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

[Stephen L. Wasby]

I hate to challenge Sistersara on this matter, but I will as to her 
statement,
    "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."

That's wrong. One had to be 21 to get "6-point" beer. And one could, I 
believe, even purchase pre-bottled
mixed drinks, as long as they were below the maximum
alcohol percentage. For most students, 3.2 was all there
was . .   There was even an incident (in 1955 or so) when the Trail had its 
license suspended because they served
"6-point" beer to someone 10 days before her 21st birthday, although the lab 
tests on the bottle contents
showed it to be well less than six percent (but it was
more than 3.2).
    I drank enough Carlings Ale at the Trail (yes, and some beere at Com's, 
too) to float me down Route 68. But, as I would tell my students in later 
years, the question was whether one started drinking at 8:30, 9:30, 10:30, 
or . ..
("Or 4:30," as one wag at Southern Illinois interjected.)

Steve Wasby '59


----- Original Message ----- 
From: <Sistersara at aol.com>
To: <alumni-chat at w3.antioch.edu>
Sent: Tuesday, October 09, 2007 1:19 PM
Subject: Re: [Alumni-chat] Why Aren't the Students Using the Library?


>
> 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.
>
>
>
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