Opps. It is called Drury University now. Also known as DU. That was a joke when I went to school there. Q: Do you know why Drury will never be called a university. A: Du. Okay it was funny, maybe you had to be there.
I don’t understand why every school wants to be a university. Think of brilliant schools like Grinnell College, Colorado College and Carleton College. They have no need to inflate their egos with a U.
My first appointment was at 9am so I left Kansas City very early. I was not happy to get up at 4:30 am on my first day of vacation. Yes, I have vacation all next week. I didn’t want to, but UMKC now limits the amount of vacation that we can take during the Summer Term and if we don’t take our vacation we lose it. We can’t accumulate vacations days. So it is a case of use it or lose it. Of course the forecast is for snow tonight.
I arrived early in Springfield so I swung by the old forty acres (Drury). Students were just hustling their butts off to 8 am classes. It was about 40 degrees and cold rain, but some guy was going to class clad in track shorts and a sweatshirt. Did we dress that stupid in college? Yes.
Students were hurrying across “the lane” burdened with big backpacks and even larger vessels of coffee. They can drink in class now. We couldn’t have drinks or food in class, so we would meet afterward in the old commons and drink hot coffee and have deep conversations about the meaning of life and the latest gossip on campus. Things change, for better or worse and still remain the same.
On the way out of town I couldn’t resist stopping off at the National Headquarters of Bass Pro Shops just to look. And of course I walked out with a new fedora, sunglasses and fly rod.
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