A View from the Top

Yesterday I had the opportunity to climb to the top of Samford Tower and catch the view from the highest point on Auburn's campus. It was a really cool experience and I'm glad I got to go. Our office is working on a video project for the Web and needed to shoot some scenes from the venerable clock tower. So we hauled ourselves and the gear up several flights of stairs (reminding me why I am so glad I work in the basement as opposed to the fourth floor) and into the attic of Samford Hall where we accessed the ladders that ascend first to the bell tower and then to the clock tower above it. All four of the clock faces in the tower manually roll back and you can stand within their circular frame for a bird's eye view of campus (Let me just add here that there are no window panes or screens but only a knee-high webbed barrier that is draped across the opening once the faces are rolled back. It is this small barrier alone that keeps you from being one footstep away from the ultimate meeting with the heavenly Father so the words "don't trip" up there carry significantly stronger meaning!). The view is truly magnificent and especially yesterday, with the weather being cool and crisp, it offered a perfect glimpse of Auburn from above. Each of the clock faces is backed by a huge piece of plywood and over the years, folks who have been lucky enough to venture to the clock tower have signed their names on the boards. I took the opportunity to inscribe my name in perpetuity in the tower -- if you are ever there, check out the bottom left-hand corner of the board on the clock face pointing toward College Street. I think this is a relatively new tradition as I didn't notice any signatures dating beyond the mid-90s; however, there is a bit of graffiti dated '15 (as in 1915) in the portion of the tower where the bell is housed. I guess there is something about proving your presence in a place and literally leaving your mark that never gets old. With all the new buildings and the face of campus changing significantly in the 21st century, it was really neat to be able to step back in time so the speak and see it all from above. Seeing the exposed brick and old beams in the attic immediately made me think of what the university must have been like when Samford Hall was truly the hub of a campus which was only made up of a couple of buildings. In case you are curious, Samford Hall is actually taller than Haley Center and offers a better view as it sits higher above sea level. Also, next time you visit Samford and look up, notice the weather vane that adorns the very top of the building's clock tower. The vane itself stands at 14 feet tall!