<p>I looked at the Marywood Univeristy site and saw an In Memory of Philip Tama in an English Dept. pdf. Is he dead? I still remember some of the papers I wrote for him in Sophomore English. He was keen on Bernard DeVoto and wrote on a paper I did on something DeVoto wrote, "DeVoto finds a friend." Now either my memory is pretty acute or he was a memorable teacher. I think the latter.</p>
Vic Martin's also had one more necessary ingredient: nursing school nurses. And great graduation week parties. One can't say quite the same for the Sons of Italy, but for $2 per year dues for non Italians, even Lombardobozzis became O'Tooles. (The idea was Italians as voting members, not social.) Fresh 20 oz RR drafts for 15c, every third free; and the membership would get you in the SOI next to the Penn Albert as well. Great Bocci courts and a colored television (wow). Replaced now alas by a pizza parlor. Re. Phil Tama, he may well be no more. Three years ago I saw his name on the list of faculty and asked a friend who said he was still teaching there but would retire at end of year. I recall his obsession with Gatsby - still a great book. One day Nucci came into a Tama performance, placed a copy of Gatsby on the chalk ledge, knelt and bowed to it three times, rose and left the room. As I recall, Tama's response while making that characteristic grappeling gesture with both hands was, "Er, what can I say?" He could take a joke on himself, but was, like a very small number of professors, honestly enthusiastic about his subject. The wave of pre-professionalism and careerism that has infected higher ed means very few such faculty exist. That's part of what makes me so damn mad at these Neuman Society people misusing the name of that subtle and dedicated scholar. They should read "The Idea of a University." What is education good for? "That is like asking 'What is health good for?'It is good for nothing. It is a good in itself."
<p>Sounds like an old timers reunion, for sure. Fortunately, I came in just as Nucci was going out, though I did meet him once. The meeting was preceded by several extended narratives his colleague Ed Milowicki regaled me with. Ed finished grad school a year or so ahead of me, and had been teaching at SVC. This was around 1962-63. Ed came down for a visit one day, bringingNucci with him. I discovered that Joe was an opera freak (so was I). We went on about Franco Corelli, Bjoerling, Merrill, and other great voices. We carried the conversation out onto the sidewalk (Locust Street on the Bluff at Duquesne). Joe was in the middle of a sentence. He suddenly stopped, Turned his head to the right and shouted, "Hey!"</p> <p>Then he took off running down the hill. I never saw him again, and I never knew why he took off that way. Neither did Milowicki.</p> <p>Once I came to visit Ed at SVC. I had a brand new 1963 VW Beetle and, since it was snowing ice balls, I thought I'd take it for a test into the weather, having heard of its great quality in the snow. I made it to Latrobe and stayed the night somewhere downtown. Next day we went out to visit the local establishments (one was Vic Marton's, the other Halula's). This time we took Ed's green Plymouth. I was in the front with Ed. Denny Quinn and a fellow Philo prof name McMahon (I forget his first name, but Ed called him "Tiger'). Ed went roaring down some side road in ten inches of snow trying to stay in the ruts. Suddenly there came a huge thud and the car lifted a bit. Why? We didn't know. McMahon was thrown to the floor at Denny's feet. Ed kept driving. About fifteen minutes and some several miles later, a pair of hands from the back grabbed the top of the back seat. McMahon's head appeared. "Jesus, Ed, that was on hell of a bump!"</p> <p>I went back to Pittsburgh. A year later I was in Africa. in 1968 I came to SVC, replacing a chap named Huston. I listened to Tranquilla, Chuck McGeever, Al Lange, and Geroge Dixon tell me stories about Tama, Nucci, Crenner, et alia.</p> <p>Driving down that snow coverered road with Ed, Denny and Tiger in 1963? Who would have thought!</p> <p>Incidentally, Jim Crenner and I were classmates at North Catholic in Pttsburgh.</p> <p>Vic Marton was a true Marine warrior. He died a month or so ago.</p>
It's 2:00 AM, but I have to proclaim my affinity for The Great Gatsby. Any time that I'd hear some little s...t in the private school where I taught in post-public school retirement say "The Great Gatsby sucks," I'd ask "Are you brain-dead?" Ye gods! Fitzgerald could have said "Gatsby had a sordid past," but instead he referred to it as "the foul dust that floated in the wake of his dreams." He also had Gatsby lament "Her voice, old sport. It's full of...money." Only one with a soul composed of hard salami doesn't appreciate that.
I fear SVC has moved away from that kind of swashbuckling approach.
<p>Dog, Gatsby has some great imagery... and you hit on on of my faves with "Her voice, old sport. It's full of...money." Will Stubbs and I had many conversations on Fitzgerald. I read Gatbsy in high school, was amused when Stubbsy assigned it on one of my first classes with him. "Ha", I thought, "already read it - just skim through, hit the high points and blow off the rest". You cannot "skim" Gatsby even if you're trying too... and even though only a few years had passed there was so much more I picked up on the second read (and even more when I re-read it voluntarily years later). Stubbs also assigned Erica Jong's "Fear of Flying" , the memorable line Stubbs and I joked about was when Jong describes her pre- flight jitters...""My fingers (and toes) turn to ice, my stomach leaps upward into my rib cage, the temperature in the tip of my nose drops to the same level as the temperature in my fingers, my nipples stand up and salute the inside of my bra"... not as poetic as Fitzgerald but memorable nevertheless.</p>
Teriffic line from Gatsby. I think that quality is why film versions fail. That is the same difficulty with translating theatre to film. Theatre scenes are deliberately unrealistic, but they are memorable. It is the willing suspension of disbelief. Othello and the handkerchief, for instance or the turnabouts in Godot. Theatre, being live, can also create magnificently memorable blunders. The overamped cookoo in "The Visit" blasted at the force of a locomotive. "Can you hear the cookoo's in the woods?" COO-KOO !!! "Hell, How could you miss it." - Result , very angry Fr. Tom. The public rarely sees rehersals. A great sight still in my mind was a group of prospective students and parents on "The Tour" coming into the darkened theatre in Sportsmans/Kennedy during a rehersal while Fr. Omer, all six foot ten, clad in his Bennie cloth was crawling on hands and knees around the spotlit stage demonstrating how he wished the lion to behave in a production of Androcles and the Lion. "Rowwer! Rowwer! etc." Paw. Paw. Paw. We were busy setting spots for cues and Omer was oblivious to the Tour guide: "And there's our dean of students, crawling about the stage. Now if you'll follow me we shall go to the gym."
Through my thirty years of teaching in public high schools, I had to listen to some people extol the "superior" quality of Catholic schools. It blew my mind when I did a mental inventory of works that I taught and compared the list with what I read at St. Edward High School in Lakewood, Ohio. It was a combination of SVC and Mayfield High School that brought me in touch with The Great Gatsby, Death of a Salesman, Of Mice and Men, Hamlet, The Taming of the Shrew, The Scarlet Letter, The Crucible, and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. I encountered the first two plus The Scarlet Letter in Joe Nucci's American lit class. The Taming of the Shrew was in Maynard's class first semester of our junior year, while Joe Nucci taught Hamlet in the second semester after Maynard had concluded that teaching on top of being president wasn't manageable at that point. None of the works I mentioned were in my English program at St. Edward at the time I was there--1960 graduate.
All of those works. plus others, were part of the Mayfield curriculum. By the time a kid graduated, he/she would have read six plays by Shakepeare--Hamlet, Macbeth, King Lear, Othello, Julius Caesar, The Taming of the Shrew, and Romeo and Juliet. (These are actually in reverse order based on when kids read them.) I taught part-time for five years at a Catholic school after retiring from Mayfield and was amazed that they tried to ram Macbeth down freshmen throats when Romeo and Juliet would have been a better choice. I taught the junior British lit course and smiled when I saw a sizable chunk of the text go unused because they had already read Macbeth. Most were totally turned off by the freshman experience with Shakespeare--a shame.
Well, the semester starts. The pictures of the new class being helped into the dorms differs from that of 60's Freshmen moving into Aurelius of the double decker bunks, windows that didn't close and one phone in the hall. There are always trade-offs: no cell phones, no helicopter moms - but then no constantly ringing hall-phones at 7:30 to wake the chronic late sleepers. Then too, there is no first cafeteria experience: the long lines upstairs, only one flight from the infirmary, jello salad, mystery meat and Sister Cake at the end of the line, poised with the sharpest two prong fork in civilization.
Do pre med classes still start with the old "look to the right, look to the left" chestnut? Every class quizzes? Do students still dread the compulsorary retreat - Straight out of Portrait of the Artist? Has the absence of freshman rules led to a suitcase campus? We were virtual prisoners for six weeks. One of the few good things about that system. Is there the sense of group created in the past by block scheduling? Do lost freshmen still wander the quad halls? How about new faculty?
I recall a lost linguist who thought he was addressing an upperclass section but had stumbled into a freshman comp class. After about ten minutes ,cries of "Mama" were heard as this old-fashioned Phd. plowed on. I hope students appreciate rather than dismiss the eccentricities of teachers. I recall a math prof responding to an order of magnitude error in a bridge stress calculation (slide rule days) with "Makes no difference, Ten tons more bridge falls down, ten tons less, bridge stays up." The Psych Prof - I'm not kidding- named Fr Cuk whose throat clearing was punctuated by spins. A biologist who was a bear about genera spellings (platyhelmenthes etc.) but would label parts of critters with "haid," "legg," etc. Then there was the Notre Dame logician with a fondness for football problems boggling minds, remember these were the times of the inept Steelers and it had been years since the black and gold scored more than three touchdowns a season. The idea of winning football teams confused western Pennsylvanians. But the fact was these guys were good, and we learned about academia. There is still a great deal to learn from people who are not like you.
I recall my educational psychology with Fr. Cuk. We stood for prayer at the start of each class in Bede Hall and timed when we would all bounce on our heels to make the floor vibrate. The other "thrill" was having to write a 3-4 page paper if you missed a class. You could have been on your death bed (I had a horrible case of intestinal flu), but you still had to write a paper.
Face it, gang. Characters and their eccentricities made the world go 'round, and that included Dr. Daniel Patrick Nolan writing chemical formulas on the board while simultaneously erasing.
<p>Ahhh Buzzard I recall that Notre Dame logician as well... many a class was spent with my head spinning but he'd bring it all back in with his football analogies.</p>
<p>Nolan was one of the worst teachers I can remember. Maybe this was because he was ancient when I had him for chemistry, in 1964. I had a cracked kneecap and I was in a cast. Normally I sat way in the back of the class, which was in a large lecture room with steps in the middle. But since I was on crutches, I moved down to the front row, right next to the aisle and right in front of the long table in front of the room. Nolan used to pace back and forth in front of this desk, forcing me, with my stiff encasted right leg to keep shfitng my entire body toward the aisle so he wouldn't trip over my cast. It pissed me off that the old fool never noticed how he was causing me such discomfort. Well, one day he was pacing and I had moved in my seat so that my legs were in the aisle. Nolan decided this time to walk up the aisle, completely oblivious to my legs sticking out across it. I decided, the hell with it, let him trip over my legs, which is what he did, falling down. The class cracked up. I figured this spelled my doom. So for the next classes I moved way to the back, to my original seat. Nothing happened for a couple of weeks. Then one day, Nolan, says, "Mr. Yates, come down here to the board and explain this problem to the class." I hobbled down the aisle steps to the board. I had no idea about how to solve this problem. He raked me over the coals for about 20 minutes. He got sweet revenge. But this made me even happier that he had tripped. I remember my grades for his tests: F, A, F, A, F, A. He gave me an A. Why? Who knows.</p>
We both had Doc Nolan near the end of his career, I in 1961-62 and you two years later if I'm correct. 1961-62? Why not one or the other? Simple--I flunked his class the first time and had to retake it. He called me into his office after the Spring final and in his raspy, gruff voice said, "Well, Red, ya gave it a shot again, so I'm passing you." I thanked him and walked limply out of the room.
I had dropped the F's in chemistry and accounting when I changed my major to English in January of 1962, on my way from the academic netherworld of a 1.1 after one semester to a 1.8 at the end of freshman year. I graduated with a 2.6, which some say would be a 3.0-3.2 today, but who cares? I'm happy with how things turned out and have utilized the "learning-how-to-learn" concept from the liberal arts to great benefit.
Doc Nolan seemed a nice guy, but I look back and think that he was typical of some at the college level--bright and knowledgeable but not as good as he could be in delivering that knowledge. When I taught at a Catholic high school after retiring from public, the school secretary remarked "You had a 2.6 and you're a teacher??" I said, "Think about it. Teaching is a delivery business as much as a knowledge business. And does a person stop learning once teaching starts? Besides, my major GPA was a 3." When I told her that some students at this school said that I had changed their entire outlook on literature with my approach, she was impressed.
Daniel Patrick Nolan was a puzzlement, as were his grades. The guy who was understandable but a terror was Callistus and his Queen For A Day experience at the blackboard. A sudden question, the unprepared student, forty minutes of economic hades. My special response was always "Blame it on the Federal Reserve. " Most of us learned that reading a couple chapters ahead was a necessity if we wanted to avoid the dunce cap. A few years after graduation I ran into him and asked him "Why can't the Federal Reserve solve this inflation." He had a classic professorial economist's answer "Well, you have got to understand that this inflation is unlike any other inflation for reasons that are unlike any others." Personally, he was a good guy, professionally he had the answers, no wonder he was the debate coach.
I think one of the things that happened to me as a student was the sudden realization that I would someday become a professor. I started thinking what made me like or dislike those I had taken for classes. So, I learned to explain grades and tried to motivate without dunce caps. I always tried to immitate some of the "Nooch's" passion, Jerry Burns' toleration of disagreement with his pet ideas, Chuck Manoli's concern for students, Tom's perfectionism, Campion's dedication and Ronald's willingnesss to laugh at himself -"A Dean's a guy with too many degrees to sit around and do nothing, and who has to remember his main job is to keep the lights on." it seems like most of you who taught learned pretty much the same lessons.
Those just starting careers, have faith. Despite the anger and confusion, St Vincent will come out ok. Good faculty make a difference. Good students learn willingly; no one can stop them. A college is and always has been the students, the faculty and ideas. The administration is simply in the janitorial business. I have been educated, so I will not say surprised, by the ability of the Benedictine order to rise above the moment.
Just caught up to this thing, It's almost too much to get my head around, Fabulous recall. "Nights of great recall" It all comes crashing in, and beleave me I was barely there for a lot of it, It's still REMEMBER THE MAINE. THE HIGH POINTS!!! An extraordinay time, and absolutely the most phenominal individuals. Hope to catch up at a later date. CHEERS
Someone recently wrote about nostalgia, but I think it is important to distinguish between nostalgia and memory. My Memory is the source of many of the most powerful lessons, and often like meeting my spouse, my best friend, or making a life altering choice unaware at the time of the importance of the event.
Mike Yates' recall of Doc Nolan's Chem Class in that big old sloping room in Alfred brought to mind a class when the Doc was lecturing about compound terminology: "ethyl, diethyl, triethyl , etc." One of the fellows, intent upon a joke asked about joining two urea molecules. Dumbfounded, the Doc said you can't compound urea and the student said that's good, or you would have diurea. Doc did not laugh. He didn't get it. He asked the student how he would join the urea molecules. The guy said, "diahrrea." Doc said, "What?" Words and thought did not mesh.
Another incident was an afternoon history class with Chuch Manoli. One of our classmates had been at the keg all morning, and after reeling to a seat, he threw up. Manoli raised hell. Not with him, but with us. "He should know better but you are worse. You have to look out for each other." etc. We did not say "Have your back," in those days; it was just the beginning of the Vietnam era; soon we learned how important that was in life.
Finally, one late afternoon Jimmy Kurtz and I were playing drink to the organ music during soaps at the Cove. Fr. Melvin's German class loomed, but we knew it was basic review day and so arrived after taking on some Rolling Rock freight. Melvin looked at us and said, "Herr Marr and Herr Kurtz, you will now decline "ein kalt Bier" because you have not declined one all day."
Henry David Thoreau's classical style oration defending John Brown discusses the problem of entangling motives and language. I think these events were related to that, and to a lot of what modern critical theory (sorry Nooch and the rest of you great lit. history fellows) has to say about how we communicate. Words and events have different significance to all of us. In terms of our interrelations, humor and charity are vital. Forty two years of professing, ten thousand students, a lot of time advising have all taught me to aim for the moderate and to believe in the good will of others unless proven totally wrong.
Charlie Marr, classs of 67 "An avian formerly known as the Buzzard."
Your "drink-to-the-organ-music" story was a classic. As for Chuck Manoli, I had his class after student teaching most of the day and cut it like an out-of-control lawn. One day when I deigned to show up, he came over to me, extended his hand, and asked for my name, rank, and serial number.
Bob Sheridan, Class of 1965, former known as "SVCBirddog"
Bob, Events lock me out of the homecoming this year, hope to show up next. As an English major you might remember the big deal with Anatomy of Criticism. One evening, suffering through the summer/winter/fall stuff - reminded me of "Howdy Doodie" and the princess, Danny Callahan and one of the Magpie cousins called Northrop Frye at Toronto. How they got a number in pre-internet days was unknown. They took him to task for a sentence without a verb. His reply, "If I had to answer every drunken undergraduate who doesn't understand me, I would have no time to publish." This from the guy that complained of excess publication. Those of us with a few years probably have a lot of academic stories. Manoli was a professor who did not mistake his class for holy writ. As I moved on to Pitt , IUP, and EUP and presented at many conferences I met people like Dick Tobias and Malcom Hayward and Roger Hufford, Greg Goeikjian and others who showed that SVC did not have the lock on humane and caring faculty. But we sure had em. I suspect thre are still many and hope to hear praises of their work here.
<p>So, Charlie and Bob... 1965? I came three years after you chaps left the premises. But I did have a Melissa Marr in a couple classes...</p> <p>How does one come by the sobriquet "Buzzard?"</p> <p> </p>
Yes, I have heard good words of you. Ego sum avunculus illae puellae. You are probably guilty with me of teaching her fairy stories.Buy a couple of her books, make her richer than she already is.
If you look through the Tower for 66 or 67 you will see a shadowy figure lurking over a chess problem. A witty and I thought nasty at the time classmate suggested that picture portrayed me appropriately as a buzzard. I have ammended my lurking ways,(cf. my self outing here) but have retained my special affection for buzzards - the celestial recycling squad- after my time in the Florida Glades. Love the buzzard trees. I have respect for their approach to road kill gators.Then too, some of my Persian students - genuine fire worshipping, tower of silence burying folk praised the gift of the buzzards. Thus I cling to the word, if not the disguise.Buzzards, you see, are frequently needed to clean up the mess left by the frenzies of the more aggressive beasts.
Forty two years of freshman comp seem to me to be buzzard work. I fear you missed the great Nucci, whose freshman comp class frequently centered around funerial descriptions. In the days of two dollar fines for late papers, he would pile em on. He needed the cash for his trip to the running of the bulls, but he had a fascination with the suffling off of the mortal coil and so the class was regularly the work of ghouls. Embalming, coffin construction, cremation. Great stuff for buzzarding. I cranked em out, but was repaid with my job as an English Prof reading such stuff. A sysiphian punishment.Oh well, I got to do Cyrano too. Not as good, but I still kept my white plume.
<p>Yo, Charles:</p> <p>It was only yesterday that i was telling a colleague about the Nucci "Pamplona Tours.." This i was made aware of not from the El Nucco himself, but by Ed Milowicki, fellow grad assistant and later faculty member at SVC. I visited Ed often here at SVC ca. 1961-63 or so. I believe a posted a few anecdotes about those visits somewhere in this thread. I was regaled with stories about "Tiger" McMahon, Denny Quinn, et alia. I also got some gen about those days from my late friend and colleague, Chuck McGeever -- George Dixon as will (still among the quick), and Ron Tranquilla (now retired).</p> <p>Jim Crenner was also a high-school classmate and first-class poet. Charlie once gave me a poem about Nucci written by Jim... I remember only one line - it might have been in a vintage Generation mag... "...the rifled Sears Roebuck of the heart..."</p> <p>While I was still in Grad school at Duquesne in the early sixties Ed brought the Nuc down to my appartment on Locust Street on the DU campus. Joe was an inveterate opera buff and a Franco Corelli groupie. They stayed the night. Next morning Joe an I were talking Tenors, Baritones, Basses, and Sopranos. Suddenly, Joe looked down the street, yelled, "Hey!", then tore off down the hill.. Never saw him again. I don't know what he saw or why he ran off.</p> <p>When I made visits to the campus back then, I'd see the monks walking about with their hoods up. The place shouted "scholarship."</p> <p>We are proud of Missy's accomplishments. Hers was a grand group of English majors.</p> <p> </p>
There often seems a synergy of groups. My experience at SVC differs mine at larger institutions where hundreds of majors come and go. The group scheduling let us get to know each other well. One of our classmates who was not so sharp on Pope "be neither the first a fashion to take up or the last to quit" (more or less) always jumped on the rolling wagon. A few of us started quoting Kipling. Tama's class, Desy's class, Nucci's class, etc. Almost everywhere but Al DeLuca's Health class (remember the film "Where do Babies Come from?" "The teacher may now stop the film so the students can draw pictures of where they think babies come from.") Our, now fellow alumnus, took up the cause of Kipling, whereupon we joined in a chorus of scorn: "Jingoistic, racist, Victorian rhymer!!! Strom"s favorite poet. Poet Lariat of the Raj." I guess he had the last laugh, though, as Post-Colonial Lit. became the happening field. But to return to the point, only when I got a gang of the same students in Poetry, Creative Writing and Lit theory did I see the kind of involvement we had at SVC. The same seems the case with faculty. I may have posted a note about Nucci and Tama building a bullring of tables at the Cove and the Nooch doing passes with Tama as el Toro, fingers for horns, as the crowd shouted "Ole!" Silly, but a sense of espirt de English developed. And you know, those guys may have seemed bozos but Desy's Metaphysicals class was dead on to the Grad Records, Nucci's Drama was as fine as Allerdyce Nicoll's Shake. Tragedy in taking us through the historical meaning of the works, and his letter of rec got me an assistantship at Pitt before I even submitted an application. One of my former students wrote a moving magazine article about the grand days of student-faculty interaction at the local water hole - and a larger university does allow artists, musicians and historiansinto the mix. Alas, we had no one counting a'la Leporello "In Greensburg, uno, in Latrobe dice, but in Pittsburgh, mille e' tres," as we did with the grand Joe. Group interaction in a positive direction makes for some good stuff, especially when there is a demand for the best one can produce. Like your golf game improves when playing with a low handicapper. Anyone who ever saw a Fr. Tom directed play knows that. He brought us to a much higher level. A Bill Moses or Snake Gardner or Eileen Fitzpatrick or Joe Reilly didn't hurt either.
<p>So, you knew the Snake and Eileen... Snake played Oscar to Carosella's Unger in the first (second?) Summer Theatre production of Odd Couple. Eileen was a stellar actress. Tom and Joe, of course, have passed... some of the stuffing came out of the Teddy Bear when they left us.</p> <p>There are some madmen left, as Missy might testify.</p> <p>Madamina, il catalogo in questo... voi sapete quel che fa... I get your meaning.</p>
Dick, Drop backstage and check the black blocks. Sorry about twisted Wolfgang. I visit Chatauqua where we are treated to "English language" versions. Still, a catalog of letchry and Joe seems appropriate. He may have been more of a tenor (wannabe) than a barritone, but... I just recalled a Nucci slip of the tongue in a Shakespeare class. As he was waxing eloquent over Henry V we heard him explain that the heavily armored French knights lost to the English by being mired down in the rain soaked field by the weight of that armor while the English peasants slit throats of such"turtled" knights. "Those suits of armor were so heavy that they needed to use 'WENCHES" to get them up into the saddle." Within two seconds the guffaws started. Wenches. What kind of wenches? To get em up? Busty, I hope, No, lusty, etc. Professor, as ye sow, so shall ye reap.
Snake was a roommate. Man could not pass a mirror without a glance. One hell of an actor. Constant fun and generosity. Heard he became a Supt. of Schools. Dunno.
I wonder if anyone recalls Bill Bosch's black TR3 sports car. One day in spring, maybe in 66 , when there had been a crack down by the campus rent- a- cops Bill got a ticket of some sort. He decided to do a "batman" routine and backed the car into the lobby of one of the then new dorms. As the cops drove by, he had a couple friends swing open the doors and top down, wearing a batman mask, he blasted down the campus road . I'm not sure what it accomplished; it was the only such ride, but it was a sight almost on a level with a couple guys earlier driving a "bar car" behind Bonaventure and Girard. When the lawmen came to bust the culprits, they found that Fr. Maurinus, the dorm prefect, had taken over the wheel and was doing a turn himself.
I know not if brother birddog was one of the gang that , after the move to the new dorms, left only freshmen in Aurelius hall, but one lover of "Stonies" $14 per half keg got hold of an old fridge and placed a keg someplace in floor four or above in in empy room. The result was a special bonding of the Soph, Jr and Sr. class with the freshmen on the bottom three floors as upperclass advisors stopped by to see how their new bearcats were doing, then dropping up for the happy hour. After a month or two, Fr. Omer, then dean of men, suspected foul play and started calling in the "usual suspects." Why are all these guys visiting Aurelius Hall. No one chimed in. Eventally the search began, the keg was found, but as far as I know, the guilty parties were never apprehended. I always suspected Meny, Dixon and Degnan but they denied all knowledge. Who Knows?
OK, I've spouted about the administration, but this is far more profound. I was in Aurelius for sohpomore year, then helped open Gerard. I never knew about the damn keg!!!
According to the National Interfraternity Conference, the average resident of today's fraternity house has seventeen electrical devices in his room, This has resulted in a lot of retrofitting of electrical systems. There were few such gizmos in the sixties, even radios were rare - remember the cwowd outside Sportsman's Hall listening to news of the Kennedy assasination on car radios? Well, necessity being the mother, the architecture of Aurelius served the lack of refrigeration. Anyone passing the building would see all sorts of items crammed between the screen and the window. Usually this worked well, but a malfactor who had a taste for 'liederkrantz' cheese left a large chunk in his window one early spring day , not anticipating a warm snap over the long weekend. The place smelled like the largest dead rat in Westmoreland County.
<p>The Aurelian Basement was a thing to behold (and still is among adventurous students). All the way down to end end of the long hall (Fraser Purchase Side) was the darkroom for the Camera club, if one wanted to call it a dark room. It was perhaps 6x9' and painted black. I was moderator of the club in 1968-70 or so. Mike Gainer helped out with a dark romm in the Physics buliding. it was in that room in the Aurelian Basement where Don Orland and John Troha (among others) produced some excellent prints for exhibit.</p> <p>There was a room half-way down the basement hall with a sign on the door - it read, "We may be young and feckless now, but the older we get, the more fecked up we will become." The sign was there for years. We weren't sure who put it there, but we all suspsected a chap named Thaddeus.</p>
I think Aurelius was the last building constructed in the Bavarian style, and there were quirks. One was the transoms over doors. A holdover from candle and oil lamp days, these held on long after their rationale as escape vents for smoke had disappeared. The consequence was that no room was ever really secure and dorm pranksters made use of them for a range of wickedness. The weekend filling of a room with balled up newspapers was the mildest; however, a really devastating psychological raid was pulled off by entering the supposedly locked room by a really small fellow or a pull rope. Then the trick was to rearrange the room. Books in a different order, clothing shelved differently, alarm clocks on another table. And all of this long before CMU's cutie in "Sleeping With the Enemy."
Dick, I recall a fellow named Thad. May take a while for age slow neurons to sort him out.
Buildings obviously are limited by the technology of the day. When technology changes there can be a number of amusing or annoying consequences. One such change is the cell phone and its many apps that make Dick Tracey's wristwatch seem puny. In the sixties, third floor Aurelius had the appeal of a passage to the basement of Alfred, but the three phones for the dorm (that's right - three) were in that passage and rang constantly. Messages for third might get through, but other floors ...forgeddaboutit. So the phones rang. operators wanting to collect an extra dollar and five cents, angry parents and at 7:A.M. a mommy who called her baby boy so he would go to class. Add to that the thundering herd coming down or coming up the steps. Rooms at the end of the hall were thourougly undesirable.
Speaking of thundering herds, I've told this one before, of the raid halfway through rules on fifth Aurelius by a gang of freshmen armed with water balloons. This occurred at 2AM while we were beyond the midnight oil but still awake. I was ten feet from room 530 after a potty break when I heard the thundering feet coming up the stairs on the Fraser Purchase end. I hurried into the room and immediately closed the transom.
Now that Seton Hill has a football team, will there ever be replays of SVC men rolling Rolling Rock kegs around the circle while singing "Roll Out The Barrel" while the residents shower them with hard candy kisses? Maybe some of the women of SVC can roll the keg while the poor, "in training" foosball pl;ayers can merely observe.
Does anyone recall the regular visits of Mother Brownlee's portrait to Boneventure Hall ao Fr. Bonneventure to Brownlee? The powers took to bolting them to the wall, but still they moved. Proof that given enough time and desire, nothing is impossible to a Bearcat.
<p>Dear Buzzard</p> <p>RE your Oct 12 post about who made the keg happen in Aurelius, and your suspects Meny, Dixon or Degnan, they were certainly not the rowdiest potential suspects.</p> <p>But I would like to believe it could have been done by a monk. If so, my candidate is Fr. Tom. Tom always said he wanted to set up a beer grotto somewhere on campus. He would say it was just too risky for students to try to make it home from the bars. Also, Tom liked to visit Aurelius. I once remember a visit by Tom was enough to start a party. Once, when a party was really roaring, so much so the din was bouncing off the building across the courtyard, and an irritated monk -- whose cell was several floors below and who could not sleep, or work or whatever he was doing -- walked in and started demanding we shut the party down. . . . Only <em>STARTED</em>, because he stopped short when he saw Tom in the center of the party. Instead, the party got one more recruit.</p> <p>So, Tom is my candidate. I believe he was furthering the Abbey's beer heritage.</p> <p> </p>
I would like to think it was Tom; however, I think he was rather more open about his own behavior. I know from talks with him that he dislked the Dorm and Dorm rules system. He spoke of the necessity for young people to learn to live on their own and was very generous in allowing many of us to move into apartments. ( Almost as hard as getting a car on campus in the early sixties.) He thought we needed to learn to pay bills, feed ourselves, get to school on time and be part of a community. I think he would have favored a legitimate campus pub, such as the New York system had at the time.
While he was open about such things, he was also extraordinarily subtle. Looking back on his choice of plays for presentation I cannot help but believe he was making comments on events on campus and community. TDiscussions of the subjects of the plays, (zealotry, revenge, greed and financial misuse, prejudgement , superstition, self delusion) was there but hidden in the comedy and the quality of the works as well as by his utter perfectionism in acting and technical presentation. Those of us who had respect for him as a person and director cannot help to see that he was also a great moral teacher. Never pushy, never in your face but with something to say.
Sometimes humor comes from the most unexpected places. In the mid sixties the combination of the fire, increased enrollment and seventeen or eighteen hour credit loads made for thght block scheduling. One professor was noted for running overtime, leading to trouble for many of us who had Fr. Joel the next period. Joel was a very precise man and part of that precision was being on time. He operated under the maxim "Punctuality is the good manners of princes," and as he was punctual in returning tests, papers and conferences, he expected the same of his students. So we were caught, we could not walk out and we could not be late. A classmate came up with a great idea. Put a loud alarm clock in the desk. It was done and we waited. No alarm and at two till we charged from Alfred to the bio room. It was reported that about ten after the hour "Big Ben" started to "Bong! Bong!" The elderly and always serious math Prof ran to the window, shouting in his best middle European accent, "Guards, Guards Qvick, Zomevone is escaping." I always had a soft spot for that man over the years. Real profs. appreciate student pranks, maybe even learn from them.
Since Vincents is so small, one meets few fellow graduates outside the Pittsburgh area. Then ,too, except for a small range of one or two classes and similar majors other Bearcats are unknown. So it happened that about a dozen years ago while I was in Harrisburg at a large gathering of the faculty of the fourteen state system universities, a group of us were talking about amazing athletic feats we had personally observed. Some of the western Pa. folk talked about memorable throw-outs at the plate from the outfield by Clemente. I am certain someone else brought up an end sweep by Jim Brown. One fellow, however, brought on a lot of scoffing by describing Arnold Palmer chipping balls into buckets ranged randomly on a football field. He claimed at least half went in the buckets. To the tune of "That's impossible," he held out that at least half of the balls made the mark. He said, well I was there by the SVC gym, standing only fifteen feet or so from him. I said, "More like seven out of ten, We don't know one another, but I was standing about ten feet away from you on the Aurelius Hall side." We were friends for the rest of our years teaching at our colleges. By the way, Palmer was amazing. just amazing.
During the process of closing up my office I came across the Tower from 1964-1967, containing shots of a few contributers to tjis forum and to many unheard from. I began thinking that many of us stay in contact with a few folks from college and it might be valuable to contact friends and classmates via our personal channels. Those yearbooks really demonstrate how SVC, a little school in Western Pa, was part of a much larger world. In one shot President (then Speaker) Gerald Ford is chatting with students, In another, Stokley Carmichael stands outside Sportsman's Hall (Kennedy). A wound up Joe Nucci is gesticulating behind his podium, Fr. Roman surrounded by his cutting edge painting and sculpture sits in his studio. Carl VanDoren, in academic robes prepares to address the student body. Pete Seeger, Herbert Aptheker and a staunchly Anti-communist Bella Kirally are being shepherdered by Bill Rosendahl. Fr. Tom's Classic performances occupy the center sections and characteristically he is nowhere to be seen, just his actors. The Lettermen and New Christy Minstrels , Dave Brubeck and Harold Betters Eentertained us. Post Gazettes littered the Shack. This was a place open to ideas and to the world. May it be so again
I remember all those events from the mid 60's at SVC. I was even backstage with Pete Seeger. And I think there was a benefit concert given by comedian Phyllis Diller that packed Kennedy Hall. She was so funny...some of the monks were in tears laughing. I too remember the demonstrations by the John Birch Society and against the Vietnam War. As I recall the Student Government had a speaker's fee budget and was free to invite whomever they wished to speak on campus. It was a tumulutous time but it was an environment where important ideas and conflicting philosophies were openly discussed. May it be so again.
<p>Chuck Manoli (maybe jim pepper, eldon kennedy, father maynard) were instrumental as well in getting that Communist Colloquium going. The Birchers and other right wingers from Latrobe picketed, as I recall, led by the editor of the Latrobe Bulletin - a good guy, we all liked him - but he seemed a little to the right of Ghengis Khan. They also picketed Pete Seeger (considering him to be a Communist.) - This land is your land and big rock candy mountain stuff he wrote and/or sang.</p> <p>Jeez.. those were exciting times for learning things... How we carried those things with us through life... sometimes I think about those times and I get a little teary.</p> <p>My God, that English Department in teh early seventies was a thing to behold... Murderers' Row... Tranquilla, Dixon, Lange, Stubbs, Wissolik, McGeever. An irrascible bunch, but what a range of color.</p> <p> </p>
<p>Buzzard and all youse...</p> <p><strong><font color="#ff0000">If you browse the pages of this thread starting with the first page you will find many photos and references and postst to the very things Buzzard has found the the Towers... there are alos photos and comments from the alum magazine and the Reviews of yore... do the same thing with the Raise my Glass Thread...</font></strong></p> <p>These will jog memories...</p> <p>I think there is even a picture of Mike Yates playing policeman in Time of Your Life, correct?</p> <p> </p>
Joe Nucci gesticulating behind his podium? Naah! Somewhere in those yearbooks is a shot of Nooch with his face contorted as he is making a point. One colorful character.
As for Dave Brubeck, I recall arguing with two members of the Class of 1965 who insisted Brubeck would not draw. The year after we graduated, a Brubeck concert sold out for a Friday and an encore was scheduled for Saturday. It sold out also. To this day, I remember as a freshman walking into the old Shack and hearing Blue Rondo a la Turk firing up the juke box. If I want to hear it now, it's a simple matter of grabbing my "Time Out" CD, sitting back, and soaking up the sounds. I also have a few Harold Betters LP's--great stuff and memories of dances with our Hill women.
Drsax et al. Maybe the English Department was what it was because the school fostered enthusiasm. My experience was mostly with English and theatre, but I know the biologists and physics people were at the edge of many new ideas and the theologians and philosophers were also hyped up. Political/economic/history people had the Kennedy experience. Drugs had not yet stunned nor the war sunk us and as a men's school we were not really aware of the beginnings of the woman's movement which would reshape our world. As Catholics, we had ourselves just edged out from under generations of discrimination and so we identified with but did not understand the civil rights movement.
SVC's English Department was that rare group of English teachers who agreed on a literary philosophy ( close reading/historical criticism) and the block scheduling created a cadre of students who carried ideas from one class to another. We got to know each other and the faculty. No entrenched senior faculty consigned the "new guys" to the pure hell of four comp sections --- "In this fast paced, rapidly moving world of today a high school senior has to make difficult choices of clothing when using an older brother's car for a date." FOR FOUR HUNDRED WORDS A WEEK FROM 26 PEOPLE A SECTION. So they all taught. Then too, we were the last generation of pre-computer readers. It was still an age of library users. All one needs to do is look at the tech changes of the last forty years to see how it is possible to no longer think of the university as part of an ancient tradition.
<p>Dr Sax,</p> <p>If that is Blick the vice cop, then that is I. Remember Tom Lugenbeel as Willie Loman? He was a fine actor. Hope I have that right. Someone correct me if I am not.</p> <p>Charles,</p> <p>I used to wish I had been an English major. Everybody seemed so smart. On the other hand, I did learn about Cobb Douglas production functions and other such esoterica. Quick, why does a demand curve have a negative slope? I have to say that after giving a paper at Hamilton College at a conference celebarting the 100th birthday of alumnus Ezra Pound (my talk was called something like colonialism, mperialism, and revolution in four novels by Graham Greene), I concluded that economists might know more about literature than vice versa. The keynote speaker, an English prof from Virginia ,actually argued that Pound might not have been an anti-Semite had he known modern economics! </p> <p>michael yates, c'67</p> <p> </p>
Tom Lugenbeel, what a character. I recall a road rage incident where he chased the offender to Pittsburgh. Ah well. I think Danny Callahan and Snake Gardner were the boys and Eileen Fitzpatrick played the Mother.
Well Mike, as I used to tell Cal. What if I got the only apple and you are hungry. Then there's no curve and I set the price. I guess it's now what if I got the only oil well (refinery) and you gotthe guzzler. I sure as hell don't believe demand set the gas price: speculation, manipulation, ponzi schemes. Then what about medical care. Who gets the life or death transplant.
Point is, you economists have as complex and I think controversial an area of concern as we do with deconstruction (have you looked into that b ag of tail swollowing snakes?) Sometimes I think the CPA guys who end up as multi-million dollar CEO's are the smart guys. In the words of Faffner the Dragon "Get your pile of gold and sit on it."
One cannot spend a life teaching literature and criticism without developing some sort of personal theory. I think the greatness of literature is in its presentation of the individual life, allowing us to be somewhere else and someone else. To walk that mile. The paradox is that the more individual (Portrait of the Artist)) the more wide ranging it becomes. NOw as an outsider to econ, I have seen it as generalizing which at some point focuses down to a group or individual
Truly, I think the key was enthusiasm. Those guys (even old Fr. Edward in his wheelchair) were enthusiastic. Thy loved their subject and they taught it to their best ability. I'm sure you remember old Stan Dudinski hitching rides on the refuse truck when his old Nash couldn't make it thru snowstorms. Unlike current admin they had no fear of turning us loose with ideas.
<p>Prof Dudzinski's English wasn't so good, but he was by far the best math teacher I ever had. I just loved calculus, and I did every problem in the book. One of my buddies, no names mentioned but he was once VP of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, eyeballed my final exam so he could get a good grade! Poor fellow, though. He got a job in a coal mine to make some cash senior year. I was happy to lend a hand in his quest for an A.</p> <p>BTW, I think mainstream economics is a big bag of shit. Give me a good novel any day! You can teach a parrot to be an economist. Just teach it the words "supply" and "demand."</p>
<p>THE SEASON OF SAINT PATRICK AND THE LITTLE PEOPLE... STARTED BY THE BUZZARD...</p> <p><strong>BUZZARD</strong></p> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><strong>As spring approaches the frigid Laurel Highlands with the accompanyment of St Pat's day me mind started to wander and wonder if there are still leprechauns at SVC such as those who one St Pat's evemay have turned the door of a president named Brennen, who sent out a prank alert, a charming shade of green? Or perhaps the giant shamrocks on sidewalks? Oi seems to remember a greenafied campus cop car. Does anyone remember any notable shenannigans of these mighty mites?</strong></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><strong> </strong></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><strong>RMFURY</strong></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><strong> There is a story about the painting of Father Earl's office windows, but this occurred after your time, but I do not doubt that it will be a response to this query... of course, the perennial sixpack suspended from the outstretched hand of Boniface </strong></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><strong> </strong></div> <div style="margin: 0in 0in 0pt"><strong>BUZZARD</strong></div> <p><span style="font-size: 12pt"><strong>Keep in mind that before plastic six pack strings and pop top cans, in the days of stubbies and church keys, some great leprechauns, including a colleague with a M.A. from Notre Dame in the dismal science was one of the skilled statue climbers who put a can where it fit well</strong></span></p>