Go Badgers.

 I just finished knitting a red and white hat for my granddaughter, who is starting her first year at the University of Wisconsin, Madison. She joins her sister there, who is starting her junior year.  I made the hat in the school colors for her to wear to football games, but, due to COVID-19, there will be no football this season.

As an educator, I wonder about the quality of the courses the girls will take, only a few of which are in person. I can only hope that the faculty, who basically put their recorded lectures on line when the campus closed last semester, have had the time and training to offer more challenging and interactive experiences.

As a grandmother, I worry about their health. Since they both live in privately owned housing, they are not subject to the same rules or monitoring as dorm residents. The idea that the university can control a student body interacting with each other and with the community at large is laughable. They are college students. They are there, rather than taking online courses at home, to be with their friends and for “the college experience.” No matter how mature or aware of the danger, they will do what college students have always done. They will gather and go to bars. Almost every day I read about hundreds of cases at campuses already in session. It would be silly to pretend that they are not at risk.

And now, as if the virus weren’t enough, there are protests in their neighborhood. Stores and restaurants are boarded up; they cannot walk down their street. A teenage vigilante shot three people with an assault rifle.  My grandchildren lived through a school shooting by a teenager with an assault rifle. Do they need to live in fear again?

My father told me when my own children were born that it was the responsibility of a grandparent to spoil their grandchildren. I try. He didn’t tell me about the heartache.