When I started at the University of Queensland in the 70s (!) there was an out-of-the-way area on the upper levels of the MAIN LIBRARY where I used to regularly sit with a group of friends.
The desks looked like these ones:
Except back then many of them were scribbled over with words of wisdom and otherwise from years of previous occupants – and not just on the flat desk sections but all up the side and back panels as well.
When my friends and I took over a particular cluster of desks and made them our own it didn’t seem wrong that we should enthusiastically participate in this great literary tradition.
And I personally think we really raised the standards! Two desks in particular – the ones that my best friend and I occupied – became like physical desk-shaped versions of Facebook and Twitter.
Nothing we wrote was crude or offensive. Instead we left messages, jokes, comments, bits of news, random philosophy and tried to out-do each other by writing humorous anecdotes and verse. Sometimes other friends or strangers contributed and every available surface of the desks soon became cluttered with ideas and words.
Reading the desks became a very enjoyable way to pass the time.
Whenever I went to the library to study, the first thing I would do was to check our two desks thoroughly for any new material. Then I would respond in some way or write something new. Sometimes quite briefly, sometimes in more epic proportions.
For example because my friend and I were both fans of English football at the time he and I created a number of multi-verse poetic ballads on the exploits our soccer heroes.
Strangely enough, I don’t actually remember doing much STUDY at those desks. (This could explain my early Uni results.)
ANYWAY one day towards the end of the year we returned to our spot in the library after a holiday break and found that all the desks had been totally sanded clean and resurfaced. Talk about outrageously, disrespectful behaviour!
EVERYTHING WAS GONE! ALL OUR BRILLIANCE VANISHED! OH THE HORROR!
Can you believe a University was capable of such VANDALISM? It was on a par with Nazi book burning and someone liquid-papering over the Dead Sea Scrolls!
(It’s just my opinion of course, but if anything those two desks should have been clear varnished so that the priceless wit and wisdom they held could have been preserved in a museum for posterity. )
To our credit, we didn’t lay a pen on the refurbished desks. It didn’t seem right.
And as far as I can recall, we didn’t congregate around those desks for much longer after that. It just didn’t feel like home any more.
All of which just goes to show that one person’s GOLD is another person’s GARBAGE. (As a quick glance at the reviews on Goodreads will certainly confirm.)
But you know what? Maybe it’s for the best that those graffitied words from my early long-haired Uni days have been lost.
After all, I still have my diaries from back then and reading them makes me think that perhaps there’s a slim chance my precious words might not have been quite as GOLDEN as I remember them.
Cheers
Michael
PS: DO NOT WRITE ON FURNITURE!
Michael Gerard Bauer Author 