It’s nearly 7:30 in the evening on the very last day of the semester. Although the sun is hidden behind curtains of clouds, the air is as warm and moist as rising dough. I am crossing campus.

Only a scattering of cars remains in the parking lots. Old Chapel Road and Storrs Avenue are vacant—except for one police cruiser parked by the library, officer inside, watching. Muffled traffic is the only sound I hear.

The tents set up for Commencement are still on the lawn behind McCullough; they look ghostly and hollow. Up the hill, a red squirrel scampers beneath a row of hunkering Adirondack chairs. And around the corner, a public safety officer removes lawn signs posted for Commencement.

The chains that normally block the lanes leading to Middlebury’s interior have been removed so that vehicles may enter to load up, but these lanes are almost deserted. A last car coming from the Chateau slowly edges toward the street.

As I walk past dorms, the Drop Off zones scattered about look like mushroom blooms. Students have piled bags of trash and various unwanted items at these spots. A quick scan reveals rolled-up carpets, a metal single-bed frame circa 1960s, a white and blue- checkered tablecloth, and an apple press.

In front of Franklin Environmental Center, a young man wearing a stark-white dress shirt hovers near a Drop Off sign. He flips his cell phone open and then stands motionless, looking toward the horizon.

A mist is moving in; the light is fading. Two tall, skinny youths scurry down the path from Atwater balancing a mini-fridge between them. They stop at the street, open the hatchback of their beetle-blue Subaru, toss the fridge inside, and head back toward Atwater.

At the recycling center, a perky, bounding German shepherd leads several people, who are laughing and talking excitedly, through the vacant parking lot and up to Ridgeline.

Just up the road, the streetlights flicker on as a female figure steps out of a campus house, onto the dim porch. She checks to be sure the door is locked, shoulders a backpack, and heads toward town. She recedes into the darkening night.

•    Youngman Field at 4 a.m., dress code ranging from coats and ties to flannel pajamas

•    The pre-dawn diligence of a legion of facilities professionals

•    The pre-dawn student serenade of the president at 3 South Street and subsequent breakfast at Steve’s Park Diner

•    The president picking up the tab at Steve’s

•    A two-hour period that can start out cold and rainy and can conclude warm and sunny

•    Phil Cyr’s behind-the-scenes stage management

•    The colorful array of flags, representing the countries of the international graduates, flying from the top of Voter Hall

•    The custom of academic regalia dating back to the 12th century

•    Hoods on faculty gowns, specifically their distinctive colors that signify the faculty member’s graduate institution

•    The student speaker. “Not that it isn’t great to get advice from cool people who have accomplished a lot in their lives,” says a recent grad, “but what was more meaningful to me was hearing what Midd meant to someone from our class . . . who knows the nuances of our lives at the College.”

•    Six hundred replicas of Gamaliel Painter’s cane and the convoluted exchange that goes into receiving said cane and diploma

•    Gamaliel Painter’s actual cane, carried in the procession by the president

•    The Alice in Wonderland-type hats donned by the faculty marshals

•    The shouts from families when their graduate walks across the stage (almost as if they weren’t sure this would actually happen)

•    Faculty or staff or trustee-parents presenting the diploma to sons or daughters

•    The wonderfully rich tenor of François Clemmons

•    Rap, rap, rap, and tap, tap, tap

•    Professors lining Storrs Walk and applauding the graduates as they exit

•    Mead Chapel’s carillon drifting over a nearly empty campus in the early afternoon