Monday Memories: the college laundry

Last week I noticed an article in a Toledo paper that reported some Ohio colleges were offering amenities for students as an enticement to stay in the dorms--one being free laundry facilities. So that put me to thinking. How did I do laundry when I was in college? For the life of me, I can't remember how I did my laundry at McKinley Hall at the University of Illinois, but I do have a snippet of memory left from Oakwood Hall at Manchester College in Indiana.

The current Oakwood Hall on campus is a nice modern building, but the old Oakwood that was there in the 1950s was probably about 50 years old and a little down at the heels. It's possible that it was built in stages, so the dorm rooms may have been older than the lounges and porch. Both of my sisters had also lived in Oakwood when they attended Manchester. I think part of the basement was a dining hall for the whole college which everyone entered from the front outside entrance and part of it was laundry facilities with a door in the back.

My roommate used to do her 2 brothers' laundry, and if you had a boyfriend on campus (mine was at the University of Illinois), you did his laundry. Although I can't imagine why, there was some social cachet (and cash) in doing a guy's laundry ["Would you like to go steady and do my laundry?"]. Or maybe the men's dorm didn't have washers and dryers. I think if a guy didn't have a girlfriend with access to the machines in Oakwood, he sent his laundry home to mama.

Although I can't remember what the machines looked like or the route to get there from my dorm room, I remember the laundry room also had ironing boards, and tables set up for sewing and studying. One night Sylvia (friend from high school who also lived in Oakwood) and I were out after curfew. In those days, women had curfews but men did not--the reasoning being that if the girls were safely inside, the boys would be home studying. We stayed out deliberately, but were only walking the streets of North Manchester talking. When we got back to Oakwood Hall, we tapped on the basement window and someone doing her laundry, opened the door and let us in. We didn't even have to crawl in a window, which is what we thought we'd have to do. Sigh. We were so bad at being bad.

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2773 Week Eight 2006 at Lakeside

At Lakeside, the Chautauqua community on Lake Erie, the week runs from Saturday to Saturday, with the special entertainment usually being on Saturday. This past week (I wrote about CeCe Winans earlier) we had special treats on Thursday and Friday, too. On Thursday we enjoyed the beautiful harmony of The Wailin' Jennys, a Canadian women's trio who write, play and sing folk, pop and Celtic music. Ohio borders Canada (if you don't mind getting wet) and is a red state; might be good if they left their Bush comments across the border. It gets a smattering of applause, but I saw a number of people leaving Hoover (as I left).

On Friday the River City Brass from Pittsburgh filled the stage and the auditorium with a BIG sound. Oh, how I love brass. And they can sing too! The conductor looks quite laid back, but then he turns around and talks to the audience and is great fun. His regional humor is funny--he understands his audience! Huge standing ovations for these guys (and a few ladies) who played, Big Band swing and jazz, music from Broadway and Hollywood, classical and contemporary masterworks, and traditional marches, with 25 instrumentalists and some on percussion.

Wednesday night after dinner with Wes and Sue we attended the symphony for selections by Mozart and Tschaikovsky. As usual, it was fabulous, with the best save for last (my husband says), because I almost always get sleepy and go home during intermission.

This was interfaith week, I think, which I pretty much ignored when I saw that there were 3 Muslims, one Sikh and one liberal Christian on the program. Usually I manage at least one or two lectures, but this year have not attended any.

Lakeside, Ohio

2772 Happy Birthday Bro

I can't get Blogger to upload a fresh photo, so I'll reuse one I had for our Rock River Cruise last year.

2771 The wedding season

Yesterday we attended a wedding in Kirtland, Oh at the Mooreland Mansion on the campus of Lakeland College. A beautiful spot for a garden wedding--however, after a week of gorgeous weather, there was a downpour! I felt sorry for the bride and groom, but even moreso for the parents who had been watching the weather sites about every 30 seconds. By 4:30, I think they were down to plan D and went with it. We have watched the groom grow up, and I think my daughter may have even been a babysitter. His dad "Eric" is one of the links on my blog--so I hope he posts some photos. His family has also enjoyed Lakeside over the years and they sail, so we gave the happy couple one of my husband's paintings of sailboats against a sunset on Lake Erie. Best wishes Dawn and John-Paul.

About a month from now we'll be in California for my sister-in-law's wedding. Last night at the reception I realized I need to buy a tiny little fancy purse, because lugging a bag around with check book, misc. meds, calendar and sunglasses is just no fun. Plus, we older ladies need to lighten the load on our shoulders. The little shop "Cottage Accessories" here at Lakeside has some lovely beaded numbers--good excuse to shop. But also, I have an old black velvet dress purse that belonged to my husband's Aunt Roberta. She had no children and really fussed over all her nieces and nephews. So possibly I could use that and let her (now deceased) sort of be there in spirit.

2770 Veritas Vincit

This Latin motto, "Truth Conquers," would make an interesting blog title, I thought. Upon checking, I discovered 5 other people thought so too and had used it in some form or other. So, I guess I won't use it. It was the motto for the college that used to be in Mt. Morris, Illinois. I looked at a site that reported on college mottoes, and this one doesn't seem to be in use any longer. Interesting.


When the Methodist Episcopal Church reprentatives drove a stake in the prairie at a high point where they would establish a seminary, there weren't any houses or settlers, although a few white families had been settling in the area. The village was laid out by the trustees of Rock River Seminary which owned all the land where the town now stands. But it was the local people, mostly recently arrived from Maryland who donated the money and the land, 480 acres, to induce the church to take on this challenge of establishing a school in the middle of nowhere. Alexander Hamilton's son had explored the area and Abraham Lincoln fought the Indians near by, but there wasn't much going on.

The college prospered for awhile, but the Methodists established another college in Evanston (Northwestern) and that sort of ate into the pool of potential students. But it did turn out about 7,500 students, a lot of them clergy, lawyers, politicians, editors and businessmen before it closed in 1878. It was reopened in 1879 by a group of Brethren businessmen as an institution for their young people (now Church of the Brethren), and it became Mount Morris Seminary and Collegiate Institute, and then Mt. Morris College. After a fire in 1931, the college closed in 1932 (there had also been a fire in 1912, but the college rebuilt). My parents were freshmen when it burned; my mother's parents had also met there. In 1994 the town school system merged with Oregon with high schoolers being bussed. In 2004 the elementary school was destroyed by fire, and now the little ones are bussed too. The original high school where I had classes for a year, later became a junior high, and it burned in 1989 (no longer in use as a school).

The current students have all adjusted--probably better than the adults. Just as my generation had no memory of the college except what our parents told us, so there will soon be young people who have no memory of a town school. It does seem odd now to me, an outsider for many years, that the little town created because people cared about education, doesn't have a college, or a high school or an elementary school.

Information from "Mt. Morris Past and Present" by Harry G. Kable, rev. ed., 1938 and photo from "The 1929 Life" of Mt. Morris College.

2769 FLW Tour: War Memorial Columbus, IN

When I first saw this war memorial on the lawn of the county courthouse in Columbus, IN, I thought it really clashed. However, when you walk up to it and enter it, it really is impressive and sobering. Particularly moving are the letters home in the granite from the soldiers shortly before they died. All wars of the 20th century are represented.

2768 Why am I doing this?

If you stop by often, you may notice I'm not using Mr. Linky any more. That's the automatic sign in. At first, it was really cute and simple. But then it started changing. So why'd I drop it? Well, you have to sign in again when you leave a comment, don't you? So the time you save as a blogger, you use up at someone else's site with a double sign in--especially those that make you jump through hoops and hunt for the comment window while listening to ugly music. Also, if you use Mr. Linky the next time, it disappears from the former entry--yes, the reader could go to the trouble to click, open and read it, but who does that? And I doubt that those links "count" on the various sites that rank blogs (today I'm #201 based on links (or a magic formula I don't understand), which isn't too bad considering there are 50 million blogs). The time involved in meme participation is reading the other blogs, not in typing in your name, only to have it disappear anyway with the next time the writer uses Mr. Linky.

Also, increasingly for meme sites, I'm only visiting blogspot.com bloggers because some are just too difficult to leave comments. I know spam is a problem, but unless you are really controversial or flaunting how sexy you are, drawing trolls and sock puppets to your site, do you really need all that protection?

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2767 Crabby people are the smartest

One of my regular readers will certainly agree. What would we do without studies? Apparently a study has shown that after age 60, the crabbiest people are the smartest (Jacqueline Bichsel, Morgan State University).

"The theory is that more challenging and argumentative people may be giving themselves more of the mental workout needed to keep their minds sharp." Another theory is that smart people don't like being patronized, which is the attitude many older people get, so they might snap at you if you say something sappy.

Did you see that Orlando and St. Pete are #1 and #2 for angry people? Must be a lot smart alecky older golfers around there. I think Columbus was #53.

When Michelle, the Convivial Librarian, asked Middle School students what words came to mind with "librarian," they responded: "Cardigan" "old" "sssshh-ers" "mean" "crabby" "smart" and "read often." Works for me!

Thursday Thirteen

Thirteen very easy, inexpensive or free things we can do this week to make the world a better place for a few moments. Pick just one. Two if you're feeling lucky and joyful.

1. Let someone into merging traffic--even if he's driving like an idiot and not waiting his turn.

2. Smile at him. The Bible says something about being nice is heaping hot coals on your enemy. Picture that when you arrive at the stoplight at the same time.

3. Pick up one or two pieces of trash--a plastic bag, candy wrapper, pop bottle, etc.--from the sidewalk or berm on your way to work or activity. What if millions of people did that?

4. Drop it in the nearest trash can. Create jobs for sanitation crews.

5. Put a quarter in the tip jar at the coffee shop.

6. Be classy instead of colloquial. Say "You‘re welcome," instead of "no problem" if someone thanks you.

7. Donate a jar of peanut butter to the local food pantry.

8. Or offer to volunteer on your day off.

9. Send a card to someone who is ill or shut-in or grieving.

10. If you don't know anyone like that, praise God and call a church or nursing home for a name and make a stranger happy.

11. If someone comes to visit, turn off the television and the music.

12. Hold open the door for someone whose hands are full.

13. If you pack someone’s lunch, put a happy note or cartoon inside.

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2765 Was your high school deactivated?

Illinois has a Glory Days website for deactivated high schools. It is an interesting site and they are looking for stories and photos and records for a lot of schools. Mine seems pretty complete, since it only submerged in the 1990s. I checked my mother's school, which deactivated in the 1950s and it seems a little sparse. I'll have to dig around in my old photos and see what I can come up with.

It's very sad when a town loses its school system. It's hard to make it as a community without that unifying effort of educating for the future. Mt. Morris lost its schools from greed, disaster and duplicity. There was a strike in its major industry, printing, about 30 years ago which spelled economic disaster for the formerly proud and prosperous town, then the bond issues didn't pass, then after they started bussing the high school kids to the next town, the grade school burned to the ground in 2004. Instead of rebuilding as the town wanted, the local rep on the school board back-stabbed his constituency and voted not to rebuild. He's since moved out of state, which was probably smart.

2764 How it all started

"On November 4, 1979, Iranian militants stormed the United States Embassy in Tehran and took approximately seventy Americans captive. This terrorist act triggered the most profound crisis of the Carter presidency and began a personal ordeal for Jimmy Carter and the American people that lasted 444 days." (Carter Library website)

And he wimped out. Disgraced himself and the USA. So now he runs around criticizing the only President we've had who is willing to stand up to terrorists. Way to go Jimmy. I've mentioned before that I liked Jimmy Carter in the 70s (I'm a recovering Democrat--but I don't dem anymore). I ignored a lot of his flaws. Inflation about about 14% or was that the mortgage rate? Unemployment was very high. Gasoline lines were long. He created FEMA. He had marketed himself as an "outsider," and thus he never really got "in," because his own party bigwigs didn't like him much. Really, they still don't.

Ex-presidents should mind their own business. Peanuts. Building houses. Stuff like that. They had their chance and they should stop acting like bitter former wives trying to make themselves look good by tearing down their successors. His approval rating was around 29% when he left office, and I wish he'd stop trying to get it up.

2763 The most popular Lakeside activity

When I was in the Association office the other day buying stamps, there was a line of people signing up for the Tram Tour, "Lakeside's History." We did this about 5 years ago with a neighbor, and I think we were the only 3 people on the ride. The tours are Monday and Tuesday mornings, 10:30-11:45, Monday afternoon 1:15-2:30, and Tuesday 3:30-4:45. Now, if you come here, you need to sign up first thing, or miss it. This week I saw 4 people on bicycles following along.



Carol, who leads the tour, grew up here attending local schools. The last tour date is August 29, and it costs $3 per person.

Lakeside, Ohio

2762 Snacks and chats on the dock

Last evening the Lakeside dock was closed to the public and donors to the Lakeside Fund were invited to an evening on the dock. Bright yellow tablecloths at tables for 8 and delicious treats were set out--of which I probably ate too many. There was a brisk warm breeze and a fabulous sunset. Then someone with a video cam stopped and interviewed us about why we come to Lakeside. I assume snippets will be used in some sort of montage for marketing. Nancy said Lakeside is where she got her first kiss--that should get in; Joe said 5 generations of his family (had his grandchildren this week) had come here; my husband said he knew within 30 minutes of first coming here in 1974 that he would be back.

Today my husband helped for 3.5 hours with Kids' Sail, where the S.O.S. guys take kids out on the sail boats for 10-15 minutes. Ninety-one children participated! This is the first year of this program, and I think we'll see many children signing up for lessons because they really love it.

Lakeside, Ohio

What have you bought on e-Bay?

When I first heard about e-Bay it was from a friend who actually became addicted to it. It's changed a lot from those early days when it was primarily just ordinary folk hawking wares. Now some businesses have closed their bricks and mortar stores and sell only this way. Anyway, my son bought his car on e-Bay, I think he bought it from someone in Atlanta, and then turned around and sold his truck to someone who flew from Salt Lake to Columbus to pick it up. All this seems very strange to me, but some people think having 8 blogs is strange. Imagine!

BMW
e-Bay auto

2760 Do you sic or spell?

I can't help it. Usually when I quote someone (block, chop, drop and link), I correct the spelling, typos and grammar errors of the original, because I'm not sure the reader of my blog will ever click over. What do you do? And do you go back and correct your own typos if you find them later--after they've already oozed into the various blog finders "as is," forever embedded in cyber-cement? I do, unless it's in the title, and then that would throw it off in the various finding links. Recently I quoted a published columnist and spiffed up the quote a bit. It's a librarian thing, I think.

2759 The greatest economic story ever told

"Exactly twenty-five years ago [Aug. 14], Ronald Reagan signed into law the first supply-side tax cuts since the JFK plan of the early 1960s. By reducing high marginal tax rates, Reagan transformed the American economy and opened the door to two-and-half decades of prosperity. Economic behavior responds significantly to the incentive power of low tax rates that raise the after-tax return on work, investment, and risk-taking." Larry Kudlow

Trip Tale: The Hermitage

It seems that everyone who visits St. Petersburg goes to the Hermitage. And it is fabulous. The crowds are incredible--I'm sure you could spend weeks there, and we only had about 1/2 day. However, if you are really interested in art and have limited time, I'd go for the Museum of Russian Art, Государственный Русский музей. The Hermitage is European art, but the other is Russian art, and much of it you've probably never seen, not even in art books or classes. There was a huge display of Soviet era art, both the public and the underground. That's where I spent most of my time. It was incredible. It's also the only place I lost my husband, so Gloria and I spent a lot of time wandering the halls looking for him. We were finally all reunited back at the hotel. We couldn't take photos in there, but here are some from the Hermitage.



I'm not sure how she did it, but our guide slipped us in with no wait, and then we started at the end and went the other direction to avoid the biggest crowds.

Me and two other ladies in the Hermitage



Hermitage
St. Petersburg
Russia

2757 Why do we tolerate leftist academics?

If we believe in the market, and they are tolerated by the people paying their salaries, what's so bad? Jane Galt answers:

"Firstly, academics are broadly ignored (ask any academic) so it does not matter what they say at all. Occasionally the marginal idea escapes the academy and has an impact, but by and large students just want to graduate, academics just want to be insulated from the real world, and the real world wants to be isolated from loonies who go on about how great Che Guevara was. In this light, the Academy is a very efficient mechanism, creating surplus for all.

Secondly, I don't know why people like to ascribe the ills of the world to left-wing ideology, right-wing ideology, or any kind of ideology at all. It's not like humans weren't making dumb and violent decisions long before "ideology" was invented, or that humans will not make dumb and violent decisions if ideology was magically erased. The issue here is that humans intrinsically do dumb and violent things, and the notion that this is somehow driven by ideas cooked up by some guys sitting in an Ivory Tower, writing papers that no one else reads, is bogus. Primitive tribes in the Amazon regularly slaughtered significant %s of neighboring tribes, and they didn't even have paper."

Read the whole article here.

I have withdrawn thousands of volumes from library shelves in a university over the years which have gone into dumpsters. I always looked at the check-out record. Many had never circulated. Blogs are read more often than some academics' books and articles.

Monday Memories: Our Lakeside bicycles

Although I don't have the first photo with me, this bicycle was a birthday gift for me in 1968 when our daughter was still a baby. It is a no gear, no speed (but me) old fashioned bike with coaster brakes and I love it more each year. Several years ago I replaced the original seat, and around 1979 we replaced the tires, which had been damaged when a friend had a spill riding it. The original tires weren't this wide, so we had to cut some of the fender back to get it to fit.

About 15 years ago we bought a 10 speed Raleigh from a neighbor for about $20 and brought it to the lake. This year the tires gave out so my husband took it to the local bike shop for repairs. The two tires, new rims, new tubes, gear repair, new carrying rack and all-round tune-up cost us $100! I was in shock.
Everyone in Lakeside parks their cars and rides bikes. Our expensive refurbished used Raleigh bike is in here somewhere.

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Lakeside, Ohio