Dances with chickens

A week of ridiculousness reached its high (or low?) point last Thursday just before the celebration of the college's 175th birthday party. Faculty members in full regalia had already processed into the auditorium but then endured an awkward gap while awaiting the arrival of the Grand Poohbahs--the platform party and college trustees. A colleague near me began grumbling about the delay. "Someone should get up and make an announcement," she said, to which I responded, "Why don't you go up there and lead us all in the Chicken Dance?"

She didn't take me up on the offer, but the mental image of all those regalia-clad professors flapping their arms like chickens was a small point of light in a tempestuous week.

It was bad enough that I had blood tests on Monday, papers due on Wednesday, classes to prep every day, and eight different meetings throughout the week, but the presence of the college trustees combined with more bleak winter weather produced a case of the midwinter crazies all over campus. Everyone who has been nursing a gripe suddenly felt an urgent need to share it with me, either face-to-face or via e-mail. By Thursday night my inbox was seething with angst unlikely to be resolved by a few extra meetings.

Good thing the evening's speaker offered some perspective, reminding us that Abraham Lincoln weathered the Civil War with grace and integrity, characteristics we'll require if we are to endure our own campus controversies. Honest Abe never did the Chicken Dance (or if he did, why isn't it on YouTube?), but he showed us how to keep his head when all about are losing theirs. If that lesson can't lead us through the midwinter crazies, then nothing will.