Shoot,"
I said, remembering I'd left my pen down below with my notebook.
I was standing in a sort of crow's nest that hangs inside the
Golden Dome directly beneath Mary's two-ton, 16-foot-tall, hollow
iron statue. My legs trembled faintly and I kept a hand clamped
on anything solid and vertical as I stepped around the tiny platform.
Gaps between some of the planks, I couldn't help noticing, were
wide enough to swallow a leg.
I'd come here with Matt Cashore '94 on an assignment from the
magazine to photograph various nooks and crannies of campus, the
dark or hidden corners that few have ever visited. The platform
we were on topped a dark and dusty chamber, the void between the
gold-leafed exterior dome and the rotunda ceiling decorated with
heavenly cloud-sitters.
For more than a month this past winter Matt and I explored such
off-limits and seldom-seen places. You can see what we found in
the print issue of the magazine. Other are posted here.
As for my inaccessible notebook and pen, our escort from the
maintenance department, Mark Sobrielski, quickly diagnosed my
dilemma from having guided dozens to the same location. He pulled
a blue-capped Sharpie from his shirt pocket and extended his arm.
One look around Mary's crow's nest, and it's obvious that everyone
who climbs this far wants to leave behind proof that they made
it. To the inked and carved names of generations of administrators,
workmen and alums, I shamelessly added: "Ed Cohen ND Magazine
1/6/03."
