that rainy November day . . . .
Senior memories span four years
It's almost over, the four years that back in September, 1962, we looked at and imagined they were going to take an awfully long time. And in looking back, we pause to find that we have changed in what we are, how we see other people or, at the very least, in what we know. And if we were asked for an inventory of our class, '66 in terms of what we'll remember most, perhaps, our memories will be topped by the history we watched.
It might be freshman year, when we watched John F. Kennedy on television sets late one fall afternoon, explain that the U.S. was placing an ultimatum on the removal of Russian missiles in Cuba. It was a tense few days, as we waited to see if the missiles would leave Cuba by boat or in the air.
NONE OF our class will forget where he was or what he was doing on a gray, rainy November day at noon our sophomore year—we gathered around TV sets in the Union, around transistors in an unbelievably silent Strong Hall basement or Summerfield Hawklet and heard the radio announcer's taut voice or watched the barely-under-control features of a Cronkite say "The President is dead."
And the memory for junior year might be a long campaign for the 1964 presidency as we heard Republicans note how corrupt Johnson was with a Bobby Baker under his rug or Democrats say that Goldwater was a wild man out of the West.
The history piece for senior year is still being written, we grimly note. Beginning with a midsummer announcement by the President, we realized the implications of that "thing over there" for our class.
We walked down Jayhawk, sat in our classrooms, and in the beer places and watched the serious or smiling or laughing faces of the young men and felt the aching realization of what generations of other war times must have felt—that some of these faces, no matter how precious or kind or good, may soon have a rendezvous with tragedy—and there is nothing we can do.
BUT, MOST of all, we will mark these four years here as our own personal kaleidoscope, in some misty diary of the mind—thepersonal and the intimate.
The memories will be where we went, what we did, what we said, the walks along Jayhawk and how Oread looks in all its seasons; the classes in both the ivy-walled buildings or new concrete structures; the long final weeks that seemed so able to drive us crazy but which we quickly forgot as soon as they passed.
The memories will be the places, the Union and the noisy carefree jukebox-pounding Hawk's Nest; it will be the quiet of Watson Library and the musty scholarly stacks; it is Hoch with the sounds still ringing of all the Rock Chalks, the convocations, the speeches; it is the Field House and the basketball crowds, the stadium with crisp fall colors and the gay crowd at a Saturday football game. The places will be an old Fraser Hall and the moon-lit Campanile (before the street lamps came).
THE MEMORIES will be events, the SUA Carnivals, the Friday afternoon TGIF's, the Belafonte, Peter, Paul, and Mary concerts, the last minute midnight hammering on a Homecoming decoration, the
weekend blasts when we let tests, books, papers blissfully go in hopes that they will be there when we got back from the barn parties.
But best of all, college will be the people—the ones we knew and cared for very much and the ones we met only once or twice. It will be the laughter, the smiles, the tears, the long talk sessions into the night when we should have been writing that paper. The memories will be the faces and quips of the professors, some of whom earned our very deep respect. The people will be the pulsating, colorful, flowing crowds, the talking, frowning, preoccupied, laughing, watching crowds, we passed hurrying to classes. They will be the kids we lived with, in the apartment, the house, the hall—the friends who have unconsciously altered our own outlooks on something by some word or action, and because of whom, we are kinder, more caring persons for having known. And, it is the memory of where we were when we met the one we thought we were never going to find, and that first kiss.
IT IS ALMOST over and we vaguely sense how it will never be the same even if we were given those four years again. We slowly nod and agree—all that remains is a slow winding twilight walk down from the "Hill."
But even though we "can't go home again," we will look at each other and, perhaps, quietly smile—it was good to be there even for the brief flickering moment.
By Rosalie Jenkins
that was the year that was
COSA, football, Debbie deserve comment
It was a grand year for the University of Kansas. So grand, in fact, that it surely merits a few backward glimpses.
Of almost permanent nostalgic value, we had Miss Debbie Bryant, who, as Chancellor Wescoe informs us with lightening tongue, is going to be a KU student. That, as everyone should realize, is the same as having a genuine campusite win the Miss America crown. Besides, Miss Bryant had her room in Hashinger already picked out, the door of which will doubtlessly carry her name inscribed upon a golden KU centennial medallion.
NEXT, OF COURSE, there was the football team, which as Jack Mitchell promised, showed everybody "a lot of surprises," like losing eight of its ten games. One of the victories, however, was a show of power against Kansas State, which ranked just slightly lower than Eudora High School last season.
The Civil Rights Council made news in the fall, too, in that it made no news. After last spring's rousing demonstrations, the CRC decided that all the university's racial problems had been solved, and the group withered away. This phenomena gave Dr. Wescoe cause for thinking that perhaps he is not withering away, and still remains Chancellor of the university.
CAME THANKS GIVING vacation, but not before a hundred or
so fraternity members indulged in a skin flick in a nearby barn. The local police went out and shut the whole thing down, but no charges were filed. On the other hand, a KU student was picked up downtown for carrying an obese sign in a picket line, and he was jailed with his bond set at $500. Naturally, the university asked him to voluntarily leave school or be thrown out, even before his trial. We were all reassured that university justice, as always, continues to be a mockery.
Speaking of picket lines, the Student Peace Union sponsored a few of them, but most observers mistook them for workings of Students for a Democratic Society, a misjudgment roughly equivalent to comparing Howdy Doody with Governor Avery; probably, in fact, a hell of a lot worse.
THE COUNCIL on Student Affairs was created, doubtlessly to further the Chancellor's infamous "channels of communication." COSA's record to date has been marked by the fine leadership of KU's most progressive and gentle administrator, Dean of Students L. C. Woodruff. Diplomacy, courtesy, and communication have consistently been the order of the day, as when a group of women were recently invited to speak before the council, only to be told by Dr. Woodruff, after they had waited in the hall for two and a half hours, that COSA had adjourned for the week.
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Student representation on COSA, along with its stultifying record of accomplishment, has helped further define "channels of communication" as meaning "don't mess with the administration;" or, even more precisely, that university justice continues, as always, to be a mockery.
The interesting thing about COSA's creation is that it provides an effective barrier preventing direct student-administrator confrontation. All students who wish to submit proposals for change in administrative policy must arbitrarily take their case to COSA, or not get a hearing at all. One assumes that the Chancellor and other administrators no longer have the time for such trivialities as student unrest, and that they are fully occupied with other pressing duties, such as alumni speaking tours or secretly negotiating statehood for France.
THE "LACK OF TIME" this year did indeed prove to be a continuing phenomena for administrators, as they consistently, with a few notable exceptions, seemed forced to decline invitations to speak at panels, forums, etc., on controversial issues.
Dean Alderson, for example, used the excuse in failing to show at the Centennial week students rights colloquium, as did Dean Woodruff. It was curious, therefore, that a few short hours later Alderson found time to discuss the colloquium with his staff, to the extent that he was able to identify by name those students who had spoken out against the administration's line. Curious, too, that the same dean found time to explain to a group of students that the dictaphone in his desk was not used to secretly record office conversations, and that "you can tell when it's on by this little red light here," etc.
2
Daily Kansan editorial page Tuesday, May 24, 1966
THERE WAS THE basketball season, and next to Debbie Bryant, we almost had a national championship. We lost a big one, a bitter pill, but Coach Ted Owens and the team did a magnificent job which won't be soon forgotten. Jo White is left with two and a half more seasons in which to keep his left foot that extra quarter-inch away.
Oddly enough, the ASC is now charging five dollars per student for football tickets, and, oddly, sales are way down this year. The cost will help pay for stadium expansion, and since the team only plays four home games next year instead of the usual five, we're wondering if some idiot thinks the expansion necessary because the total number of persons who would ordinarily attend five games will have to be squeezed into four. We're also wondering if sales aren't down because students don't really expect to pay five dollars to see "their" team play: a team, incidentally, which Coach Mitchell promises "will show a lot of surprises next year."
Speaking of basketball, the ASC clowns decided to charge the students four bucks for their season tickets, which it turned out they couldn't do, and everyone had a merry time marching back and forth from the field house paying their money down and getting it back again.
IN MARCH CAME the proud and mighty AWS Rules Convention, in which the university women's majority voice spoke out for greater coed responsibility and freedom. But despite the fact that Dean Taylor has been telling the girls for years that they make their own rules, the old and the new AWS Senates, by which some odd quirk of undemocratic process have the power of review over the Rules Convention, have cut back drastically on the proposed changes. An extremely unfortunate turn of events, but further reinforcing the theory that AWS Senate members have the aggr-
gate intelligence of a still-born fetus. Anyhow, it's beginning to look like the girls will again next year have some kind of closing hours, and society and the university will have triumphed again in keeping them on an inferior level.
CENTENNIAL WEEK rolled around, and the Centennial speakers ignited a glow in virtually every student's heart. Charles Whittaker, for example, as a retired Supreme Court Justice, once again demonstrated the fallibility of big government, by proving that it is possible for an idiot to gain a crucial governmental appointment. Ashley Montagu, the world's leading anthropologist, treated the students with respect and compassion, a truly refreshing change.
The goody-goody boys were in the news again this year, and this writer nominates Dick Darville and Bill Robinson for top honors in the field. Darville, a big up-and-come for Vox Populi, is particularly noted for his straight-laced ASC speeches and a profound noxious "respect and concern for the university." It is thought that with a minimum of luck he will replace Fred Ellsworth as "Mr. KU" for the university's second century.
Robinson, of course, merits comment in this category on the basis of his weekly column on these pages. Having started the season with witty, provocative, even progressive thoughts, the column changed to the Kansan's best sample of journalistic milk-toast in recent years once Bill decided he wanted to work for the administration next fall.
Helping close out spring activities, a number of fraternities last week engaged in a few days of good old-fashioned hell-raising, complete with sticks and stones, speeding cars, and general peace-disturbing; once again lending considerable credence to the story that Greeks are among the university's most mature, intelligent, and respectable members.
By Lee Byrd