Imagine a mellow middle-aged dog lying in the sun all summer long. It lives a dreamy ideal, it is never in a rush, never has to wait for anything. This dog spends its summer living the dream.
As the days get shorter and the mornings brisker, ticks start to congregate on the dog.
At first they come in ones and twos but then, as if by magic a whole horde of ticks, twelve thousand, to be exact, invades. The dog’s life gets immensely less convenient and comfortable.
Now imagine that the dog is Moscow. Also imagine that those ticks are actually contributing members of society whose presence is a driving force in the dog’s economy.
Imagine those ticks are actually a very important part of the dog’s existence. Also imagine that those ticks really aren’t that bad, they don’t suck any blood, the dog actually really appreciates them but it does find their yearly return a little annoying.
This metaphor is rapidly disintegrating but hopefully I have conveyed a sense of how many Moscow locals feel about this time of year. Comments like “The hordes are returning,” “Brace yourselves” and “Hide your kids” leap through once peaceful neighborhoods.
Moscow knows it needs the students, Moscow knows it loves the students but sometimes it forgets. The town gets used to never waiting in line, it becomes accustomed to slow peaceful Friday nights and nearly empty supermarkets.
The school year always comes as a bit of a shock. One day you go to pick up groceries and the store looks like the inside of an anthill, swarming with busy little workers. You come back from vacation and go to the Farmer’s Market only to be met by lines only marginally shorter than the Mesozoic Era.
School supply aisles usually populated with middle school families are suddenly filled with young adults looking for pencils and notebooks. Parking lots fill up with out-of-state plates and ramen sales leap through the proverbial roof.
The students sense none of that. They are in a state of transition, ticks that have left their dog and moved to another, waiting to be swollen and full of knowledge. The students aren’t trying to irritate Moscow — they are simply trying to make it their home.
Traveling hundreds, even thousands of miles to this oasis among the wheat fields many students don’t know what to expect. Every year another crop of freshman invade, eager to figure this college thing out.
Moscow should have figured it out by now, should have adjusted. It’s not like this is a surprise. If this is an invasion it comes with more warning than your average barbaric horde.
People like to live in the pleasant summer present though. Anticipating the first day of school is something that most people like to grow out of. As graduated adults many residents of Moscow try to forget their old scheduled lives, driven by semesters.
As summer slips into fall Moscow leaps into a flurry of new activity. There are brash students and grumpy locals but eventually they will both fall back into a peaceful tempo.
Soon Moscow will settle into this new rhythm. Soon the dog will stop scratching at the welcome ticks. Until then freshmen will drive the wrong way on Jackson Street and locals will make crabby remarks about the university. Through it all, just remember, we’re all just ticks on the dog, some of us just stay here year round.
Cy Whitling can be reached at [email protected]