Welcome back to campus.
Now leave.
You can’t go far, of course. You probably have homework tonight and classes tomorrow. You might not have a car, and perhaps you still haven’t picked up your bus pass.
I’m not exhorting you to get back on a plane to Cancun or to boldly head west into the Great Iowa Prairie. In fact, if you reach the state border, you’ve gone too far.
Stay in Wisconsin. You can even stay in Madison. But get to know your city and your state.
Two of K-Mart’s three Madison-area stores are closing; the bargains aren’t that great, but the Odana Road location is nevertheless the place to be. When I was there, the parking lot was overflowing, and all kinds of Madisonians had turned up to share in the festivities. I even ran into three friends.
If you’re looking for some climactic predictability in the face of our feuding seasons, head out to the East Side, where Olbrich Gardens offers a beautiful indoor display.
Over in Milwaukee, the art museum has a breathtaking new addition that looks like a giant bird. And check out the current interactive exhibit before the museum’s lawyers do. It had been years since I had seen a maze constructed entirely of sharp glass or a room full of scaffolding that functioned as a structurally dubious climbing gym, and even if you don’t consider the stepladders propped against the wall to be art, they’re certainly entertaining.
Wisconsin has a great deal to offer. A couple years ago, I was lucky enough to intern for the state, and most days, my duties required me to get in a state-owned vehicle and drive somewhere. While I have stopped trying to explain the purpose of these trips, I remain grateful to have had the chance to explore southern Wisconsin. It’s a gorgeous area with stunning views, quaint locales and friendly people.
Our state is a special place.
And in our state, today is an election day — a local election day. That means that there are a lot of lonely poll workers sitting around in the Union and Naval ROTC, wondering if they will need one hand or two to count the number of voters that come in on their watch.
That also means that tomorrow we will read of this low turnout in the papers, and politicians and campus commentators will shake their heads and remark that students just can’t be bothered to vote.
I have long complained of politicians who assume or expect that students are only concerned with “student” issues. Talk about tuition and bars, their rationale goes, and students will be satisfied. Other local issues — schools, public service, and infrastructure, to name a few — neither interest nor concern students, they say.
When it comes to these affairs, students are irrelevant.
Moreover, I have been infuriated by the recent actions of Assembly Republicans, who apparently feel it is their duty to attack our university and the “non-residents” who attend it.
A large turnout today might catch the attention of the politicos and give students a greater political voice.
But I didn’t begin this column by urging my dear readers to go out and vote, and I won’t now. I don’t see uninformed voting as the solution.
The real tragedy isn’t that so many of us are absent on election day; it is that so many of us really are absent from the community we should be calling home. We are attached to Madison only insofar as “UW” appears before it, and we don’t even reflect on what it means to be the University of Wisconsin.
So if there are local issues that are important to you, by all means head out and vote. But if you know nothing about the issues that face our community, the best place to start is in the community. Get off campus — make Wisconsin your state and make Madison your home.
And if you happen to stop at K-Mart, I could use some new socks.
Bryant Walker Smith ([email protected]) is a senior majoring in civil engineering.
