CLASS OF 1975: the older we get, the better we were...

My oldest daughter is going to have her Fall term, Freshman Year, soon. As I watch her NOT prepare for this, I keep comparing her experience with mine, 38 years apart. As we get ready to shed her for college, I can't control my utter jealousy of her situation compared to mine. We did have some advantages over the youth of today, but they are few.

For us back then, it was late September when we started and guess what? They recorded a song just for us, "Maggie May." Somebody in Musser, across from where I was in Davis, really, really, really, really liked that song and played it nearly every afternoon. It set the mood for that Fall to be sure.

But the biggest rub between then and now is that my daughter scored a single room, her freshman year at Hamline. That hurts.

Part of the challenge of college living is living with a "roommate." If you arrive at college and settle into your own solitary domain, with no compromises with anyone, how easy is that going to be?! One thing I can boast about in a very negative way is that I too, was assigned to a single Fall Term Freshman Year. And as far as singles go, it was one of the smaller ones. But it wasn't a single: it was made into a double to accommodate an overflowing Freshman class that year. There was a bunk bed and two chests of drawers, with one of those chests parked in the small closet. I can confidently say, and challenge ANYONE to say differently, that I was assigned to the smallest DOUBLE in Carleton history, period. The institution was so ashamed of this experience, they turned the end of First Davis, what was formerly my first domicile at Carleton, into a dysfunctional lounge. But I understand now, there's talk of converting it into a janitor's closet.

The admissions department certainly knew how to mix oil and water in a small space with the roommates they arbitrarily assigned to that cramped space: One was a very arrogant, but brilliant Icabod Crane type whose parents were PhDs who lived in a town in New Jersey filled up with PhDs. And then there was me, a skinny Mick, son of a tool & dye maker from a town in Iowa known for its cereal mill [largest in the world]. I had never been exposed, face-to-pimply-face to such a degree of intellectual brilliance as my roommate. My high school didn't have anyone even half as smart as this guy. But as we all know in life, it's people skills that wins friends and influences some people.

Today's incoming frosh go online to fill out a personality profile that spits out 10 - 15 matches that they can "hook up" with to see if they want to pursue roommate status together. Central questions are covered by this survey like "I generally don't like to share [agree or disagree, 1-5]. eHarmony for dorms.

I spent an awkward Fall term interfacing with Mr. New Jersey Genius and was able to escape when someone down the hall dropped out, leaving an opening in a double. That room was an actual double, not a converted single and the guy who survived there was a nerd from Milwaukee. Since he was heavy into all things electronic, we used that as our common bond of communication. Guys like my new roommate back then, today are given their own sitcoms on CBS [i.e. The Big Bang Theory]. Just like Einstein, this guy wore pretty much the same outfit everyday, just numerous iterations of the same thing [the uniform back then was a flannel shirt, flare jeans and white tennies].

My daughter's single at Hamline comes with an institutional microwave oven and mini-fridge. And she'll have the football team there on hand to help her move in [and then, I hope, go back to the practice field afterward and leave her alone]. Once situated, she is a short walk away from the campus cafeteria serving all cuisines, including Latvian. Am I missing something or are new college students today spoiled royalty? Freshman year, we had an open sandwich bar in Burton every afternoon that nobody knew about. You could even get a free fountain Coke anytime there as well. The meals were forgetable with certain dishes gaining the "Saga" sobriquet as in "Saga Mac.". But somehow, we all were able to graduate, despite the bland food.

We had the "Psychedelic Refriger-Relic" in our room back then: a real-life NORGE fridge minus the butt crack. This ancient machine had been painted by some previous owner with - you guessed-it - psychedelic day-glo colors in a mostly flowery motif. It cost $25 and I was able to keep it for 2 years. It never held anything but beer — ever. There was an annual ceremony where we had to figure out how to get the Psychedelic Refriger-Relic to Sayles Hill for summer storage, then do the reverse figuring out on how to get it into our new room the following Fall. At the end of our senior year, we just left it in our room in Severance.  Years later at our 20th reunion, we checked to see if it was still in our room on 3rd Severance and it wasn't.

And she'll have more than one choice when it comes to delivered pizza. We had Bill's - zit. Maybe students today don't bother with pizza anymore? Just off-campus at Hamline where my daughter will be, kimchi will be an easy option for snacking. Definitely something you would try in college, anyway. Can't imagine how Northfield would have handled a Korean restaurant back then?

And she wasn't the least bit interested in what kind of laptop we got her for college, just that it had to have a mini-camera built-in because some of her friends had that on their laptops and it sounded "cool." Never mind the LED screen, the 500 GIG hard drive, the 4 GIGs of RAM and every conceivable jack and port known to laptop science today built-in. Gotta have the gateway to YOUTUBE fame: the screen camera and mic.

And we never had cell phones and laptops or IPODs for that matter. Back in Fall 1971, it was the war of the hi-fi stereo systems. There was one guy in Ground Davis who had a MacIntosh stereo system and about 500 record albums. He was an upperclassman and I don't think he was thinking clearly when he parked himself on Ground Davis [emphasis GROUND] that year with his stereo system that probably cost in the neighborhood of $5,000 back when that was a lot of money. His system disappeared over Christmas break that year and rumor had it that the Astro prof's son was the B & E guy on that job. But in Mr. Stereo Man's defense, he never once blared his stereo even though he likely had THE most powerful one on campus. Everyone else who had a stereo did blast theirs, though. The Who's Who's Next was a big player on Davis that year along with Derek and the Dominos. I was fond of Isaac Hayes' Shaft album, but it may have been the drugs...I dunno...

But dorms today are mostly quiet. How much noise pollution can spill out from ear buds anyway? With text-messaging and cell phones, no one has to meet face-to-face anywhere anymore on campus. You can have an entire conversation with someone back in their dorm room while you walk to class, and without actually talking to them using your voice.

That all said, what did we have that they don't have? We had the tunnels. We had "instant" keggars, enabled by several well-placed little red wagons on campus. And our kegs didn't cost hundreds of dollars to procure like they do today. And we had the Cave, an on-campus 3.2 joint where you could get velveeta on a cracker for 25 cents. In our era, they finally lowered the drinking age to 18, making it easier for the administration to look the other way. Some of us had working fireplaces in their dorm rooms! And, if you find one of those little red wagons, you could go get your free firewood at the Farm, just off campus. Or, you could just load up your illegal VW parked just off campus and drive it up to the dorm for a quick wood delivery like I did. Today, lawyers and insurance companies have conspired to make sure there will never be tunnels again, never be working fireplaces again in dorm rooms.

Well, I guess we didn't have it all bad compared to the spoiled royalty found on today's campuses, the pussies! But I'm still jealous of my daughter scoring a single room, her freshman year...

-Tim Corwin
August, 2009