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Those Good Years
at Wyoming U. No. 1233 Those Lean Years
at Wyoming U. Those LEAN YEARS is a better title for my campus experiences. It was in 1917 that I took the train from Powell to start off to Laramie. Laramie was a big place, to me. I had been to Billings once or twice, so I was already accustomed to big-city life. I had seen Cheyenne only two hours between trains. I was brave enough to walk up and down a bit, keeping the Union Pacific station in view. Of course there were no taxis at the station in Laramie, or if there were, I certainly couldn't afford one. Powell had no taxis: not even electric lights. In fact, I had made $10 per month for years lighting the four or five gasoline street lights (five it was till a runaway team demolished one). Hand luggage and I arrived on foot at the University. On my first night, I obtained a room at Appleby's, and stayed there two or three nights until I got located. I remember inquiring if the city water was fit to drink. I ended up in what was known as the Men's Commons: a large square frame house with no architectural imagination. The lower part was dining room and kitchen. The upstairs and possibly a third floor provided rooms for the boys, two, three, or four to a room, but only one to a bed, as I remember it. The food was good -- at least I don't remember originating any complaints. First of all I had to be on the lookout for a job. Subsistence would be the problem. I had some savings, but believed in conservation. I had thought that it would be simple to make dollars and have some left over every week. Just to be sure, I arrived a day or two ahead of school to get in on the ground floor. Wages had been good in Powell, as a result of inflation from the War. I had been earning (collecting rather) $5 a day for irrigating. It turned out, though, that in Laramie things were different. I learned the hard way something important -- competition. The best that the boys could do was 25ยข an hour if they could find work at all. I called on the President of the University, Dr. Aven Nelson, a man with a kind heart. As all know who remember him. He suggested that I consult the head janitor, Mr. John Prahl. John put me to work almost immediately. He gave me five different jobs during the week, with odd items part of Saturday. One morning I was to sweep the rural school. Another morning I was to wipe the tile floor in the main hall, and the other three gave me acquaintance with more buildings. On my first experience with the tile floor in the main hall, what I did was to scatter soapy water from a bucket all over the floor. I was very thorough: every square inch got soaped. No one had told me to wipe it up. I thought that it would dry up. When the students began to arrive, somewhere around eight, the floor was a hazard. The report came back to me from a dozen sources during the day that John Prahl was looking for me. In big snow storms I made extra money shoveling snow so that students could get around. On Saturdays and in Christmas vacation, some of us cut ice on the pond for the Union Pacific Railroad. The pond was a gravel-pit some miles out, and the ice was three to four feet thick. I suppose that in a cold winter it would be six or seven feet thick. I don't remember much about classes except that mathematics went all right, and that I had a dreadful time with English. It is a pleasure to remember Professor Ridgaway in mathematics and his kindness to help everybody start. He must have had a heterogeneous lot of boys and girls. It is a good thing that I went to college at that time, and that there were no entrance examinations. I don't know why I elected to move away from the Commons. Possibly there was too much noise, as I tried to be a studious young man. I do remember moving from one place to another. It became fashionable to move. I remember that I was able to engage a room, put my stuff into the trunk, engage a van or a wheelbarrow, and settle myself in good order in a new room, all in the space of two hours. When I wished to move back to the Men's Commons, Mr. Burrage, in his capacity as Registrar General, Comptroller, Secretary of the Board of Trustees, and overall supervisor without portfolio, reminded me that I had deserted the Men's Commons once, and would have to do penance a while to get back in. Another job was behind the soda fountain at a drug store. Somehow or other, I muddled through, though customers must have been amazed at the new concoctions. Some boys obtained work on the Union Pacific Railway on night shifts at various jobs. Two or three boys would take on a job together. The railway was very accommodating in that respect. It was a hard deal, being on the job eight hours at a stretch, even if only every other night. I preferred shorter hours and shorter pay. The refinery, when it came to town much later (1919 or 1920) when I was about to graduate, provided work for a number of people. One summer I stayed in Laramie and worked for Mr. A. Hitchcock repainting and staining the new Commons on the inside, and working at the refinery cleaning out the boilers. The work was not very heavy, but I remember being pretty tired at the end of the 16th hour. One cold winter I became acquainted with a Mr. Cook, as I remember it, editor or some official in the Laramie Republican. I wondered if he had any odd jobs, and if he agreed that an ad in the Republican would be the best thing he could think of. Ad or no ad, he had some railway ties to saw up for firewood, and would pay two cents per cut, he to furnish the saw and the ties. It was a long way through a tie -- two, four, six cents, etc. I made 80 cents one evening in the cold. My main source of income the 2nd year was to rustle clothes for dry cleaning for J. Bezensky, bless his soul. He would pay me 25 cents per suit. All that I had to do was to find someone who had a suit that needed cleaning or pressing, and who had something to wear meanwhile. I would take the suit to the cleaner and deliver it. That went on for a year and a half, after which I became prosperous with other work. Once I had done some work somewhere around the University and submitted a bill for $58. I later met Mr. McWhinnie (who was then student helper in the Registrar's office under Mr. Burrage), and he wondered if I was good in arithmetic. I thought about the matter a while, trying to guess why he inquired. Then I discovered by recomputation that the bill should have been $76. I supposed that it would be impossible to do anything about it, but when the cheque came, it was for $76. He just thought that he would have a little fun letting me squirm meanwhile. One indoor sport was tubbing. There would be summary court martials of one kind or another for some offense such as shouting or complaining, or I don't know what - sometimes merely on general principles -- and a man would be put into cold water, and as one boy remarked, "Thanks, boys, I was going to take a bath anyway." There were many diversions such as singing in the choir at the Cathedral under the direction of Mr. Roger Frisbie, who was indeed a fine organist and choir master. I was on the job there Sunday morning and again at night, and at rehearsal once a week. Then there was the band under Professor Bellis. It was slyly whispered about that if one did good work in the band, he would be sure to pass his courses in physics. Unfortunately, I took the basic course in physics before I joined the band, so I had to earn the grade. I had had musical education, but elected to play drums and tympani in the band. The band took a trip on the Union Pacific to Hanna, Rawlins, Rock Springs, and Green River, and by the time I had hauled all those drums and tympani from the train to the concert hall and back again in all those towns, I decided that it would be better to play a smaller instrument, whereupon next year I played piccolo. There were barn dances at the agricultural farm once in a while. I had nerve enough once to ask a girl for a date, and was almost overwhelmed by her acceptance. We missed the hay rack, maybe by design, and walked. Jaunts to the surrounding hills such as to Pilot Knob, were one means of recreation, free to all. If I might make some criticism of education as it fell to my lot in college, the criticism would be that too much time was spent on so-called practical work. My field was electrical engineering, and I know of course that there have meanwhile been changes in education for engineers, but I will voice the criticism nonetheless. We spent too much time in manipulating tools of one kind or another -- chipping, filing, hacking, sawing, gluing, and learning various arts and trade such as mechanical drawing and descriptive geometry. What we should have been doing was to spend more time on electrodynamics, thermodynamics, mathematics, English, French, German and basic subjects like economics, which I had to fill in later. Anyway, those "lean years" were good years for me. |
