My “California Journal” today has disparate notes, including this: A carillon, or bell tower, should be a staple of campuses, like a football field. A reader writes to agree. She says,
Yes, a bell tower is a lovely thing. My tiny Catholic college had one. We rang the bell properly just once in my four years there — but it was worth it.
When news broke on a quiet Sunday afternoon in April that John Paul II had passed on, a few of us broke into the bell tower — I say “broke into”: It was easy to enter, though off-limits to students — and tolled the bell all afternoon.
The dean of students (an elderly sister) looked the other way for disciplinary purposes.