[Alumni-chat] Why Aren't the Students Using the Library?

[Sistersara at aol.com]

In a message dated 10/9/2007 8:42:48 A.M. Central Daylight Time,  
duffy at antioch-college.edu writes:

Not only  did you fifties' children smoke....you wore spike high  heels......

Under the carpet by the circ desk at the library the tiles  had many tiny
half moon marks wedged into the tiles.

I used to ask  Joe and Bruce Thomas.    What's all those marks in the tile?
They  said "High heel marks from spike heels"

I found that incredible...since  most folks in the later sixties wore
sandals or boots or nothing...on their  feet



Well, my particular generation probably did wear spikes on co-op,  but never 
on campus -- not us.  We bought one pair of Keds when we  left for Antioch, 
and for the next five years we mended them with medical  adhesive tape and 
sometimes odd lengths of string, in the interests of keeping  the Ohio Mud out of 
our shoes and toes.  But the idea was to graduate in  the same shoes you had 
when you entered, even though not much was left of the  original pair.  If 
anything we made virtually no impact on the environment,  we were very cheap, we 
didn't offer much business to the shoe repair trade, we  bought American.  And 
we were only half children of Eisenhower.   During my first Quarter, (now 
precisely 50 years ago) we spent hours on front  campus in the middle of the night 
looking for Sputnik, (and sat around in Birch  Common Room listening to Ollie 
Loud and a few others describe the science  involved in putting it up there.)  
 Because Ellie Holmes lived in  Green that quarter, we also had joint 
Green-Randall hall meetings where Ellie  led us through the history of litigation and 
decisions that led up to the  confrontation at Little Rock that forced Ike to 
send in the Airborne  Troops.  Given that the media is busy memorializing 
these two events -- I  have an odd feeling about the fact that they left out the 
third fact that in  September, 1957, I also started a degree program at a very 
healthy Antioch  College.  Cost about 1200 per year for everything, 
especially if you  economized on shoes.  And oh yea, you could buy cigarettes in the 
bookstore  for about five dollars a carton.  
 
As for Beer -- in those days Green County was dry except for 3.2 -- meaning  
if you wanted anything stronger or had a taste for wine, you had to go to  
Springfield.  Of course you could get the 3.2 at the Tavern or Coms, if you  were 
over 18, but even in Springfield you had to be 21.  If I remember you  could 
get a pitcher that served six for under a dollar at the Tavern.  I  don't 
remember the brands, but for those of us who eventually did AEA and  returned, 
going to Springfield for German or Danish Beer was a big deal.   We cooled it in 
winter on the window sills or inside the screens of dorm  windows.  No such 
thing as a dorm fridge in those days.  For those of  us who went AEA in Denmark, 
we had been exposed to a culture where cigarettes  were highly taxed, but 
cigars were not -- so women smoked cigars.  We  introduced the idea at Antioch 
when we returned.  There was some sort of  crazy rule against smoking cigars in 
the library -- but it was OK in the  Inn.  It was also fine to smoke pipes in 
both the Library and the  Inn.  The bookstore had a quite elaborate selection 
of tobacco for pipe  smokers.  And it was only in my last year that there was 
a rumor that  someone had brought some pot to campus -- I never was around any 
being  consumed.  



************************************** See what's new at http://www.aol.com