through some unknown coincidence, i was invited to check out a college that claire petersky was going to be attending, along with bruce borntraeger. it was more-or-less what i remember a typical college was like, with various buildings and dormitories. there was something bruce, claire and i were involved with that took place in one of the dormitories, but i don’t remember that part. there was one place, next to the dormitory, where there was a building and a parking lot and a huge earth berm with a road on the other side of it, and a gap so that the parking lot could be accessed from the road, and at the end of the berm, just before the gap, there was a concrete sign embedded in the berm, with faded writing that appeared to be german, and i realised that this had been an old WWI-era fort before it was a college. there was a large sailboat on a trailer in the parking lot, and i went up to it and started climbing on it as though i knew what i was doing. i found a derby hat that had somehow been forced down on the mast, so that it was ripped through the crown and resting on the deck. somehow i got it off, and, in spite of the fact that it was twisted out of shape and totally useless as a hat, i put it on my head anyway, and said that it didn’t matter to me that it wasn’t a hat any longer.