazelton began his life in Madison, not even one firm plan concerning his academic future ever entered into his brain. All that he ever initially wanted was just to have the opportunity to simply take everything in (again and as always) and get a lay of the land. What surprised Rhett about himself, at least regarding his education, was the seriousness with which he approached his classes and all ensuing assignments. While always a good student, Rhett admittedly never felt himself to have been truly academically challenged in high school. During those years, he felt as if he had some mental muscles that weren’t being put to use properly. Yet, by the time he received his first college assignments, those very same mental muscles were indeed put to the test. Where many of Rhett’s peers and classmates grumbled and stressed, Rhett welcomed the often intense quality, quantity and frequency of the work, especially relishing the times when his mind would arrange the hours of his day, compartmentalizing his tasks as if his third eye could visualize a series of boxes to be organized and placed onto their exact spaces upon a shelf.

     During this same period at the start of his college experience and growing stronger throughout the year, Rhett discovered just how perfectly in tune he felt with the cycle of the school year. Despite the worldwide celebrations announcing the arrival of every new year, there was just something about the beginnings and endings of a school year that felt more natural to him. His spirit was inexplicably in sync with that sequence, so much so, that he wondered just how he would function after college in that seemingly so far away and monolithic sounding “real world” without the September staples of ‘Welcome Week,” football Saturdays and midterm exams, for instance. For Rhett, the less said about the interminable middle section of Winter, the better and then, Summer was just…Summer, a languid and healthy slice of sunkissed bliss that felt like it existed as its own entity.  As Rhett made more friends with either older students or with people who hailed from Madison, more and more, he heard stories about how perfect the city was in the summer. People’s faces would begin to naturally glisten while their eyes would fall into a dreamy haze as they all expressed variations of the same theme, “Madison is so beautiful in the summer,” over and again.

     And then, the pieces began to form together or rather, Rhett’s astral brain with its mental boxes were beginning to find their exact spaces upon the shelf.

     It was near the end of Rhett’s Freshman Year when he began to entertain the idea of becoming a Philosophy professor, a career where his sense of academic diligence, love of the school year cycle and his more astral leanings could all congeal beautifully. It didn’t matter whether his imagined teaching profession took place in Madison or back home in Minnesota, even though he felt to be very much at home on the UW-Madison campus. Rhett just imagined himself on a Midwestern campus, complete with the four seasons (including the dreaded winter), and endless streams of new students w hose youthful energy just may rub off onto him when he is not so young anymore.

     But to get himself started, it was time to begin taking some of the necessary classes. After a lengthy discussion with his Mother, Rhett soon registered for two summer courses in Philosophy, one of which explored the teachings and writings of Sartre, while the second class was about the more timeless and always timely fundamentals of ethics. As for lodging, Rhett’s Mother pointed him in the direction of her brother, Rhett’s Uncle Denny, a house painter whose business increased dramatically during the summer months. After a surprisingly enthusiastic conversation, one that Rhett was initially nervous about due to his scant contact with his Uncle, a deal was struck for Rhett to reside in Denny’s house, rent free, for the Summer and as an added bonus, Rhett could have access to driving Denny’s 20 year old Honda if he wished as Denny would primarily be using his truck to cart around his painting supplies over the next few months. The only stipulations were to keep the house orderly if not fully clean, occasionally assist with the grocery shopping and lawn care and finally, absolutely no guests were allowed without confirmed permission. If these were to be the only bargaining chips in order to receive free summer housing, accepting the terms was a no-brainer! Helping to keep a tidy house and yard and do some minor grocery shopping was the least he could do in exchange for his Uncle’s generosity. And the additional prospect of having access to a car was indeed the proverbial icing on the cake (even though Rhett loved going for walks—the longer, the better—it was great to have an option, especially for those stormy summer days and nights).

     Everything was falling into place. Classes were obtained as well as a home to comfortably reside inside of after the cramped existence of dorm life. With his Mother paying tuition, Rhett instinctively felt obligated to find summer employment to not only alleviate any sense of financial burden but to also support himself with his books, any supplies and to have some precious pocket money, a task he accomplished through being hired for work part-time at Memorial Library.

     On the final day of the school year, Rhett Brazelton moved out of Ogg Hall and into his Uncle Denny’s home, located near the Vilas Zoo, where the growls of the lions could be heard during the night on occasion. To celebrate, the two spent a rapturous night on the Memorial Union Terrace, where in addition to becoming better acquainted with each other through lively conversation and covertly imbibed alcoholic beverages, Rhett and his Uncle simply enjoyed the time under the stars, with the breeze from the lake waters in the air and surrounded by a sea of happy strangers all seduced by the tropical rhythms and deep bass of the reggae band performing on the outdoor stage. As far as he was concerned, as he took in the sights around him and replaying all the sublime comments about Madison summers in his mind, the self-described “Summer Of Rhett” had officially begun. 
Copyright 2015 by Scott Collins All rights reserved. No part of this material may be reproduced, scanned, or distributed in any printed or electronic form without permission. Please do not participate in or encourage piracy of copyrighted materials in violation of the author's rights.