‘Twas the week before finals and all throughout Ames …

People were memorizing dates, places and names.

As I look out my window, car covered in snow …

I can no longer watch the Space Ghost Coast to Coast show.

Other concerns run through my head.

Turn the heat on and this extra layer of clothes I can shed.

Bundle up, it is time for another Iowa winter. Luckily, we can keep piling on the sweatshirts and jackets until we look like life-size weebles making our way out into the cold winter chill.

This is not the case for our fine-feathered neighbors. For Lancelot and Elaine the option of extra layers does not exist.

The ISU geese have a set number of feathery layers. These layers keep a good amount of the warmth from escaping. The feet of a goose are not nearly as well insulated and are more susceptible to the cold. Those layers may not be enough for a harsh winter. That is why we have the aerator in Lake LaVerne, isn’t it?

A casual glance at Lake LaVerne this winter is a different sight than one year ago.

Last year Lancelot and Elaine casually floated along in their pen. They spent the majority of the winter in the nicely heated water.

Occasionally getting an interesting view of goose butt as they scrounged for food under the water made that long trek to class worth it sometimes.

No such luck this year. The water in Lancelot and Elaine’s pen has frozen over; only a few areas of open water still exist … mostly broken away by the geese themselves.

There is only one area large enough for the geese to get into the water. Not much room, and in all likelihood not very comforting either.

Lancelot and Elaine are voicing their discontent at any who will listen — standing upon the ice, crying out over the campus.

Sadly, cries of concern tend to fall on deaf ears around Iowa State.

I suppose things are just too hectic on the campus for us to care for our fine-feathered friends. No one has a minute to spare.

With all the secret meetings, new engineering buildings and spiffy video screens for Hilton Coliseum, who has spare time?

There’s no time to be bothered with turning on the heater in Lake LaVerne. Not to mention it won’t boost ISU’s image for future gain.

It is not as if Lancelot and Elaine can seek out a friendlier home. They have confined to a fenced-in cell, for their own safety of course. Leaving them no place to hide from Old Man winter.

In winters past, they have kept the geese indoors for the winter. That seems to be a last resort. Last winter was not all that pleasant, yet Lancelot and Elaine seemed to weather it pretty well.

At least one voice can be heard on this campus this semester.

Lancelot and Elaine do not ask for much. No list of demands, just a desire for what they have had before. Somewhere to kick back, relax and float through the day.

Everything seems to blur together as the semester draws to a close. As we finish projects, prepare for finals and think about the holiday season, we have little time to think of anything else.

The least ISU could do is think of the feathered tradition living on Lake LaVerne. Start up the aerators and give us back the content swimming geese of winters past.

Perhaps I am getting too wrapped up in this. Maybe there are more important events going on that I could be concerning myself with.

The little details are catching my eye — must be Dead Week.

I highly doubt any of you would care to be in Lancelot and Elaine’s current position. Some people already are, but that is another column entirely.

Geesicles are one of the last things I want to see greeting me next semester.

Let’s keep another tradition or two alive at ISU — turn on the aerator in Lake LaVerne.

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Andrew Seitz is junior in drawing, painting and printmaking from Dyersville.