Talk to Wooster

Letters to the Editor

Traditions & memories

Congratulations on the alumni magazine— good reading, excellent pictures, and very informative. Being a ’41er, I enjoyed the nostalgia and vividly remember 5 cent Coke dates at the Shack and the creaking steps in Kauke Hall. I even lived in Hoover Cottage. I sometimes wonder if students have such wonderful experiences as we did, like Gum Shoe Hops, Color Day pageants, crowning of the May Queen, and the maypole dance, mock elections, marvelous sledding, and section serenades when steadies were pinned.

ALFIEGABRIEL CAMPBELL ’41
WOOSTER, OHIO

I read with great interest “Family History,” in the fall Wooster magazine. The kilted drummers are shown playing Murphey’s drums, purchased in 1947, wearing the type of MacLeod tartan uniforms originally donated to the College in 1940. I thought you might be interested in the enclosed 1948 photo of the original Freedlander drum section: Bill Murphey ’51, snare; Wally Joachim ’ 52, snare; Ken Shafer ’51, tenor; Jim Parmenter ’50, snare; Bill Aber ’51, snare; Lou Wollenberg ’52, tenor; and Ed Retzler ’ 52, bass.

One of my fondest memories is of serving as navigator on Murph’s forays to music stores in Cleveland. He never disappointed us! He will be greatly missed by all whose lives he touched.

Bill Murphey died on Oct. 4, 2006.

JAMES H. PARMENTER ’50
LIMA, OHIO

Thank you for your article on the Shack— and yes, I was a “Shack rat.” My tenure was 1957-61. During that time, three students started a jazz trio: Tom Margitan ’62 on tenor sax, Henry Ettman ’62 on drums, and Barry (?). The first Friday or Saturday night they played, there wasn’t much action. But the next week, and for two to three weeks thereafter, the Shack was packed. They placed another student at the door and charged a small cover. Then ASCAP and BMI heard about it, discovered that the Shack had no music license, and that was the last of jazz at the Shack.

If you Google Tom Margitan and Henry Ettman, you will find that both are active musicians. Tom became a well-known and recorded jazz saxophone player, and Henry obtained a Ph.D in another field but remained active as a jazz drummer.

FRANK DAVIS ’61
SPARTA, TENN.

When I turned to the Wooster magazine anniversary story, I was startled and delighted to see myself on the cover of one of the old issues. It shows a graduate wearing a peace symbol on her back, and even though I never saw that issue before today, I knew instantly it was me. The haircut and cum laude armband are indubitably mine.

There were only a handful of us who wore the peace symbols on our backs in 1969, when the photo was taken. The caption under it is wrong, by the way. It must be the May- June 1969 issue, not July 1967. [ ed. note: The issue was July 1969]. Several of those classmates, including Patty Miner, Kevin Gray, Richard Morgan, Bill Exline, Becky Blackburn, all ’69s, and Bob Dunsmore ’70, gravitated to Colorado post-Wooster to celebrate the spirit of the times at an ad hoc commune called Jacob’s Hill in the San Luis Valley.

The photo brings back many memories! And the peace symbol is as relevant today as it was in 1969.

CREE MCCREE ’69
NEW ORLEANS, LA.

“The Shack: Savoring memories” was wonderful! I still make the Shack Special Sandwich—a Hershey bar between white bread slices, then grilled.

JOAN DUNBAR WILLSON ’39
BRYN MAWR, PA.

A Scot by affection

I’m a Scot by affection, too. My daughter graduated from Wooster three years ago, and although I should read Northwestern’s magazine as voraciously as I read Wooster, I confess I do not. I also confess that I give to The College of Wooster much more frequently than I do to Northwestern.

I was surprised to read Bill Hendrickson’s letter (Fall 2006) about the lack of alumni support, because the camaraderie of the Wooster family is one of the reasons I am drawn to your excellent school.

Here’s a suggestion to make the habit of annual giving easier to start. Don’t feel you have to give a gazillion dollars. Just give the year you graduated, for starters. So, if I had graduated in 1973, I would give $19.73. Or, if you are one of the many couples who met your life mate at Wooster, give the number of years you have been married. Or, give a dollar for every Woo alum you are still in touch with.

RHU MCBEE
TIPTON, N.H.

Kauke renovations

The recent Kauke transformation is nothing short of amazing, but I have noticed a tendency to praise the new Kauke by comparing it unfavorably with the Kauke that was renovated in 1960-61.

Alumni in classes before 1961 and we retired professors remember the original Kauke, constructed in 1902, with its awkward mystifying layout; drafty windows; grimy hardwood floors, worn down by generations of students; departmental overcrowding; uncomfortable black classroom seats with spindled backs resting on a steel base bolted to the floor; and the grand first floor “lobby” in the center of the building (no archway) with a much too small wooden staircase leading to the second floor (a perfect firetrap).

Students routinely used the outside fire escapes to get to and from the second floor; it was faster that way. Even more bizarre was the fact that it was impossible to move between some sections of Kauke without going outdoors. I know, for in order to get to my classroom I had to walk from my cramped basement office through the career placement office as unobtrusively as I could, upstairs, outside, and finally inside again to reach room 120.

Also, consider the English department of 1958-59: Professors Moore and Mateer had separate offices. The other professors were bunched together in one midsize room on the second floor. Mr. Coolidge, chair, presided and directed traffic just inside the door. He owned the only phone in the room! The desks of the other professors—Bradford, Clareson, Moldstad, McCall, and Bridges—were placed along the perimeter of the room. They were so close together it was impossible for professors to have private conversations with students, and when all were simultaneously conferring with students, there was a wonderful literary hubbub.

Small wonder, then, how thrilled we were after the 1960-61 renovation. Admittedly, the new configuration was not very imaginative. However, there were numerous, welcome improvements: Traffic could move more easily through the entire building, the increasing number of faculty each had an office with a large Steelcase desk, new bookshelves, and an individual phone. Windows rattled no more, and there was more efficient heating. Other improvements included moveable classroom chairs, brighter lights, vinyl tile floors that could be mopped clean and waxed, three inside steel staircases connecting the three floors, a freight elevator that the handicapped could use, a separate office for faculty secretaries, and even a faculty mailroom (previously, Kauke faculty had to traipse over to a small room in Memorial Chapel to post and retrieve mail).

I do not wish in any way to detract from the excitement we all share over the newly renovated Kauke Hall. However, the historian in me wants all of Wooster to be aware of an earlier excitement when dear old Kauke was first successfully renovated.

L. GORDON TAIT
WOOSTER, OHIO;
MERCER PROFESSOR OF RELIGIOUS STUDIES, EMERITUS

One nice thing about being retired is the flexibility that affords. Every time I receive a copy of Wooster, I drop whatever I am doing and read it from cover to cover, even though I hardly know anyone being featured.

In the Fall 2006 edition, I sat for 10 minutes, just looking at the cover and saying, “ Wow!” “Amazing!” OVER and over again. All of my favorite colors were on display on the interior of Kauke. I wonder if any of today’s students know how the men at Wooster in the old days had to stay in little old ladies’ homes around the campus after their first year and how all the buildings looked like the old interior of Kauke. And yet we survived.

Now a miracle has descended upon the College. The interior layout of Kauke (in the magazine) was also awesome, and I thoroughly enjoyed the feature on food, which I cut out and put in various parts of my cooking folders. What a great job, well done. Congratulations.

JAMES H. RUTHERFORD ’63
BLACK MOUNTAIN, N.C.

Your fall issue of Wooster held me spellbound for at least three hours the evening it arrived! Not only is it sleek, chic, and glossy, enhanced by the excellent photography, but it also had my gustatory senses vibrating, metabolism soaring, and appetite zooming!

MARY WILCOX HUGHES ’41
CLEVELAND HEIGHTS, OHIO