Memorials

The first day went really well. I chatted with my students before class began, and after everyone had filed in, I told them all to take out a sheet of paper, as we were going to have a quiz.

They looked at me with terror. They hadn't read the book in a week.

I smiled and said "joke." The students started laughing. I think they were happy to see that some things hadn't changed.

We talked about the remainder of the semester, how I was readjusting the class requirements to help them finish with high grades, and what they had done in their time off. Finally, I told them that they could leave if they wanted, but that some of them had expressed an interest in talking about the situation on campus. In most of my classes, about half of the students left.

My students are trying to figure out how to feel about this. So is the University. It was a day of memorials, of trying to decide how to commemorate the event. Early in the morning, the university assembled on the drill field while the bells in Burruss tolled 32 times. Every time they tolled, a white balloon floated up from the crowd. Across campus, everyone froze and watched the ceremony:




When the ceremony was finished, they released a bunch of orange and maroon balloons and everyone paused to watch them.




On the way to my first class, I noticed the Addison Caldwell statue. "Addy" was Virginia Tech's first student, and he supposedly walked 26 miles to come to the University. They installed the statue this year. I think he looks like a cross-dressing female character from Little House on the Prairie. At any rate, he was sporting a little orange and maroon today:


I also stopped by Norris Hall:




There is currently a little debate on what the University will do with Norris. Some people are arguing that it should be razed and replaced with a memorial, while others think that it should be remodeled. Given the history of the University, the crowded classroom conditions on campus, and Norris' ciderblock construction, my guess is that they will keep Norris around, and will probably do little to alter the building itself. I'm not sure that this is a bad idea. In some ways, I can't think of a better memorial to the rooms in Norris than their continued use for education.

The campus is blanketed in posters letters, sculptures, and other tributes from across the country. Squires student center is covered in wall-to-wall banners:






The students have produced a few tributes of their own. Outside Burruss, I saw the letters "VT" written in daisies:


And a paper chain:


There are three official memorials. The first consists of 33 "hokie stones" outside Burruss. Each one is surrounded with remembrances of individual victims:




These surround a huge cairn of flowers, gifts, and assorted remembrances:


Basically, the whole thing looks like a landfill the day after the Rose Bowl Parade.

The second official tribute is on the drill field, and consists of 32 sign boards:




People have used these boards to write messages to the victims and to Tech itself:




My favorite memorial was set up by the Campus ministries. It is a few yards of string with 33 pieces of white cloth. Surrounding the cloth are ribbons on which people write their messages to the school and the victims.




I like this memorial because it is so alive. At times, it's a little too alive, as the ribbons can do some serious damage when whipped around by the wind. However, it's the lightest of the memorials, and the most comforting. There's something powerful about seeing the memories and kind wishes dancing in the air.


Tech is still trying to figure out how it will embrace this tragedy, and how it will fashion its memorialization. It's pretty amazing to watch the school slowly decide how it will form its institutional memory. In the meantime, the students are getting commemorative tattoos:

My First Tattoo

A little while ago, I was reading a meme on Boondoggled , a blog that I really enjoy. Reading through the list of items, I agreed with most of Just D's responses. However, in one of the categories, "Things I Would Never Do," she wrote that she would never have a tattoo. I was a little surprised, in part because I know so many people with tattoos, but also because I got my first tattoo this year.

For years, I'd thought about getting some skin art. My original idea was to get "Made in Korea" on the back of my calf. My reasons for this were two-fold. First of all, I was, in fact, made in Korea by an American Navy officer and a U.S. staff worker in the embassy. My second reason was that, well, tattoos are cool. And edgy. And I wanted to be cool. And edgy.

Not surprisingly, these reasons weren't enough to get me into a chair, particularly when I realized that the tattoo I had in mind would probably cost about $150. Of course, I always blamed my decision on timing, or poverty, or some other excuse. Deep down inside, though, I knew the true reason: it wasn't the right tattoo.

Almost two years ago, my wife told me that she was pregnant. After I got over my initial terror, we began thinking about names for the little tyke. When we found out that we were going to have a little girl, we decided to name her Georgia. We had three reasons for this. First, my wife is also named after a state, and the whole state thing struck us as a total riot. Second, my wife's father was named George. George was in the process of dying, and we decided that naming his granddaughter after him was a particularly cool way to memorialize him. Finally, between George Trayne (Nancy Drew's best buddy), George Eliot, and George Sands, we had a huge number of great female Georges for our daughter to look up to. Even then, we knew that we were going to call her George.

George was born in October, and her grandfather died in April. In the months in between, she and he were able to meet, and they really hit it off. That summer, as Father's day got nearer, I started thinking about fatherhood, mortality, and being a grown-up. I decided that, at the advanced age of 34, I had reached the point where I probably didn't have to worry about outgrowing my tattoos. I was pretty sure that I would never regret the tattoo I had in mind. Besides, it was something that I really wanted to do. Best of all, between my daughter, my father-in-law, and my favorite writer, I knew exactly what to get on my arm.

George Orwell.

First off, I picked out the perfect picture of Orwell. Half his face was in shadow, giving him an intense, mysterious aura:



My next move was figuring out what I wanted the tattoo to look like. I finally decided on this as a tentative design:


When it came to finding an artist, I didn't want to screw around. After all, I knew that I would be wearing this for the rest of my life. I went to Ancient Art, the best tattoo studio in town. Once I got there, I talked to Richie, one of the artists. We finalized the design and set up an appointment for a few days later. When the day rolled around, I was a little scared, but I decided that I needed to do this because I was scared. I wanted to overcome this one.

Anyway, I went in, sat down and started reading the book that I had brought along. However, I soon found myself getting involved in the tattooing process, discussing details of Orwell's hair and smile, and generally collaborating with Richie. To be honest, the two and a half hours went really quickly. Now, I'm not going to pretend that the tattoo didn't hurt, but it wasn't unbearable. To be precise, it felt like I had skinned my arm and someone was rubbing it with a vibrator. Here's what George looked like when I got out of the parlor:


He was a little too intense at first. However, Richie assured me that George's bright white eyes and demon-red skin tone would fade considerably by the time he healed.

Of course, the healing process was interesting, too. Especially when George scabbed over:


This picture doesn't quite convey the total skin-rot realities of George at this time. To put it bluntly, it looked like I'd gotten the world's most artistic case of leprosy. However, within a month or so, George had healed. This is what he looks like today:


While I'm not totally pleased with the tattoo, I like it a lot. Richie went with a photo-realistic technique that didn't come out perfectly, and I will probably go to a major urban center for my next tattoo, but I'm generally happy with George. As is my daughter, who sometimes talks to him when she thinks I'm not looking.

For my other arm, I'm thinking about Franz Kafka:


No, I'm not naming the next kid "Franz."