Walking across the quad just after dawn, his long sleeve T-shirt too thin for the morning and slept-in khaki pants a wrinkled map of his night, the scratching cadence of his footfalls stops and he drops to one knee before the central statue, symbol of his college, an ox.
Rummaging in his backpack, he pulls out a sweatshirt. Shrugging it on, he pauses to look up at the face of the beast. From the broad tree lined allay that funnels high school seniors and their parents in on tour days, the ox looks strong and noble, head held erect, horns two mighty virile sabers, right front hoof on a rock as if he were hiking in the Alps or standing in defense of smaller neighbor nations. But seen from this angle, up under the chin, every hair and mole and wattle articulated with life-like accuracy, he looks more like what he is, the uncle of a cow, swinging his tail to swat at flies.