Another Hoosier Mystery

This is a view through the trees during this morning's death walk, around 7am, which took me again through the Indiana-Purdue campus, mostly along the St. Joseph River, then out along an entry road onto the campus. I walked to the end of the path (a busy city street), at which point I caught sight of an odd-looking statue (pictured at left) off by itself near a patch of very large evergreen trees. It is labeled "The Contenders" and is dated March 1979. It almost mistakenly depicts a much smaller than life-size couple (or...perhaps they were only 4' tall...ha!) wearing 1970s-style clothing, standing back-to-back and holding hands; the woman is gripping with her left hand what at first looked to me like a phaser from Star Trek-- I did a little digging and it's supposed to be a staple gun. It really is a weird little statue, with an even weirder inscription:

"All of us look for an arena in which we can

fairly and proudly contend…..

We are here to pick our arena and to train
for the day we can contend in it…."

I found this statue mentioned in a 2007 news release on the IPFW website, which really doesn't answer the many questions I have about it. More peculiar is that this statue stands mere feet from an odd, large headstone-like marker which apparently marks the spot of the cemetery of the Fort Wayne State Hospital and Training Center, which was there from 1901-1967, yet there are no other discernible vestiges of a graveyard to be found (here's a picture).

Just below the marker is a bronze plate inscribed with this morose message:

"There is a day of sunny rest

For every dark and troubled night

And grief may bide an evening guest

But joy shall come with every light. 

God hath marked each sorrowing day

And numbered every secret tear. 

And heaven’s long age of bliss shall pay

For all His children suffer here. 

From ‘Comfort’ by William Cullen Bryant"

Next Saturday I'll get a picture of the monstrosity someone claims as art that is so ugly it startled me on an otherwise serene and idyllic path through the flora along the river on the IPFW campus. I've dubbed that section of my walk "ugly art curve" (and actually, this thing is so ugly I had to look at it for a more than a few seconds to figure out what it was). Anyway. It (maybe it has a name, I'll see) will be next week's blog centerfold, so stay tuned.

Tomorrow I'll be left alone with the cat and to my own devices again-- we'll be batchin' it through Friday because of a business trip (back to Minneapolis)... 

That's it for now.

С Богом!