My Thoreauian Experience with Lindeman Pond

            Shrouded in mystery here on campus is the case of Lindeman Pond; when did it come into being?  What is the purpose of the pond?  Who enjoys it?  As a true seeker of knowledge (but mostly because it was an assignment) I decided to find out.  My method of finding out: the internet.  Google is one of the top search engines used today; surely it will reveal the answers to my questions, right? Wrong.  Google has only the ability to pull up pictures from Flickr.com of beautiful days on Lindeman Pond.  Beautiful pictures, but no info on why Lindeman Pond is.  The Library research page was next on my list of potential sources.  A library is where you go for information, and the library located on the same exact campus as the pond?  This must have the knowledge I seek.  Except it doesn’t.  There is no information about Lindeman Pond anywhere.  Feeling discouraged, I go to the last place I believe will have the information I need to write this blog post.  Luther.edu.  Luther.edu has a vast wealth of knowledge located in its many pages.  One must simply find the correct words to submit to the search box at the top of the page.  And I found them: “Lindeman Pond.”  Up comes the search results, and I finally find information about this mysterious pond.  In fact, I find two whole sentences about the pond:   “Lindeman Pond is one of several ponds on campus used by students in biology courses. The pond has painted turtles, spring peepers, and bluegill, as well as microscopic organisms studied by microbiology students.”  These two sentences tell me a few new things.  There are more ponds here on campus?  Students go down to this pond for class?  There are fish in the pond?  But alas, they do not answer any of the questions I needed to complete this blog post.  In the end, I must infer its usage.  It takes the Frisbees that people play with on the disk golf course.  It is a place where people can play broom ball in the winter.  It creates a beautiful view from my Dieseth 4^th window.  I think it makes sure that Towers doesn’t come tumbling down during rainstorms because it’s where the runoff water from upper campus flows to.  Clearly Luther students need not know the purpose of the pond, and thus the mystery remains unsolved.
           
            Today was an interesting day to walk down to Lindeman Pond, because it was the first snow of the year.  As a firm believer that winter should last from December 23^rd through December 31^st, and due to the fact that I have a cold and an ear infection, I was not thrilled to be walking outside in this.  I started by looking at the pond from my Dieseth 4^th window.  The view from above creates a certain feeling about the pond.  There aren’t any leaves on the trees; they’re all along the sides of the pond.  Through the dead looking trees you can see the ropes course on the other side.  Everything is brown, with a light dusting of snow.  Going down to the pond, the sights change as you become level with the pond instead of above it.  The water ripples with the whipping wind.  Everything appears either brown or grey, depending on if you look at the nature or the sky.  When you look at the pond, you can see the reflection of the trees and sky; the grey is muted in the pond.  I can’t see through the water, but I know that there are fish swimming, turtles plodding, and a plethora of Frisbees (one being mine from earlier in the year) that students have lost while playing the disk golf course.  Everything starts to feel cold the longer I’m out there.  For a while, I can close my eyes and pretend I’m out in the middle of nowhere by a pond by myself, but soon the cars going by kills that feeling.  The cars remind me of Thoreau’s comments about hearing the trains and their whistles, except I can see the cars.  Unlike Thoreau, I’m not completely alone; there are workers under Towers, and people walking to their cars.  In the end, I don’t really equate a visit to Lindeman Pond to Thoreau’s stay at Walden Pond.  Going down four and a half flights of stairs and then across a road isn’t the same as going out into the wilderness for an extended period of time by myself.  As I walk away from Lindeman Pond, I try and imagine staying out there for a year or two, living in a small cabin by myself, with only the animals and fish for company.  Thoreau learned many ideas through his time at Walden Pond, but I believe that he was open to learning them, and I am not.  I prefer warm, dry places with social interactions.  I’m glad he did it and I could read what he learned, instead of having to try it myself.