Memorial Stadium

I was walking into Memorial Stadium with Jon Reichard when he stopped me and said we can’t get in from here.  We turned around and walked toward the south end of the stadium.  From there I could see over the top of the bleachers that there was a steel truss bridge being built all the way across the top of the stadium.  It was not just a light pedestrian bridge, but was made of thick, heavy beams and girders already painted silver.  The workers were up on it pounding and pulling and welding.  I was impressed by how hard they were working.

I went in a door that took me into the Illini Union, which was also being rebuilt.  I walked around through several of the rooms and big open spaces.  I found a stairway that I wasn’t familiar with so I climbed up it.  At what looked like the top regular floor there was a smaller, steeper set of stairs that went on up, so I climbed them.  At the very top they ran out of room before it came to the floor and I had to make a large step from a short tread to get to the floor. 

There was only about a 10 foot square space and a small opening just above the floor at one end.  I went up to it and there was a zippered cloth covering the hole in the wall.  I zipped it open and crawled through.  Inside was a big room with hardwood floors.  There were lots of kids running around playing games and dancing.  I thought that it was great that they had a kids’ room like that in the Union, but they really needed a better entrance.  I noticed there was a large, all glass wall at the far side, but I couldn’t see through it because of the reflection.  I walked over to it and looked out and I was right at ground level of Memorial Stadium, looking out at the astro-turf!  Not sure how that could be.