Antioch College - Towers Yearbook (Yellow Springs, OH)

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Catherine Loveclay Shaw, Brooklyn, New Yorlq Iames France Shaw, Dayton, Ohio Richard William Simons, West Plains, Missouri Ruth Gertrude Steidinger, Fairbary, Illinois Lewis Carr Stone, Sprizzgfeld, Massachusetts Carl Gustaf Alexis Swanson, Rochester, New Yor Harry O. Tenney, Ir., Alameda, California Olaf Tischer, Geneva, Switzerland Mary Frances Tossell, Norwalk, Ohio Roscoe Emerson Van Liew, Salt Lake City, Utah

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EXCERPTS FROM A LETTER AM writing tonight in the back office of the Book- 1 . . . - P .X 1 Wifi plate Shop. Ernie IS out in the shop running o i some copies of a zinc etching. Only we two and the J cat are here, and the shop is silent except for the thud of Ernie's press and the music of the radio. I call it silence for the sound of the presses and the radio is always here, like the smell of printer's ink. . . The shop is really a shed tacked on the back of an old Yellow Springs house. It is a long, low place, full of all the fascinating things printers use and per- meated With a sort of busy disorder. Erniels shop is full of activity, but it has none of the ugly tension common to Ameri- can industry. The people who wander in may be anyone or no one in the college world, but once they have strolled through the door of the shop they relax their steps and their little pro- tective mannerisms, and stand out clearly as persons, with odd but fascinating patterns of likes and dislikes-and most of them with a particular scheme for saving the world. This shop is a place one must learn to know as gradually as though one were making a friend. It has some of the busy serenity of a mother who realizes that few lives are richer than hers. You and I know that houses are homes if you live in them enough, and that homes are never forgotten. Certainly the Bookplate Shop will never be forgotteng we have done entirely too much living there. The Bookplate Shop is the back door to the college and we are the people who prefer it to the spacious entrance. Some of us could not make the adjustment to the duller, saner life of the rest of the school 5 33 TE

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some of us did, and found it empty. We take the shapeless mass of information that we have picked up to the shop and there we hammer it into an education that is decidedly rough in spots, but it is full of meaning to us because we made it. Oh, wonderful things happen herel Great dreams are dreamed recklessly, glittering brainstorms are organized into clear thought. Lovely theories are cut to pieces by sharp tongues. Tales of co-op jobs, of Germany, of China, are gleefully recounted. The faults of the world in general and of our col- lege world in particular are discussed with the intensity pecu- liar to people who still believe something can be done about it. The Blaze grew out of this, and so did various campaigns for the betterment of Antioch, such as the one for community government. You must be finding it a little hard to believe by this time. I wish I could make you see it as clearly as I saw it yes- terday afternoon, with the backdoor open to the spring air and the sun coming Warm through the windows. Four of us were working there on the Blaze, very gay because of the spring and the radio's delightful music. Once I laid down the proof I was reading to walk to the back door and watch the village horseshoe game. When I turned back to the shop and to the three people with whom I shared the strong bonds of honest friendship and common dreams, I realized for one brilliant moment all-that the low room held: its careless lack of convention, its clear thought, its good music and rich laughter, its generous enthusiasm and vibrant life. 85