A Visit to Hanover College

Hanover...Hanover was lots of potential in the morning and had lost some of it's luster in the afternoon, literally. On the drive down, it was cold. Really cold. -5 F degrees cold. A large part of the drive paralleled the Ohio River through Kentucky where last Tuesday they had ice instead of our deep snow. Every twig of every branch was covered in ice. The vistas of the hills around us as we drove were visually stunning as the sun came up. First pink and yellow were reflected, then turning to storybook white.

The river itself was shrouded in swirling, eerie fog. When we reached Milton, Kentucky and had to cross the Milton-Madison bridge, it was like driving into nothing. The only thing you could see was the bridge iteself immediately around you. Not even a car length ahead or behind. Even though I could feel us climbing up, it felt more like floating. This two lane bridge has a main span of 600 feet and total length of 3,184 feet. It has a deck width of a mere 20 feet, and above the deck the vertical clearance is only 16.8 feet. Most big rigs can't even use it.

We were rewarded on the other side of the bridge with historic Madison, IN. It's so cute it hurts.

We made our way through town, stopping for hot chocolate and scones at a local coffee house and eventually made our way to the campus. The campus is high above the Ohio River and tucked back into the woods being what Jane Austen would refer to as "happily situated." We wound our way down aptly named Scenic Drive when the most amazing thing happened. The sun was just begninning to warm the trees and an ever so slight breeze was beginning to whisper through the branches. Without a cloud in the blue sky, ice began to flake away from the trees. It wasn't snow, it wasn't chunks, it was flakes of ice that sparkled the way snow just cannot. It swirled all around us, floating, dancing. By the time we reached the brick buildings and iron lamp posts of the campus, it wouldn't have taken much to convince me that we'd arrived in Narnia.

Kirk wasn't very good at reading the campus map and building names were obscured by the piles of snow cleared from walkways. We ended up at the administration building instead of the admissions building and everything just lost it's appeal from there. We back-tracked to the admissions building, were lucky enough to get a visitor's parking space in the poorly plowed lot and were greeted with a competent secretary, a warm fire, and no guide for our campus tour. Our guide eventually showed, but late. Bundling up we headed out into the bitter cold which rendered the etherial ice crystals less romantic while our perky sophomore guide tried to make her numb lips move. Some more history about the school would have been nice, but when you can't make your lips move, looking at old pillars just doesn't hold your attention. We did our best to stay indoors as long as possible. The science building was good for examining wooly mammoth tusks and the enormous skull of something prehistoric called a "Terminator Pig." I think its technical name is "dinohyus."

Because it was so cold, we power-walked through the tour rather than meandering and getting a good feel for the campus. We arrived at our appointment with the football coaching staff twenty minutes early. They were accomodating and toured us through the athletic facilities, which were impressive for a division three school. We watched a highlight video that reminded me more of high school ball than college ball and Kirk thought their players looked slow. Next came chalk talk with the offensive coordinator. This was completely lost on me. Kirk seemed to understand it, but I may as well have been listening to a physics lecture in Sanskrit. I tried to at least look alert and interested. I appreciated that it was readily apparent the coach had viewed and anaylized Kirk's film. Finally the head coach came in, to interview Kirk really. It was kind of stiff, but frank and honest. We left with a feeling that they wanted to know "what can you do for us" rather than "we think you're a great player and want you to be part of our team."

Next came lunch with the players. Our hosts were the quarterback and a wide receiver. Several of the players made a point to introduce themselves to Kirk while we ate. Food was decent, not as good as some of the other schools we've toured. The players seemed to spend more of our lunch talking to me than to Kirk.

After lunch was Elvis.

Lunch went quickly and we arrived back at admissions a full thirty minutes early before our next appointment. The competent secretary informed us that our assigned counselor was still at lunch, but she called to let him know that we had arrived early. He kept us waiting for 45 minutes, 15 minutes past the time we were scheduled to meet...with no apology. Kirk has already been accepted by Hanover so I was puzzled as to why they had even scheduled an interview with admissions. The competent secretary assured me it was mostly informational for Kirk's benefit. He could ask questions and so forth. Kirk had to spend a lot more time with the counselor than I did so it was a good thing he had a cold. I swear, the man had to have bathed in his cologne. It wasn't even an unpleasant cologne, but there was so much of it I wanted to gag. It permiated his office and clung to everything it touched. When he shut the door behind me I felt trapped with it like it was alive. I was antsy to leave, sure that I would end up smelling like him the way you leave a campfire smelling of wood smoke. You just can't help it. His hair was all one shade of black like it had been dyed. He even had longer sideburns. I vaguely recall him talking a lot about financial aid and trying to impress us with the fact that he was the second most senior admissions counselor at the school. He didn't look more than 24 and I don't think there was more than three counselors in the directory. He quoted a lot of statistics that did more to push my feelings away rather than endear me to the idea of my son attending the school.

When we were finally able to leave, Kirk and I drove by the stadium and paused at one of the best views of the river from the school to mark our trip.

I was so happy to finally be on the road home. We stopped for fudge at a little shop in Madison that was cuter from the outside than on the inside. The fudge was rendered quite unremarkable when we had to sit in construction traffic for 45 minutes to get back across the bridge. We were happily home before 5:00 pm. Kirk was invited for an overnight stay. I don't know if he'll go. Its biggest appeal is it's affordability among small private schools. If he gets accepted to them, there are other schools he'd rather attend. For my part, the best part of the day was getting to spend it alone with Kirk. We even drove home without the radio on, chatting about nothing important and complaining about Elvis.