Enchanted Times

My friend from home just left. We dined, wined, hiked, walked, and talked for three days straight. She and I both had a great visit. Something else happened, too. My friend was infected by the Ithaca bug.

She was bitten right before my very eyes. I noticed it when she heard the Cornell Chimes* in the Clock Tower in the center of campus. She stopped walking, cocked her head sideways and stood completely still, enjoying the marking of the hours.

And then I knew for sure she was a goner, when later, on our trip to Taughannock Falls State Park, she was giggling like a kid and swore she felt the mist from the waterfall on her face.

I am pretty sure of my diagnosis. Either that, or it was the 30-degree drop in temperature from California to Ithaca that turned her cheeks rosy red and caused her eyes to glisten, making her look so inspired.

* Cornell Chimes: Visitors are welcome and encouraged to attend the chimes concerts to fully appreciate these icons. Something essential would be missing from the campus without that cheery tintinnabulation that serenades Cornellians and visitors daily. In the words of Albert W. Smith 1878:

I wake at night and think I hear
Remembered chimes,
And mem'ry brings in visions clear
Enchanted times
Beneath green elms with branches bowed
In springtime suns,
Or touching elbows in a crowd
Of eager ones;
Again I'm hurrying past the towers
Or with the teams,
Or spending precious idling hours
In golden dreams