1967-1969 Part 3B: The Guys of Allen Rumsey House

Posted on October 11, 2020 by Mike

The guys whom I remember. Continue reading →

From my sophomore year through my senior year I knew the name of every resident of Allen Rumsey House. In the lounge was a large glass-encased photo board with names and room numbers. I studied it often, and in those days I had a quick memory.

AR had about one hundred residents each year, and the annual turnover was at least 30 percent. So, more than three hundred guys lived there while I did. Fifty years later I have forgotten the names of a substantial portion of them. I blame the guys. If they had all become major league ballplayers, or if they had just done more outrageous things, I would probably remember more of them.

I have done fairly thorough Internet searches on all of the following guys, but I did not find anything substantive about many of them.

Staff: The Resident Director (RD) lived in a two-room suite on the first floor near the western door. There was a Resident Advisor (RA) on every floor. The other staff member lived in a two-room suite on the first floor near the eastern door. I am not sure whether this person was considered the Assistant Resident Director or the RA for the first floor.

Andy Something was the RD for my freshman year and, I think, for my sophomore year. My only interaction with him was at the bridge table in his suite. He was a graduate student in “Communication Science”, which was the name of U-M’s academic department that taught about computers.

Jim Krogsrud, better known as “Gritty”, was the RA of the third floor during my freshman year. He also had a staff position during my sophomore year, but I am not sure which one. I think that he was RD for my last two years. He studied some kind of engineering. He was a very good athlete, and he competed for AR in a few sports. I don’t know where he got the nickname. He had it before I arrived.

In 2020 Tom Caughey wrote me that Gritty was a lawyer. In fact I learned that he was now retired from a long career as a public defender. He now lives in Freeland, MI, and works for the Saginaw-Tittabawassee Rivers Contamination Community Advisory Group.

John Dalby was the RA for the fourth floor for two or three years. During my senior year he lived in the first-floor suite on the east side. I think that he was also an engineer. He was the captain of the undefeated A volleyball team. He scouted for new team members from all the new arrivals every year and initiated practices as soon as he had recruited enough guys.

For at least two years Ken Nelson was probably my best friend at AR. He was one year older ahead of me. I think that he was president of the House Council either my freshman or sophomore year. During the summer before my junior year I was very surprised to receive an invitation to his wedding in Niles, MI. He had never mentioned an HTH (hometown honey). I did not attend the nuptials, but I sent a gift.

In my junior year Ken lived in the eastern first-floor staff suite with his obviously pregnant wife. It was a deplorable situation. She was the only female in the dorm (maybe in all of West Quad!). She wasn’t a student. Ken still hung around with the rest of us pretty regularly, but she almost never came out of their suite. I don’t remember what they did for food. Maybe the suite had a kitchen.

After I saw the movie Blow-Up, I casually remarked in the lounge that, in my opinion, it was one of the best movies ever. Ken evidently respected my judgment and took his wife to see it. They both hated it.

I guess that it was not a good date flick.

Eventually Ken’s wife had a miscarriage. Ken graduated at the end of my junior year. I don’t remember seeing him at all when I was a senior. I was not the kind of friend who would have reached out to him.

Roommates: Charlie Delos was my roommate for the second half of freshman year and the entire sophomore year. In freshman year we were in room 315. The next year we moved to the center and across the hall. I think that our room number was 308.

We got along quite well until the day that I accidentally locked him out of the room when he was taking a shower. Charlie was quite angry, but he eventually got over it. I think that he had pretty much forgiven my thoughtlessness when I did it again, this time on purpose.

“Lucy, let me ‘splain.”

The two guys who lived across the hall from us were named Ryland Truax and Tom Cobb. They seemed to study all day and all night. When I left they were both sitting at their desks, and their door was open. As I departed I gave my key to Ryland. I told them to let Charlie get upset for a minute or two and then let him in. They agreed. They dutifully followed the first half of my instruction, but they ignored the part about opening the door for him.

The final straw for Charlie was when I scratched his Country Joe and the Fish album while he was home for a weekend. I apologized and bought him a new one, but he had had enough of me. He moved into an apartment for junior year. I could certainly understand why.

A biographical web page devoted to Charlie is available here.

My roommate for the last two years was a very good-natured guy from Pittsburgh named John Cruickshank. He was small enough to serve as coxswain (the guy who yells the stroke to the other guys but doesn’t actually row) on the crew team (or club or something).

He was a year younger than I was. In his freshman year he roomed with Ken Nelson, during which time he was awarded the name of Cramdrink or Crammy for short. This appellation was bestowed upon him because he was the recipient of far more shower parties (details below) than anyone else in the house. Crammy was addicted to puns, not clever or witty puns, just anything that sounded like what someone else said. He was always warned, but he just could not help himself from committing these execrable offenses. He never complained about the punishment. How could he? This was justice.

For some reason Crammy put up with me. I can’t remember any arguments or frustrating moments at all. We lived in the best non-staff room in AR, 109. It was a suite on the first floor in the corner bordering the passage into the courtyard on the south side. The beds and desks were in separate rooms.

I lost touch with Crammy when I went into the army. At some point in the eighties or nineties I received a phone call out of the blue from a Rumsey resident named, I think, Bob Ortman. He told me that Crammy had been shot and killed in a taxi in Pittsburgh. That is all that I know. I certainly hope that that information was wrong.

Officers: I am embarrassed to report that I remember few of the people with whom I worked. Part of this is due to the fact that the vice-president of the House Council had only one responsibility, to attend the meetings of the Interhouse Council (IHC), an organization hardly ever did anything noteworthy. The secretary took the minutes of the AR councils meetings. I did not need to work much with any of them. I interacted a lot with three guys.

Keith Hartwell, who was one year younger than I was, served as treasurer during my junior year. He lived on the second floor with Ernie Brown. He always had a good handle on how much money we had and how much we still needed to spend. As a result we were able to give a refund to all of the residents at the end of the spring 1969 semester.

I remember the first sentence of my “interview” of Keith Hartwell in the Rumsey Roomers: “Svelte is the word for Keith Hartwell.” I also remember that Keith was a very smooth dancer. I found his Facebook page on the web.

Roger Warren was probably the best social chairman that AR ever had. How he managed to get Stockwell House to serve as sister house for the smallest male dorm on campus I will never understand. Roger was enthusiastic about everything the house did. He also played on the house’s football teams.

Mike Murphy was undoubtedly the best athletic chairman who ever lived in AR. I think that he was one year younger than I was, but He might have been two years younger. We could not have won the overall IM title in 1970 if he had not been our athletic chairman. Not only was he great at inspiring or, if necessary, shaming guys into participating in sports in which they did not excel. He also was such a good athlete that his direct role was important in many events. For example, the scores that he and Bob Carr together earned in the track meets bested the totals produced by most houses.

Athletes: If any athletes resided in AR in my freshman year, I do not remember them. In my junior year two very famous football players, Thom Darden and Bill Taylor lived on the second floor. At AR they were called TD (or Thom) and BT (or Bill). I never heard anyone other that Bob Ufer call the latter Billy. Thom enjoyed an all-pro career as a defensive back with the Cleveland Browns. Bill had a lot of difficulties after he left U-M, but he evidently turned his life around.

I had one significant interaction with them. The football players were apparently given tickets for the home games. Before one of those games TD and BT asked me if anyone was looking for tickets. I happened to know someone who was. I found him and brought him to their room.

Thom’s Wikipedia page is here. BT’s page is here.

At least three other football players stayed in AR that year. Dave Zuccarelli, a high-school all-america running back from Chicago, roomed with quarterback Kevin Casey on the first floor across from the lounge. I did not know Kevin well, but Dave hung around the lounge quite a bit when football season was over, and he played cards there quite a few times.

I was shocked to discover that Dave had died in 2000 at the age of 50. You can read about his career in and out of football here.

The fifth footballer was Bruce Elliott, the son of the legendary U-M quarterback Pete Elliott and nephew of U-M’s football coach Bump Elliott.

U-M football coach Bump Elliott and his nephew Bruce.

Bruce and Thom both played intramural basketball for AR. Thom played on the A team, and he was easily the best player in all of intramurals. We had some other good players, too. I am pretty sure that we won the championship that year.

Bruce was the best player on our B basketball team. We might have won at that level, too. I am not certain.

Jim Burton, the first pitcher to throw a no-hitter for U-M’s baseball team, also resided in AR for several years. I knew him quite well. He was one year younger than I was. He played on quite a few of the house’s athletic teams. He quarterbacked one of the house’s football teams. I actually was on the receiving end of several touchdown passes from him. I remember that he took an anatomy (or some such) course in which they dealt with cadavers. He complained that the obese ones were really gross to work with.

Jim’s quite detailed biography, which includes his death in 2013, can be read here.

In my senior year some freshman swimmers lived in AR. One of them was tall and sleek. The other guy had arms that hung down nearly to his knees. I don’t remember the name of either fellow.

A couple of hockey players from Canada also lived in AR my senior year. They kept to themselves and played a lot of darts and pinochle. My freshman year a hockey player who lived in one of the other houses in WQ caused a minor sensation in the cafeteria. He was a defenseman who was really thickly built. When he ate he bent his face down towards his plate and shoveled the food into his mouth at an incredible rate.

I remember one basketball player from Milwaukee who lived in AR. I don’t remember his name, but he spent a fair amount of time in the lounge. Sometimes he brought a basketball and worked on dribbling.

Others whom I remember by name: Frank Arundel Bell of Bethesda, MD, was two years behind me. As a freshman he approached me to ask for advice on an unusual conundrum that he faced. He was in Navy ROTC. They made him keep his shoes shined. He needed a cotton rag for that purpose. He asked whether I thought it was a “good idea” to cut a piece from the middle of one of the university’s sheets before turning it in.

I paused a moment, feeling some pride that he respected my perspicacity enough to elicit my opinion on the matter, and then replied in the negative. I suggested that he buy a 100 percent cotton tee shirt instead. I am not sure whether he took my advice, but he politely thanked me.

Frank never attended the commissioning ceremony.

Frank was not a fashionista. He wore his Navy uniform when it was required. Otherwise, he always wore black trousers and a light blue or light green short-sleeve shirt. For him it was seldom cold enough for a coat.

Frank’s taste in food was equally simple. He would eat bread, peanut butter, mustard, hamburgers, and pickles. Occasionally, but not often, he would try something else, but he could easily go for a week without deviating from his five basic food groups.

Frank drank pickle juice. I often witnessed him drink a jar of pickle juice without stopping. Later he found out that he could earn money by betting strangers that he could drink the jar in five minutes. He could easily manage it.

He invented an imaginative approach to the sport of water ballooning. I documented it here.

Frank learned to play bridge in the AR lounge. He became quite a good card player. He is now a Sapphire Life Master in the American Contract Bridge League (ACBL). He currently lives in San Antonio. He contacted me when, as a bridge player in New England, he had received promotional materials about an upcoming bridge tournament that I had sent via email.

The Navy had paid Frank’s tuition for his freshman and sophomore years. After two years he was expected to commit to serve as an naval officer when he graduated. Frank declined. He had to sit and listen to various officers scream at him for being coward, a cheat, and a traitor to his country. Nevertheless, he persisted in his refusal. I heard a rumor that he paid a good part of his tuition in his last four semesters by playing pinochle for money with Canadian hockey players.

Ernie Brown roomed with Keith Hartwell. He told me that the best thing about life was dreaming. That is why he loved to sleep. One day long after I graduated I got a phone call in Kansas City from him. He was going to be in town for some kind of event at Unity Village. I don’t remember why, but I was unable to meet up with him, and I then lost touch.

Incidentally, Ernie Brown was the first black guy that I ever made friends with. This occurred at the same time that my debate partner was Alexa Canady just after the explosive summer of 1968.

I did not know Bob Carr too well. He did not look like a great athlete, but he was very fast, and he was the first person whom I ever saw do a back flip.

Tom Caughey was one year younger than I was. He had a 4.0 grade point average in high school. His parents were very distraught when he got a B in freshman year. He roomed with Tom Rigles for—I think—three years. He liked to wear overalls. His mother tried to buy him a pair, but the salesman at the men’s store would not sell them to her because “that was not what the kids were wearing.”

He did not look like a Tom. I had a key to the picture board with names and faces of all of the residents. I replaced his name with a better one, Fred Moron (accent on the second syllable). i don’t know why; it just seemed appropriate.

He surprised me once by telling me that he had a slight crush on Celia Phelan, the president of Stockwell House.

Dr. Caughey’s degree was in Chemistry. He got his doctorate at Wisconsin. I am not surprised; he was smart, and he studied a lot. In 2020 he is VP of Product Development at Inrad Optics in NJ.

Tom Cobb roomed with Ryland Truax right next to Caughey and Rigles. Tom was into studying and the Gilbert and Sullivan Society. The only encounter that I remember with either of them was the second time that I locked Charlie Delos out of our room. The circumstances are detailed above.

Bruce Edwards came from Long Island. He was an important player on the B volleyball team that I captained. I remember him mostly as a big fan of the Mets, whom he called the “Amazin’s”. The Mets upset the Orioles in five games in 1969.

Ken Gluski ran against me for president of the House Council in the spring of 1968. I remember what he looked like, but I cannot recall anything else worth mentioning.

Thom Heinrich was a freshman from Flint when I was a senior. He loved politics, and he held strong conservative views. He had worked for Don Riegle’s congressional campaigns in 1966 and 1968, and he considered Riegle a wonderful man. He must have been crushed when Riegle switched parties a few years later.

For some reason Thom really got on my nerves. I think that he was attracted to power, and, since I was the president of AR, he always seemed to want to be around me. It got so annoying that I would occasionally climb out of my window to go to lunch rather than pass by the lounge where he was waiting for me. I called him “The Grippe”.

Larry Hull was, I think, three years younger than I am. Since most guys called him Larry Polack, I was not too surprised when, as we were walking south toward the IM Building, that his family name was not originally Hull. It was something that sounded like shuh HULL ski. The first four or five letters were consonants. I don’t remember much else except that he was a very friendly guy.

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Raz spent a lot of time in the lounge. He was a big guy, and his fashion taste ran to grunge. He loved to philosophize, and he was equally knowledgeable on all topics. This did not bother me, but it drove many guys crazy. I am not sure whether he played bridge with us or not. He certainly was not one of the best players. When we went to Blimpies he always ordered a triple cheese on a regular (not onion) role.

He attended high school in Chapel Hill, NC, and he knew James Taylor. I should say that he knew of James Taylor before anyone else in the house had heard of him. Wikipedia says that Sweet Baby James only spent one semester at Chapel Hill High, but he was born in 1948, which would put him in the right class. Raz also knew about Jerry Jeff Walker before anyone else did.

One day Raz got out the chess set that resided in the lounge. He challenged anyone to play him. We were playing cards; there were no takers. I was less interested than anyone. I had played a lot of chess when I was in high school, and I had to quit because it gave me insomnia. I had no interest in starting again.

Day after day Raz would talk about how good he was at chess. Finally, I got sick of it. I told him to get the set. We played one game. He was awful; the game only lasted about ten or fifteen minutes. He never brought it up again.

Raz attended most of the House Council meetings, but he never sought any office. He had rather strong opinions about many topics, and, when I was president I had to tell him to shut up a few times. He usually did.

Raz got me in trouble with my parents. My dad had called me at the dorm about something. I was not around, and Charlie must have been in another room and left our door open. Maybe there was a card game somewhere. At any rate Raz answered the phone in a voice in a deliberately effeminate voice. He might have said something rude, too.

I called my dad back as soon as I found out, but he and my mom were so upset that they somehow wangled a flight on my dad’s employer’s private plane to come visit me. The visit actually turned out pretty well. Not only did I get a free dinner at Win Schuler’s, they also brought all my records with them.

One day Raz let slip that his family was somehow involved with followers of Edgar Cayce. I had heard about the “sleeping prophet” who died in 1945, but I knew very little about him. I cannot remember Raz ever bringing this up again. He certainly never evangelized. I did not press him about it. I never quizzed people about their beliefs.

A google search for “John LaPrelle Cayce” yielded a sizeable number of results. On the third item I found the picture shown at right on the website for “The Big House”. There was also a “Contact” email address. When I inquired at that address about Raz, I received an email from Sandy LaPrelle with Raz’s phone number and email address.

Raz responded to the email that I sent him about this project. He wrote that he was currently in rural Virginia. He had done a lot of things over the years including getting married, producing three brilliant children, and becoming a professor of psychology.

Dave Martinov was also in the class of 1970, and he stayed in AR all four years. He is the guy who gave me the nickname KC, which quickly got abbreviated to Case. He was a rabid fan of all of the Chicago professional teams, especially the Blackhawks. He was tall and a very good athlete. He played every year on the football, basketball, and volleyball teams for AR at the A level.

Dave’s roommate, whose name I have forgotten (Vlchek?), was also a Blackhawks fan. They both watched all the hockey games in the game room, often wearing Blackhawks jerseys.

Dave has reportedly retired in the Tampa area.

Jack Matthews lived on the fourth floor when I was a freshman. He may have stayed another year or two. The fourth floor and my third floor were mortal enemies. We did not associate much with the fourth floor guys. I remember only that he really liked Motown music.

What I remember about Dave Nemerovski was that he had a relative in the band named the Long Island Sound, which I discussed here.

Bob Ortman was a quiet guy. I do not remember a lot about him. I think that he was one year behind me. Several decades back he phoned me to tell me about John Cruickshank. I have been unable to locate Bob on the Internet.

Rolf Parta was a couple of years younger than I was. He hung out around the lounge pretty often. He might have played bridge with us. I am pretty sure that he was from Novi. When we lived in Plymouth (1974-77), we sometimes visited a pet store in Northville. The signs on the road gave the mileage to Novi, and when I saw them I would always think of Rolf.

Rolf’s LinkeIn page says that he is an “ex-manager, consultant & author/inventor” who lives in Bradenton, FL. His Facebook page is here.

Heikki Petaisto was an uper, which means that he came from Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. People in Ann Arbor called him Henry rather than his real name, which is Finnish. He was always smiling.

Somebody owned this game or one very like it. They also had players for every NHL team, even the Seals.

He played in the table hockey league that someone organized. I don’t remember which team he owned, but they ran roughshod over everyone, especially the California Golden Seals, the team in which I had a 50 percent ownership. I don’t remember what my franchise cost, but it was worth it just to watch and admire Heikki’s hell-bent-for-leather approach to the game. His hands were constantly moving from one lever to another, slamming his players forward and twisting them magically. I don’t know how he did it.

Heikki Petaisto is an uncommon name. I think that he ended up graduating from Michigan Tech and lives in Chino Valley, AZ in 2020.

Peter Petty was, I am pretty sure, the largest student on the U-M campous. He certainly was by far the largest whom I had seen before I attended a WWE wrestling match that featured Andre the Giant. Peter was over 6’10” tall, and he weighed at least 350 pounds. His biggest contribution to the AR athletic championship was his participation in wrestling. I think that most of his wins were forfeits when the opponent first caught sight of him. He made it to the finals, where he was scheduled to face another AR wrestler from Coldwater, MI, whose name I definitely should remember—he was a key player on the B volleyball team that I captained—but I don’t. I don’t think that they held the match.

Peter could grasp a coke machine, which in those days dispensed twelve-ounce bottles, with one hand on either side near the top. He could then rock it back to him a foot or two and then slam it back into the wall. This maneuver would often cause a few coins to appear in the coin return or some bottles to appear in the dispensing area. Occasionally, a bottle would break inside, thereby causing the machine to appear to be bleeding.

One year Peter attempted to participate in varsity football as a walk-on. My recollection is that he quit after a few days. He did not have the demeanor of the jocks who lived in AR.

Peter’s famous shower party is described here.

I found some evidence on the Internet that he has joined Andre in the land of departed giants, but it was not conclusive.

Phil Prygoski was a year older than I. I don’t remember him too well, but I think that he might have been president of the House Council when I was a freshman.

I remember that he said that his family name was changed to Prygoski to make it sound more American. The original version was pronounced shuh ZIT ski, and it started with “Prszcz”. Needless to say, everyone called him Phil Polack.

He became a professor of constitutional law at Western Michigan University. He died in 2019. His Wikipedia page is here.

John Reynolds was, I think, a year behind me. He lived on the other end of the first floor. All that I remember vividly about him was that he delighted in telling a story about an irate parking attendant who once told him, “Get back in dat ho dere!” He meant for John to park his car in the empty spot to which he was pointing.

Tom Rigles was from the ski town of Boyne City. A physics major, he roomed with Tom Caughey. He was a good friend. I “interviewed” him for the Rumsey Roomers. The main motivation was to provide an excuse for a cartoon of “Rigles’ ear” which was almost never visible beneath his mop of hair.

Tom was the slowest bridge player in the world. He also single-handedly ruined one poor female grad student’s study by taking forever to do relatively easy math problems. As a physics major he was expected (by her) to handle them swiftly.

Tom’s greatest contribution to the field of contemporary education was an adaptation of Mr. Spok’s Vulcan Mind Meld. Before an important test he would move his chair near the pillow side of his bed. He then placed the textbook open to the most difficult section. He took off his glasses and placed them on the chair between his pillow and the textbook. He aligned them carefully so that, while he was dreaming, he would be able to view the text through the glasses. He swore that it worked.

Tom once told me that if more people were like me, life would be a lot easier. This was one of the two or three nicest things anyone ever said about me.

I am not sure, but I think that Tom currently lives in Coeur D’Alene, ID.

Kurt Scarbro lived on the third floor. The only thing that I remember clearly is that he thought that Myrna Loy was the most beautiful woman ever. I would certainly rank her in the top 1 or 2 percent.

From references on the Internet I deduce that Kurt must currently live in Maryland. I think that his Facebook page is here.

Mark Skipper was one year behind me. He played on the AR tag football team, and he was a ferocious pass rusher. Nobody could stop him.

I remember that he was known as a real ladies’ man. I never witnessed this, but the legend was that he would spend time on State St. approaching various girls and asking them if they wanted to go out or something in more Saxon terms. Allegedly he seldom struck out and nearly always persuaded one of them to, in the words of Mick Jagger on the Ed Sullivan Show “spend some time together”.

In 2020 Mark is a lawyer in Ft. Lauderdale, FL.

I used to attend mass on Sundays at St. Mary’s with Ron Verleger. I never saw anyone else in AR go to church even once.

Ron, known in AR as Ron McDon, was very devoted to his father, who was a builder. After a short time at the big U, Ron met a lot of people who thought that his father’s conservative values were outdated. Ron seemed to have a hard time with this.

He graduated with a degree in business and set up his own contracting company. It still has a website, but it has not been updated in a while. It says that he is 55, but he did not wear diapers when he lived in AR. In 2020 he lives in Lawton, outside of Kalamazoo.

Dave Zuk was my age. He lived across the hall with Paul Stoner when we were freshmen. He stayed in AR for at least a few more years. He studied some kind of engineering, and he has been the Chief Engineer at Michigan Aerospace for fifteen years.

Unless my eyes played horrible tricks on me, he had two sets of two nipples, one over the other.

Memorable Guys; Forgotten Names: The level of bridge in AR was elevated by a couple of guys from Ypsilanti. The one who lived in AR had a Polish name that began with an L. I remembered it for a decade or more, but over the years it has been confused in my mind by Lewonczyk, the name of a family of friends, and Lewandowski, the name of both the guy who worked for Trump and a world-famous soccer player.

The guy who lived in AR tried to get us to play some conventions, but nobody was really interested in taking the time to learn them. At least I wasn’t. I did buy a copy of Howard Schenken’s Big Club book. He talked a few of us into playing in the sanctioned game at the Union once or twice. He also played the piano pretty well.

The other guy from Ypsi was an equally good player. I think that he lived in South Quad, but he spent a great deal of time in our lounge.

I also remember another outsider named Mike Smith who dropped into the lounge to play cards from time to time. I am pretty sure that he belonged to a fraternity, maybe nearby Delta Upsilon. I am fairly certain that he was left-handed, but that is all that I remember.

I have drawn a complete blank on the name of a talented cartoonist who was a great help to me. I enlisted him for Rumsey Rumors. He did some wonderful illustrations that I always featured on the cover page.

We took an anthropology class together during my last semester. He went to all of the lectures, and he let me use his beautiful notes from the class to study for the final. This allowed me to pass a class that I almost never attended. I hope that I thanked him for saving my bacon.

A guy from Kentucky played basketball and other games with us. He was very accurate with a shot that he threw up with both hands from right next to his right ear.

When I was a freshman a guy from Texas, whom everyone naturally called Tex, sometimes ordered a medium-sized pizza delivered to the game room. He had no trouble finishing it by himself. I may have seen someone do something similar later, but at the time this astounded me.

I remember the guys who lived in 312 (next to Dave Zuk and Paul Stoner) during my freshman year. I already mentioned the one named Raphe (short for Raphael), who got a 4.0 in the first semester. His roommate was, if memory serves, very interested in trains, both real ones and models.

It surprises me that I have no recollection at all of the guys who lived in 313, the room next to the one that I lived in.

I remember a guy whose first name was Leonard. Everyone called him Filthy Leonard or Crazy Filth. I can picture him pretty clearly, but I have no solid memories. I have no recollection at all of how he got his nickname. These things just seemed to happen in the dorm.

My last entry requires understanding of spring break in the sixties. Almost all universities scheduled a break from the classes for the same week. Students from all over the country gathered in places like Fort Lauderdale. U-M had no such break. To compensate our classes ended earlier than almost anyone else’s.

Occasionally people from U-M would try to participate in the fun anyway. None of my many close friends had a or car even access to a car. A guy whom I did not know very well and who lived on the second floor of AR evidently did. He got together three or four of his friends (no AR residents) to undertake the trip over a long weekend. Google maps indicates that it is a 1,348 miles from Ann Arbor to Fort Lauderdale. They drove in shifts, stopped only for food and gas, and made it in less than 24 hours. They evidently had a great time and returned to Ann Arbor the following Monday evening. I don’t know any specifics.

The guy with the car enjoyed himself so much in Fort Lauderdale that he tried to assemble a group to go back with him the next weekend. There were no takers. So, he decided to make the trip by himself. He left on Thursday evening and returned to AR late on Monday.

When he reentered AR he did not immediately collapse of exhaustion, and he did not regale his fellow students with tales of fun and mischief in Florida. Instead, he stayed up all night and studied for a test scheduled for Tuesday. He kept his eyes open until just an hour or two before the test. Then he more or less passed out and slept for many hours.

1966 U-M Fall Semester

Posted on September 17, 2020 by Mike

September-December 1966 Continue reading →

Classes: I took four classes. Each was memorable in its own way.

The math department had three sequences that math majors could take. Two were for students in the honors program. I took the higher honors sequence—six classes over three years with the same classmates.

Our teacher was Professor D.J. Lewis¹. The class consisted of about twenty guys and one girl. I don’t remember any names. Dr. Lewis began by saying that there were two ways to teach math. One was to go through the proofs at a fairly brisk pace. The other was to make sure that most people were comfortable with each concept before moving on to another. He said that as a student he much preferred the latter, but when he looked back on it, he learned more from the former method. So, all through the class he filled the blackboard with formulas. I went to every class, or at least nearly every class, and I did get quite a bit out of them.

The Russian teacher was Mrs. Rado. I had the advantage over the other students of knowing the Greek alphabet, which is similar to the Cyrillic alphabet. My primary disadvantages was that all my language experience was in dead languages. In high school we learned how to translate Latin and Greek, but not how to speak or understand them. I had to spend quite a bit of time memorizing and rehearsing the conversations. Fortunately, I had the time and inclination to do it. By the end of the semester she referred to me as the “отличник“, which was a little embarrassing, especially since most of the other students were older.

I also remember one class in which I was repeatedly asked by Mrs. Rado to pronounce the Russian word for five (пять). I never did it to her satisfaction.

The class that I was worried about was chemistry. I was enrolled in Chemistry 103, which, according to the catalog, was for students who did not take chemistry in high school. When I found out that the vast majority of my classmates had indeed already taken chemistry, I was ready to panic. However, it turned out that the subject matter was very easy—basically just a lot of permutations of Boyle’s law, PV=nRT.

I was lucky to have a lab partner who knew his stuff. I don’t remember his name, but he taught me, among other things, the use of the MIT Fudge Factor, which is .9677. He explained that if you were unable or unwilling to complete an experiment, begin by calculating the correct answer. Then, multiply or divide by the MFF. That is what you report. If you multiplied last time, divide this time.

We only needed this technique once, when he decided to augment the assigned experiment with some creative glassblowing over the Bunsen burner. Unfortunately, he accidentally bumped the beaker containing our unweighed sample with his still white-hot objet d’art. We needed the weight of the sample in the beaker to be accurate to a fraction of a gram. We successfully detached the two pieces of glass, but the weight of the beaker had certainly changed. So, we worked backwards using the MFF.

The first Latin class had a strong effect on me. Mrs. Sorenson, a somewhat elderly lady, handed out a three-page single-space text of one of Cicero’s orations. She explained that this was our assignment.

Marcus Tullius Cicero — Pronounced Kikero.

In that first session I was asked to read aloud a short section. The other students giggled at my pronunciation. They had all taken four semesters of Latin at U-M. In my eight semesters at Rockhurst High School we used the Church’s pronunciation. At U-M (and, I presume, at other heathen institutions) they used a different pronunciation in which v’s sound like w’s in English, and c’s sound like k’s. There were a few other differences as well. It took me a while to get used to this.

The three pages of translation was a lot more than I expected as an assignment. However, the first class was on Thursday, and the next class was not until the next Tuesday. I knuckled down over the weekend, and I felt pretty comfortable about being able to translate the whole speech on demand.

The next Tuesday I was not called on, and the class only got through the second paragraph on the first page. It turned out that when the teacher had said that this was our assignment, she meant the assignment for the entire semester!

So, I had a lot more free time than I had calculated.

I did very well in all four classes. I was not a bit surprised that I received four A’s. Only one other guy in Allen Rumsey matched my GPA. We both won the Branstrom Freshman Prize, which was a copy of Bartlett’s Familiar Quotations.

Everyone was required to take two semesters of phys ed as a freshman. I took golf during the first semester. I learned nothing. The teacher was a coach in some other sport. Most of the time we just hit golf balls into nets in the old Waterman Gymnasium, which was torn down in 1977.

One of our classes was held at a driving range well south of campus. I walked to class; it was the only time all year that I broke a sweat. We got to see our instructor hit a golf ball. He never whiffed, but he had an enormous slice. There is no way that he could break 90 with that swing, but he taught a course in golf at the best university in the state.

Debate: If you need a primer about intercollegiate debate in this era, you can find it here.

My partner, Bob Hirshon, who lived in East Quad, and I occasionally met to prepare for the Michigan Intercollegiate Speech League tournament. Since we were only scheduled to debate on the negative we did not need to coordinate our approaches too much. I researched the good things about our treaty obligations to NATO, SEATO, OAS, and the UN and prepared some disadvantages to leaving each. I think that Bob and I also talked about what we would do on the affirmative when we had to debate both sides, but I don’t remember what kind of case we decided on.

The symbol of NATO and flags of member nations.

I have reason to think that the MISL tournament was held at Wayne State. U-M brought a handful of novice pairs. There were only three rounds. All three affirmative teams that we faced argued that the U.S. should pull out of NATO. I gave virtually the same constructive speech three times. It claimed that the pullout would be damaging economically, politically, and socially. None of their answers to these arguments seemed very good to me. The teams that we faced would have been considered mediocre to bad on the Missouri high school debate circuit.

The judge voted for us in all three debates, and I was was awarded more speaker points than anyone else. I don’t remember that I actually won a prize, but they might have given me a certificate or something like that.

I think that Bob was also one of the top speakers. After they had announced the second-place speaker, Bob nudged me and said, “It’s going to be you.” Having no comparable experience in high school, I was still quite surprised. The other U-M teams had mediocre records or worse.

It seems as if we must have gone to at least one other tournament during the first semester, but I have no recollection of it. I don’t even remember any practice debates, but we may have had a few.

They did send Bob and me to some exhibition debates, at least three. I remember one vividly. We went to one of the Ann Arbor high schools and debated against each other in front of an assembly. We wore our suits and told lots of jokes, and the kids loved us.

What I remember most vividly was how young and small the high school students looked. In the movies college kids come back to their old high school and seem to fit right in. In contrast, after I had spent only a month or so at college, these kids looked like grade-schoolers to me.

I eventually met most of the other people on the debate team. The top team was Lee Hess and his partner, a red-haired guy named Rosenberg or something like that. They had represented U-M last March at the district’s qualifying tournament for the National Debate Tournament. Their record was 0-8. At the time there were many good teams in the district, but I feel certain that there were also some that I would consider horrible.

Jeff Sampson worked with the varsity teams a lot. I don’t remember anyone working much with Bob and me. In early December I was therefore very surprised when Dr. Colburn asked me to meet with him, Jeff, and Lee Hess. I learned that Lee’s partner had quit the team, and they wanted me to debate varsity with Lee in the second semester. This would require me to go to quite a few top-quality tournaments, which would mean missing classes.

I was shocked that they had chosen me over all the other more experienced debaters. The most amazing aspect was that they wanted me to do second affirmative. Generally, the stronger debater does the 2A. The first affirmative constructive is actually written out ahead of time. How well it is delivered is not really considered very important by most judges. The debater just reads it. So the 1A’s only responsibility is the five-minute rebuttal. It consisted of presenting arguments rapidly, not selling them.

I also was asked to be 1N, which was fine with me. The 1NC usually presents a lot of arguments, and I could “spread” better than Lee could. His job would be to analyze the affirmative’s plan and come up with reasons why it was a bad idea. Experience pays off in that role.

I decided to give it a try. I had had so little difficulty with classes in the first semester that I had gained a great deal of confidence about classes. Also, of course, I absolutely loved going to tournaments—win, lose, or … uh, there are no draws in debate. You can go 4-4, however.

Jeff and Lee and I worked together through the end of finals. We decided to run a “squirrel” case on the affirmative—ending the commitment to be the first country to put a man on the moon. At the very least this approach would mean that more experienced teams would not be able to use most of their tried-and-true “canned” arguments against us. I was definitely up for that.

In those days debaters kept evidence—short quotes from books and magazine articles fully cited on 4″x6″ index cards.² By the end of the year top debaters amassed thousands of them carried them in steel cases or briefcases. Walking from one classroom to another at a tournament was sometimes a real workout.

The best schools had systems for making sure that all debaters on the team had access to all the evidence recorded by al debaters on the team. Some even traded with other teams. U-M had no such system. I was fortunate to inherit the evidence amassed by Lee’s former partner.

Everyone organized his/her own evidence. Tabbed dividers were required. It seemed obvious to me that the tabs should be numbered like an outline: IA1a, etc., but not everyone did this. I don’t know how they managed. I pulled at least fifty cards per debate, and it was crucial to place them back in the right section. Also, at least twice in my career a drawer of cards fell off a desk and spilled all over the floor. It never took me more than five minutes to put the cards back in order.

The Hatcher Graduate Library has five basements. A second building is behind this one. The campus has many specialty libraries, as well.

In those days my handwriting was still good enough that my partner and others could read it. Later I typed all the cards.

I also purchased a large artist’s pad to use for taking notes in debates, a process called “flowing”. Most people in those days used legal pads, but I could never get an entire debate on one sheet of legal paper, and I wanted to be able to see the debate at a glance.

One advantage that U-M debaters cherished was the amazing network of libraries on the campus. If it had been published, we could almost certainly lay our hands on it.

Allen Rumsey House: For all four years I enjoyed living in Allen Rumsey House immensely. It was conveniently located, and I got along fine with almost all of the guys. It was a little difficult to get used to having only two showers and three toilets available for thirty residents, but many guys were elsewhere much of the time.

There was usually a card game going on our floor—hearts, spades, or euchre. We also played another trick-taking game called “Oh, hell.” I came up with a revised scoring method that everyone adopted. One day in the first week of class Gritty introduced me to Charlie Delos from Bloomfield, who know how to play bridge. We played pretty often against Gritty and Andy. Eventually, a more or less permanent bridge game arose in the lounge. I was a frequent but not constant participant.

Charlie Delos had a date on October 22 for the Homecoming Concert that featured the Beach Boys. She canceled at the last minute. I bought her ticket from Charlie. The opening act was the Standells, a glorified garage band from Boston. All of their songs were forgettable except for the finale, which they called a “medley of our hit”, “Dirty Water.”

It was homecoming, but they did sing a song called "Graduation Day". — It was actually a homecoming concert, but they did sing a song called “Graduation Day”.

The Beach Boys recorded the concert as a live performance. They began with “Help Me, Rhonda”, which started suddenly while it appeared that they were still tuning their instruments. The highlight was “Good Vibrations”, a big hit for them that no one in the audience had ever heard before. Despite all the special effects it was just as good in person as on the record. All of the original Beach Boys (the Wilson Brothers, Al Jardine, and Mike Love) plus Bruce Johnston played and sang. It was a great day. We got to see the Wolverines beat Minnesota 49-0, and then saw a great concert. I suspect that Charlie would have preferred the date.

One of the few people who got under my skin was my roommate, Ed Agnew. He had a very strange schedule. I got up early, showered, dressed, and left by seven or so. He slept late every single morning. I never saw him in the afternoon or evening. He would roll in some time between three and four in the morning, turn on the light, and (loudly) wash his face in the sink with a lotion that he kept in a squeeze bottle. The sink was on my side of the room, and the light woke me up every time. It was very annoying.

I never saw the Ag take a shower or brush his teeth in the entire semester. Neither had anyone else on the floor. He might have taken showers at phys ed classes, but still.

The Ag spent most of his time at the undergraduate library, which everyone at Michigan calls the UGLI. There are many good places to study at Michigan. The worst is the UGLI. The selection of books is both weak and obscure. Concentration is virtually impossible because of all of the activity. In short it is primarily a pickup spot, but I never saw any evidence that the Ag had any luck in that department.

The one thing that he had going for him was his stereo. However, his taste ran to big band music. His favorite album was Victory at Sea. If he turned on the stereo in my presence, I had to leave.

Ed’s parents moved to California. He dropped out after the first semester. I knew that his grades were awful; he may have flunked out.

Charlie also did not like his roommate very much. He moved into Ed’s bed in 315 for the second semester. I liked Charlie a lot, and he even had a stereo. It was not quite as nice as Ed’s, but it would do.

The two guys across the hall, Dave Zuk and Paul Stoner became pretty good friends. Both were in the engineering school, which was easier to get into in those days than Literature, Science, and the Arts. Dave knew a lot about electricity and electronics. Paul struggled in the classes, but at least he made it to the second semester, which is more than the Ag could claim. We played a lot of hearts. Paul was a master of what we called the “Stoner Run,” in which, having already lost a heart, he would try to see how close he could come to taking all of them. He usually collected the other twelve twelve.

Stoner had a home-town honey (HTH) who was still in high school in Adrian, MI. This astounded me. I had participated in some exhibition debates in high schools. They seemed to be full of midgets! At any rate, Paul invited me to Adrian (only 20 minutes away) one weekend day. It was nothing to speak of.

In November or December Paul’s girlfriend dumped him. Paul was incredibly distressed. This was the first time I ever encountered this phenomenon.

AR had a house council that met every week on Wednesday evenings. The secretary took minutes, typed them up, mimeographed 50 copies, and slid a copy under every door. I don’t remember his name, but I really liked his style. Halfway through the semester he resigned. Gritty asked me to take his place. It seemed easy enough, and so I did it. Thus, I became embroiled in dorm politics almost as soon as I arrived.

AR had a few traditions that I was not expecting. One was the inter-floor water fights. They usually pitted the third four residents against the fourth floor. One would start with an unexpected dowsing with a water balloon or a waste basket full of water. Soon water was several inches deep in the hallways, and it became critical to dam up the bottom of the doors to the rooms with towels and whatever else was available. The most epic of these battles led to waterfalls cascading down the stairs all the way to the basement.

I am not sure when it started, but some guys on the third and fourth floors also threw water balloons. The house president, Ken Nelson, had a great arm. He could throw one from the fourth floor all the way across the street to the front door of South Quad. The hapless victims never suspected that the missile had come from such a distance.

Balloons were launched from room 415 (L in the lower right). T1 and T2 (top) are the target areas. The trees were much smaller then.

The guys in 415, right above us, invented a water balloon launcher that defied belief. It consisted of surgical tubing that was affixed to each side of a window and to a kneepad that held the ammunition. two guy would then pull back the kneepad across the room, through the door, the hall, and into room 414, where they carefully set the kneepad down on the floor and simultaneously released it. Mishaps were common, but if they were careful, the balloon came out with absolutely incredible force. It would clear both the center and the northern section of West Quad across the street and over the trees (smaller than shown in the image) into the plaza between the LS&A building and the Administrative Building. Spotters from AR were stationed there to document the bombings. No one could ever have suspected where they came from. They called the device the “Chee ho tay”. I don’t know how they spelled it.

I personally saw them operate the device, and once I saw a balloon speed over the top of the north side of West Quad.

Nobody called me “Wave” in Ann Arbor. In Allen Rumsey house most people called me KC or Case. Elsewhere, I was just Mike.

Sports: Despite the fact that a super-talented future All-American basketball player lived a few feet to the west of Allen Rumsey House, everyone was most interested in football. All the freshmen pooled all of their ID’s together, and someone purchased a block of tickets for us in the corner of the end zone.

I remember that just a few days after school started one of the assistant football coaches visited A-R and put on a short presentation about the U-M football team. A large group of the house’s residents crammed into the rec room to watch a film that he showed about the team. It featured footage of some of the underclassmen on the 1965 team who would be playing in the first game that was just around the corner. The coach that year was Bump Elliott³, and my favorite player was Dick Vidmer⁴, the quarterback. By the end of the season I judged that the former did not take full advantage of the latter’s abilities.

A fairly strict ritual was followed on the Saturdays of home games. After breakfast a group of us would watch cartoons⁵ downstairs. Depending on the starting time for the game, we would then try to grab an early lunch before following the band for the one-mile walk to Michigan Stadium⁶. This would get us there in plenty of time before kickoff.

The stadium was surprisingly unimpressive from the outside. I knew that it held 100,000 people, but it did not seem possible. To me it looked smaller than Municipal Stadium in KC. When I entered the stadium, it became clear. Fully half of the stadium is below street-level. When you entered, half or more of the stadium was below you.

If the team was on the road, we would listen to Bob Ufer’s completely unbiased accounts of the action on the radio. More than a few fans brought transistor radios to the games and listened during home games, too.

Even then, Michigan Stadium was gigantic. The team was mediocre during my first two years at U-M. Nearly all undergraduate students attended the games, but the graduate students represented approximately half the student body. They and the alumni did not attend in numbers nearly as great as in 1968 and every following year.

There were no back support or arm rests in Michigan Stadium until "premium seats" were added. — There were no back support or arm rests in Michigan Stadium until a relatively small number of “premium seats” were added decades later.

This is not to say that there were empty seats those first two years. Michigan Stadium did not have seats. It had very hard metal benches with numbers painted on them. You sat on the number corresponding to your ticket.

An obvious problem developed if people were wider than the distance between numbers. Very heavy students were a lot less prevalent then, but for the Ohio State game with everyone in parkas in late November, a few late arrivals ended up sitting on the steps.

Rudy T. probably could have been and All-American in volleyball. — Rudy T. probably could have been an All-American in volleyball.

Very few students regularly attended basketball games, even when Rudy Tomjanovich was scoring 30+ points per game. I remember watching one game in the Crisler Center in my sophomore year. All of the fans were making fun of the way that the coach, Dave Strack, clapped his hands when the team huddled during a timeout.

Intramural sports were big in Allen Rumsey, especially volleyball and ping pong. I remember John Dalby, the fourth floor RA, started recruiting volleyball players during the first week of school. When I arrived, AR had never won the overall IM dorm championsip, but we were defending champs in volleyball.

I did not play on any of AR’s intramural teams as a freshman. In the first semester I was concerned with classes and other matters. In the second semester I was much too busy debating.

Many pickup football games were played that first semester. There were several fields that were in walking distance of AR. I made many good friends in these games.

I attended a few of the house’s intramural contests, including the two epic struggles in the finals of ping pong and volleyball, both against Wenley House. We lost in ping pong when our best player, Gritty, was defeated by a guy who overcame the handicap of a cast on one leg with reflexes of a cat. However, we won the volleyball championship by keeping the ball away from Rudy T. at all costs.

1. Among many other accomplishments, Dr. Donald J. Lewis became chairman of the U-M math department. He died in 2015. His Wikipedia page is here

2. At some point in the twenty-first century index cards and everything else on paper was replaced by laptops.

3. “George of the Jungle”, which began in 1967, was definitely our favorite. I don’t remember what, if anything, we watched in 1966.

4. After he left Michigan Bump Elliott became the Athletic Director at Iowa. He died in 2019.

5. Dick Vidmer got a bachelors, a masters, and a PhD at U-M. He studied economics as an undergrad and Soviet politics and government as a grad student. He developed multiple sclerosis in 1983, which forced him to retire in 1999. He died in 2022

6. I never heard anyone in Ann Arbor call Michigan Stadium “the Big House”.

1966 Summer Between High School & College

Posted on September 12, 2020 by Mike

Transition. Continue reading →

In June of 1996 my dad and I made our first and only road trip together. The primary purpose was to help me decide between the University of Iowa and the University of Michigan.

Our first stop was in Detroit, where my dad introduced me to Howard Finsilver¹, a sales agent for my dad’s employer, BMA, and his son, Sandy, who was my age and planned to attend U-M in the fall. I spent some time with Sandy and a group of his friends from (I think) Mumford High. At least one of them was also going to U-M. Then (as now) most good students in the state hoped to attend U-M. In some parts of the country many top students disparage state schools, but not in Michigan. Sandy and all of his friends were quite impressed that I had been admitted as an out-of-state student.

We shot some pool in the basement of the house of one of the friends. Someone then drove Sandy and me around Detroit to show me some of its highlights. I don’t remember details, but I doubt that the Chamber of Commerce would have agreed with the sites that they chose.

The diag and the bell tower at U-M. — The view from the steps of U-M’s graduate library: the diag and the bell tower.

On the next day dad and I drove the thirty-seven miles to Ann Arbor to talk with a professor from the math department. I don’t remember the specifics of the conversation, but I absolutely fell in love with the town, the campus, the entire atmosphere. And that was before I ever set foot in the football stadium. Just about everyone who visits the town in the spring or summer has this reaction.

On the way to Iowa, we stopped somewhere in Indiana to play some golf. I don’t think that either of us enjoyed the round much.

The last hundred or so miles before we got to Iowa City we saw almost nothing but corn on either side of the road. The professor we talked to at the university made a pretty good case, but I had already decided that I wanted to attend the University of Michigan.

My dad was fairly often involved in providing entertainment for some of the company’s salesmen and regional sales managers when they came to the home office in KC. In the middle of July one of the salesmen had brought two of his sons with him on such a visit. One was close to my age and the other, who also worked as a BMA salesman, was in his twenties. I think that their last name was Roberson. BMA bought three primo tickets for me and the two sons for the Starlight Theater, an outdoor venue in Swope Park that showed musicals in the summer. The show was Bye-Bye Birdie, and it starred the rock group Gary Lewis² and the Playboys. This occurred at the height of the group’s popularity. The group had one big hit, “This Diamond Ring”, and a number of other songs that did well on the charts.

I am sure that the newspaper’s caption was useful to those who thought that J.L. was a government figure. If the wife bent forward just a little or wore her hair down, I would be in this photo.

Gary Lewis’s father was the comic actor, Jerry Lewis. On Monday, July 11, Jerry and his wife and entourage were in KC for their son’s opening night. Believe it or not we were in the fifth row right in the middle. Jerry Lewis was seated in the fourth row between his wife, who did not utter a word all night, and another woman who must have been an agent or something. Jerry Lewis himself sat a few inches from my right knee.

As soon as Jerry Lewis arrived, he consulted privately with another staff member who was seated on the other side of Lewis’s wife. The staffer left for a few minutes and then returned with a large paper cup that was quite different from the kind available at the concession stand. Lewis sipped from it until intermission. Before the play started a few young people came up to ask for his autograph. No dice. The staffer who brought the drink did not let them get close to the star.

During the first few minutes of the performance J.L. tried to record the sound. He had great difficulty operating the recording device. The results of his efforts were a snake’s nest of tape around his feet and a torrent of blue language, the likes of which I would not hear again until I took part in basic training at Fort Polk in 1970. He abandoned the recording project somewhere before intermission.

At intermission J.L. and the staffer exited through a door that was not accessible to the public. They returned just before the play resumed. J.L. was fidgety and generally disruptive throughout the rest of the show. He downed another large paper cup of the mystery beverage during the second half. The Robersons told me that they could smell alcohol.

The play itself was OK. The rest of the actors were fine. I am not a big fan of musical comedy, but I had really liked the story when I saw the movie with Ann-Margret³. Gary Lewis was not believable as a teen dreamboat, and his rendition of “One Last Kiss” was almost laughable, IMHO. The group then played “This Diamond Ring”. They might have also played one or two other songs. There was no screaming from teenage girls in the audience.

I enjoyed Cinderfella, mostly because I was captivated by Anna Maria Alberghetti

At the end the Robersons asked the staff lady politely for autographs, but Jerry Lewis wanted only to get out of the theater immediately. He was in a very bad mood.

My opinion of Jerry Lewis did not change much. I thought that he was a self-centered obnoxious jerk both before and after this occasion. He pretty much ruined the event for everyone within fifteen feet of him.

I don’t remember what I did for the rest of the summer other than mow lawns and play golf. I don’t recall a job.

In late August my parents drove me and some of my belongings to Ann Arbor. Jamie probably came with us. I don’t remember much about the trip except my eagerness to get on with the next phase of my life. Of course, I was also a little nervous.

The University had notified me that I had been assigned to 315 Allen Rumsey⁴ House in West Quad. We drove there and met the third-floor RA, Jim Krogsrud, whom everyone called Gritty. Because classes did not begin until the following week, almost no one had moved in yet. Nearly all incoming freshmen had attended the week-long orientation period during the summer. I was allowed to stay in room 315 while I attended the orientation.

Gritty explained that all the rooms were doubles, but three people had been assigned temporarily to room 315. He said that he was sure that this would be promptly resolved. The family helped me carry my stuff up to the room. Then I said good-bye to them, and they drove off into the sunset.

Gritty asked me a few questions, one of which was whether I played bridge. He was very happy to hear that I did. He and Andy, the house’s RD, liked to play, and they were looking for opponents. He also explained how the laundry and other aspects of life in the dorm worked.

They must have served meals in the West Quad dining room for the few of us who were there that week. I don’t remember having to find restaurants or walk to another dorm.

After breakfast on the day after my parents left I met with my orientation group. Our group leader was a guy. I don’t remember his name. The members of our group were all enrolled in the college of Literature, Science, and the Arts. One of the first orders of business was taking language placement tests. LS&A had a two-year language requirement. I was preparing myself mentally for the Latin test when the group leader told me that he had received a note stating that I did not need to take the test. He said that he had never heard of such a thing. He advised me to take the test anyway.

I showed up for the Latin test. It consisted of a multiple choice grammar test and a sight translation of some lines from Vergil. It seemed pretty easy to me; I was the first person to leave the test room.

I later learned that my 790 on the SAT’s Latin achievement test was the reason why I did not need to take the test. However, I did not get any academic credits for skipping the four semesters of introductory Latin. I did, however get three credits for Advanced Placement English and eight for AP math.

A few days later I got to consult with my academic advisor, who was, of all things, a biology professor. I only met with him for a few minutes once per semester; I don’t recall his name. He told me that I should have been invited to the honors program. He made a few phone calls, after which he told me that I was now in it. He then penciled in a schedule of four classes for me:

Math 195. There were three math sequences, two for honors and one for others. 195 was the first class for the higher ranking of the two introductory honors math sequences.
Great Books, an honors class in the English department.
Chemistry 103, the introductory class for students who did not take chemistry in high school.
Russian 101, which would meet a requirement for math majors—two semesters of Russian or German.
Two semesters of phys ed were also required for freshmen. I picked the course in golf for the first semester.

However, when I got to the actual registration, I discovered that all sections of Great Books were closed. So, I added a 300-level Latin class that focused on Cicero’s orations. It was only a two-hour class, but I already had eleven credits under my belt from the AP tests.

I felt pretty good about this schedule. The subject that worried me the most was chemistry. I figured that I would need to work harder than I did in high school, but that was not really saying much.

While at registration I came across a girl distributing flyers for the U-M debate program. On Tuesday, the day before classes began, the team was holding an open house for anyone who was interested in debate. Based on my lackluster high school career, I had little expectation of debating at U-M, but I took the flyer anyway.

I was on my own in Ann Arbor. I knew almost no one. Only a handful of guys⁵ had moved into Allen Rumsey House yet. The only other person on the third floor of AR was Gritty. I probably should have made an effort to meet people in my orientation group—in all likelihood most were from other states with no friends in Ann Arbor. It never occurred to me. That’s the way I am.

I spent a great deal of time in my room that first week playing one-at-a-time, once-through-the-deck Klondike solitaire. I recorded all of my scores. I also read quite a bit. I had an AM-FM radio, but no other electronics.

In 1966 all freshman students were required to live in dorms. The residence halls were called “houses.” The men’s houses were in three groups. The houses in East Quad and West Quad had only males. South Quad had men’s houses and women’s houses. The remainder of the houses for girls were on the northeast side of central campus in the area known as “The Hill”.

Having been constructed in the thirties, Allen Rumsey House (#1 in the above photo) was the oldest dorm on campus. Little had been done to modernize it in the ensuing decades. With approximately one hundred guys, it was also the smallest house.

On the east side was a corridor between AR and the International House (#3). Wenley House (2), which was almost as old as AR, shared a wall on the west. South Quad was to the south, on the other side of East Madison St. On the north side was a courtyard. Two doors on the other side of led to the central section of West Quad, which contained the cafeteria and a lounge area. A third door led to the bowling alley (#4) and a shortcut to the Michigan Union (#5) and the rest of the central campus, the site of all my classes.

I quickly found the lounge on the first floor of Allen Rumsey House. It had comfortable chairs, a trophy case, a rug, and a piano. The house subscribed to the Michigan Daily, the Ann Arbor News, and a few magazines, including, I later learned, Playboy.

Downstairs was a game room with a small pool table, a ping pong table, and a free juke box! A section of this room and a separate room had televisions and chairs. Both TVs were 19″ black and whites. Next to the small TV room was a study hall that AR shared with Wenley House.

I eventually got up the nerve to shoot pool with another lonely guy named Dan Schuman. He had no hair anywhere on his body, and he was very cynical. We got along great. We played eight-ball. Although he was a better shot than I was, he was unaccustomed to an opponent who always left the cue ball pinned to a rail. The games were long and, for him, frustrating. I usually won.

Used books for every class could be purchased at the two big bookstores, Ulrich’s and Follett’s. Ulrich’s was on South University; Follett’s was on State St. I bought the textbooks for Russian, Math, and Chemistry at one of them. The Latin class had no textbook.

I think that classes started on the Wednesday after Labor Day, September 7. By Tuesday I knew that my roommates in 315 were Ed Agnew from Bloomfield, MI, and Paul Stoner from Adrian. Across the hall in 314 was Dave Zuk. His assigned roommate did not show up. So, Gritty had us draw straws or something to decide who would move across the hall. Paul was selected.

This was good news and bad news. I did not like Ed very much, but I did like his stereo. His taste in music did not accord with mine or anyone else’s that I have ever met. He loved “big band” music, and his all-time favorite recording was the soundtrack from Victory at Sea. However, he did let me use his stereo when he was not around, which, I soon discovered, was essentially every afternoon and evening.

I did not bring any of my records, but 1966 was an exceptional year for popular music. I spent most of my savings on albums. That is to say, I bought three or four records.

I didn't have any, but this is what they looked like. — I didn’t have any, but this is what razor blades looked like in the sixties.

Our room was on the north (courtyard) side. I claimed the bed on the west side, leaving the one on the east side for Ed. Two big windows on the north side were fronted by a large double desk with two chairs. The east wall was an external wall, but there were no windows. We each had a dresser. Maybe we shared a closet. There was a sink with a mirror over it on my side. There was also a slot over the sink for disposal of dull razor blades. I have never seen anything like it anywhere else. I wonder how many blades were inside the wall. I used an electric razor in college. Each room had a plain wall phone. I don’t remember whether they allowed us to make calls on it or not. To get mail you had to walk to the center part of West Quad next to the cafeteria.

I always just walked up State St. to the Frieze Bldg. I don't know why google maps advises avoiding it. — I always just walked up State St. to the Frieze Bldg. I don’t know why google maps advises avoiding it.

I attended the debate meeting in a room on the second floor of the Frieze Building, the headquarters of the speech department. About twenty people attended. We got to meet Dr. Bill Colburn and a couple of grad student coaches, including Jeff Sampson, who debated at Northwestern, a national power. Evidently there was no individual events program.

All of the new people filled out a form outlining our experience and interests, and then we watched a debate between two of the varsity teams. I thought that they were both horrible, and I was shocked to learn that they were U-M’s best teams.

I was paired with a fellow from Portland, ME, named Bob Hirshon. They told us that the topic was “Resolved that the United States should substantially reduce its foreign policy commitments.” Bill and Jeff privately made it clear that they were excited that Bob and I were interested in debate, and they wanted us to represent U-M at the Michigan Intercollegiate Speech League (MISL) novice tournament in October. We would be debating only on the negative. I was second negative.

I was shocked to be on the receiving end of all of this attention. I was uncertain whether I would be able to handle it, but I agreed to try. So did Bob.

1. Howard Finsilver died in 2005.

2. According to Wikipedia Gary Lewis was a better drummer than a singer. His voice was overdubbed on the recordings of his hits. I was surprised to learn that he was drafted the following January and served in Vietnam and Korea. After his hitch in the army he stayed on the fringes of show business with new incarnations of his band. In 2020 he was still performing at age 74.

3. Just to be clear, Ann-Margret appeared in the movie; she wasn’t my date.

4. Ann Arbor is named after Ann Allen and Ann Rumsey, early settlers of the town.

5. In 1966 there were no coed dorms at U-M. In fact, female students were not even allowed to enter Allen Rumsey House except under special circumstances.

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1967-1969 Part 3B: The Guys of Allen Rumsey House

1966 U-M Fall Semester

1966 Summer Between High School & College